Improving Patient Safety in Stroke Rehabilitation Wards

Patient safety is a major issue in health care, especially in the public sector. Studies show that as many as 10 patients get harmed daily as they receive care in stroke rehabilitation wards in hospitals in the United States alone. Patient safety refers to mechanisms for preventing patients from getting harmed as they receive health care services in hospitals. The issue of patient safety is usually associated with factors such as medication errors, wrong-site surgery, health care-acquired infections, falls, diagnostic errors, and readmissions. Patient safety can be improved through strategies such as improving communication within hospitals, increasing patient involvement, reporting adverse events, developing protocols and guidelines, proper management of human resources, educating health-care providers on the need for patient protection, and commitment of the leadership to the task. This paper talks about patient safety and how it can be improved in stroke rehabilitation wards of both public and private hospitals.

Organizational Goal/Objectives for Patient Safety

Every hospital is committed to ensuring that their patients in stroke rehabilitation wards and other facilities are safe from any form of harm that may occur as a result of the health care providers’ negligence. Firstly, every hospital integrates quality and safety approaches into its everyday’s operations to promote and enhance the safety and quality of its environment and services respectively (Garban, 2011). This is usually complemented by other strategies meant for enhancing organizational knowledge to improve efficiency and overall productivity. Some hospitals provide further training to their health care personnel to ensure that they efficiently incorpor...

... middle of paper ...

...nurses: How to prevent harmful events and promote patient safety. Philadelphia, PA: F.A. Davis Co.

Snell, S., & Bohlander, G. W. (2013). Managing human resources. Andover: Cengage Learning.

Spurgeon, P., Burke, R. J., & Cooper, C. L. (2012). The innovation imperative in health care organizations: Critical role of human resource management in the cost, quality, and productivity equation. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Watcher, R. (2012). Understanding patient safety. New York, NY: McGraw Hill Professional.

Williams, M. (2007). Comprehensive hospital medicine. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier Saunders.

Wu, A. W. (2011). The value of close calls in improving patient safety: Learning how to avoid and mitigate patient harm. Oakbrook Terrace, IL: Joint Commission Resources.

Youngberg, B. J. (2013). Patient safety handbook. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.