Summary: Improving Patient Safety

Introduction Nurses are held accountable to a certain standard of practice when it comes to the terms of patient care. The problem that arises is, the inconsistency of the expectations and practices among nursing professionals. Safety in relation to healthcare is a broad subject as it is interpreted differently depending on the state, or even as specific as the facility. Patient safety becomes a debatable issue when the care for the patient results in a complication that could have otherwise been prevented by following proper safety precautions. For example, insufficient infection control is an underlying cause to the majority of nosocomial infections, or better known as hospital-acquired infections. So, to demonstrate the effectiveness of

As addressed by Dolansky (2013), “…a safety and high quality system of care requires that all healthcare professionals take responsibility to learn and apply skills associated with improving the wider system of care”. The emphasis in this statement is that it includes ‘all healthcare professionals’. In comparison, patient safety was defined as a shared responsibility as, “a variety of stakeholders are responsible for ensuring that patient care is safely delivered and that no harm occurs to patients” (Ballard 2003). Noting that the stakeholders were described as anyone involved in the healthcare system, this journal article addressed the actions toward promoting safe care while emphasizing on the aspect of a team

The occurrence of a nosocomial infection is seen when infection control is not effectively maintained. In order to acquire an infection there is a need for, “source of infecting microorganism, a susceptible host, and a means of transmission for the microorganism to the host” (Collins 2008). In any case, a hospital acquired infection is passed from patient to patient by transmission from a healthcare personnel.

Nevertheless, infection control is a big concern in the healthcare field associated with the incidence of antibiotic resistant infections. A common nosocomial infection, MRSA, develops from the Staphylococcus aureus bacterial infection and is carried on the skin as well as environmental surfaces (Duerden, 2011). However, there have been clinical practices shown to prevent the incidence of MRSA, along with the majority of hospital-acquired infections. This includes, “emphasis on hand hygiene, improved environmental cleaning and disinfection to help cut the route of infection transmission…” (Duerden, 2011). As the frontline defense, healthcare workers are critical in directly preventing the spread of infection by proper use of aseptic technique and sufficient environment decontamination. It is noticed that “nursing personnel have the most patient contact and the most opportunity to interrupt the chain of transmission through adherence to consistent