Patient Safety: Hospital Acquired Infection

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According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC), about 1 in 25 hospital patients acquire Hospital Acquired Infections ( HAI) in which more than half are outside the ICU. As healthcare is evolving, one of the main things that must be looked at is patient safety. When discussing patient safety, items to looks at include its history, its definition/importance, and its future. While it was expected for health care professionals to help treat patient, one thing that wasn't really accounted for was the possibility of them making mistakes. According to the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ), "Traditional thinking equated error with incompetence and regarded punishment as both appropriate and effective in motivating …show more content…

AHRQ defines patient safety as, "A discipline in the health care sector that applies safety science methods toward the goal of achieving a trustworthy system of health care delivery. Patient safety is also an attribute of health care systems; it minimizes the incidence and impact of, and maximizes recovery from, adverse events. “( Emmanuel, Hatlie, and Vincent, 2014). There are different factors that are involved in patient safety. As stated before, health care is viewed in systems. There was a false concept that errors were completely the practitioners fault. Joseph Cafazzo, an associate professor in the University of Toronto’s faculty of medicine who conducts human factors research. “If the user makes an error, it’s usually the result of a design flaw” ( Eggerston 2014). It is important to look at all the factors when looking at safety. These include the interaction between health care professionals, the equipment, employee competency, patient/ practioner interaction, …show more content…

The heart of nursing is at the bedside. As a patient advocate it is important forr the nurse to prevent and do no harm to the patient. One major way of fixing errors and prevent future errors is to fill out error forms and talk to management. These will help identify potential hazards. For example, there are "nurses working in blood banks identified poor lighting that made it difficult to read labels as a potential hazard that could have resulted in a patient getting the wrong blood type." ( Eggerston 2014). By identifying potential hazards, it is possible to prevent problems and promote pateint safety. It is also important for the nurse to facilitate teamwork among health care professionals. As stated in the article, Ethical issues in patient safety: Implications for nursing management, " Nurses’ responsibilities relating to ethical patient safety often lie in error prevention and informing patients and other clinicians about practice errors" ( Kangasniemi, Vaismoradi , Jasper, annd Turunen, 2014) Overall, it is important to see that patient safety is especially important. Through history, we can see that we have to look at all the factors that play in it. It is important for the whole system and health care team to promote patient safety. Nurses play an active role in making sure that everything is done correctly and is being treated properly. The term nonmaleficence, means, " do no harm". Nurses must do no harm by preventing

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