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Making the decision to become a nurse is a tough decision. The nurse has to put aside their feelings, beliefs and judgments in order to provide the best possible care for their patients. Being a nurse can be a rewarding career but there are risks associated with the profession. Nurses not only face injuries from patient care but they also face violence in the workplace.
Nurses face injury from needle sticks, handling hazardous drugs such as cancer drugs, musculoskeletal injuries from lifting and transferring patients, exposure to body fluids, and violence in the workplace. Nurses are at a higher risk of injury if they do shift work. Working long hours back to back can wear the nurse out and increase the risks of injury to the patient and to the nurse.
Nurses are at an increased risk of injuries from needle sticks. Infectious diseases, especially blood-borne viruses are transmitted by needle stick injuries. The greatest concern is injection of injection fluids, especially blood even with the potential for injecting hazardous drugs. Some hospitals report one third of nursing staff suffer such injuries each year. Nurses sustained the largest number of exposures at 485 and needle stick injuries were the most common at 320 (Needlestick Injuries, 2005). Nurses can lower their risk of needle stick injuries by not recapping the needle, placing the used needle in the sharps container and using needles where the needle is retracted back after the medication is injected.
Nurses can experience injuries from hazardous drugs. Nurses that have to administer hazardous drugs daily are at an increased risk for experiencing problems from the drugs. Studies have shown that workplace exposures to hazardous drugs can cause both acute and chroni...
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...ld: Healthy Work Environment. (2013). Retrieved November 17, 2013, from American Nurses Association: http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/WorkplaceSafety/Healthy-Work-Environment
Sedlak, C. (2004, September 30). Overview and Summary: Nurse Safety: Have we addressed the Risks? Retrieved November 15, 2013, from Online Journal of Issues in Nursing: http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/Table of Contents/Volume92004/No3Sept04/NurseSafetyOverview.aspx
The Joint Commission and Joint Commission Resources. (2004, Juy 27). Retrieved November 17, 2013, from U.S. Department of Labor: http://www.osha.gov/dcsp/alliances/jcaho/jcaho_20040727_agreement.html
Workplace Safety & Health Topics. (2013, March 6). Retrieved November 17, 2013, from Centers for Disease Control & Prevention: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/healthcare/
Nielsen, Ronald P. OSHA Regulations And Guidelines : A Guide For Health Care Providers. Albany, NY: Delmar,
Nurses have a responsibility and duty to provide safe and effective care to every patient. In order for the nurse to cover themselves while working understaffed, they must report their concerns to the supervisor. In addition, the nurse should document and complete the appropriate form regarding safety concerns. It is very important to put all concerns in writ...
United States Department of Labor (2004) Occupational Safety & Health Administration. In Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Health Care & Social Service Workers. Retrieved from http://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3148/osha3148.html
O’Daniel, M., & A.H., R. (2008). Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. Rockville: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2637/
In the world there is an alarming trend where what seems to be harmless accidents take the lives of thousands of people every year. However, the loss of life and human potential is unacceptable. These unintentional injury deaths take on a myriad of forms that are brought out by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). With the guidelines provided by these organizations Public Health Nurses (PHN) can help develop and execute strategies in an effort to decrease the lives lost to unintentional injuries.
The major concern for registered nurses regard’s the nurse’s health and well being. Safe staffing levels are continuing to become more of a problem. The U.S is expected to experience a shortage of nurses as the “Baby Boomers” age and the need for health care grows (Rossester, 2014). This shortage is causing some health organizations to work with minimal amounts of nurses. This is affecting the nurse’s ability to provide safe care due to fatigue and injury. This shortage is also resulting in a dramatic increase in the amount of mandatory overtime, which often means that nurses stray from face-to-face patient care and can produce an increase in the amount of medical errors (American Nurses Association,
The rate of errors and situations are seen as chances for improvement. A great degree of preventable adversative events and medical faults happen. They cause injury to patients and their loved ones. Events are possibly able to occur in all types of settings. Innovations and strategies have been created to identify hazards to progress patient and staff safety. Nurses are dominant to providing an atmosphere and values of safety. As an outcome, nurses are becoming safety leaders in the healthcare environment(Utrich&Kear,
About 32% of RNs worked on-call hours (either paid or unpaid). When we consider all types of overtime, 60.1% of RNs worked at least one type of overtime among mandatory, voluntary, and on-call. About 16% of nurses actually worked more than 40 hours in a typical week. Among nurse injuries, verbal abuse (56.6%) and bruises or contusions (49.7%) are the two most frequently experienced nurse injuries. In total, 79.2% of nurses experienced one of these injuries during the past month. In regards to adverse patient events, medication errors (44.5%) and patient falls (38.2%) are the most frequently reported adverse patient events by nurses. Sixty-one percent of nurses perceived that patients in their unit experienced one of these adverse events during their hospital stay (Bae,
Patient safety must be the first priority in the health care system, and it is widely accepta-ble that unnecessary harm to a patient must be controlled.Two million babies and mother die due to preventable medical errors annually worldwide due to pregnancy related complications and there is worldwide increase in nosocomial infections, which is almost equal to 5-10% of total admissions occurring in the hospitals. (WHO Patient Safety Research, 2009). Total 1.4 million patients are victims of hospital-acquired infection. (WHO Patient Safety Research, 2009). Unsafe infection practice leads to 1.3 million death word wide and loss of 26 millions of life while ad-verse drug events are increasing in health care and 10% of total admitted patients are facing ad-verse drug events. (WHO Patient Safety Re...
It is essential to consider environmental health factors because it can possibly provide an opportunity for prevention. Ensuring patient safety in the nursing environment is a major responsibility because as nurses, we must be able to minimize the risk of patient harm as much as possible. Nurses must have the skills to demonstrate effective use of technology and practices that support the safety of the patient. The worst thing is for the patient to come into the hospital with additional medical problems than when they were first admitted. The nurse in the hospital must communicate observations or concerns related to hazards and error to patients, families and the healthcare team. The nurse should not blame harm on others, must be held accountable for errors, and engage in root cause analysis to find the exact root cause of the problem. I believe it is essential to not just look at the person physically but also consider their environment and how it contributes to their state of
The focus of every health care professional is the patient and the goal is to return the patient to optimum health where the patient can be independent. When the patient’s safety is being compromised it’s everyone’s job to fix the problem and make sure that it doesn’t happen again. However, there’s a dark side to nursing. The nurse is one of the few health care workers that have the most daily contact with the patient. The nurse plays a very important role in the patients care from teaching to simply being a listener while withholding any judgement. When the nurse to patient ratio isn’t balanced, it causes nurse burnout. Nurse burnout is when the nurse becomes “physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted” (Michigan, S. S. (n.d.). News.
Introduction Canadian health and safety legislation requires companies and organizations to make a commitment towards occupational health and safety. Maintaining a safe workplace environment has numerous benefits. A safe work environment can boost employee morale, increase productivity, and improve job satisfaction. For companies and organizations, these benefits can lead to less turnover and increased employee retention. They can also reduce absenteeism while improving the culture and image of a company or organization.
Safety is a primary concern in the health care environment, but there are still many preventable errors that occur. In fact, a study from ProPublica in 2013 found that between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year suffer preventable harm in the hospital (Allen, 2013). Safety in the healthcare environment is not only keeping the patient safe, but also the employee. If a nurse does not follow procedure, they could bring harm to themselves, the patient, or both. Although it seems like such a simple topic with a simple solution, there are several components to what safety really entails. Health care professionals must always be cautious to prevent any mishaps to their patients, especially when using machines or lifting objects, as it has a higher
The nursing profession is constantly in a state of change becoming more complex over time. Registered nurses work to prevent disease, promote health and help patients cope. They develop and manage nursing care plans, instruct proper outpatient care, and help improve and maintain health within their community. They are educators of health governed by state laws. Registered nurses can work in many different settings which determine their daily job duties. Depending on their level of training a RN could work with geriatrics, in intensive care units, as an educator, as clinical study observers, a midwife, oncology, or palliative care. Hospital nurses make up the majority of the RN group. They work as staff nurses who carryout medical regimens and provide bedside care. Most registered nurses work in well-lighted comfortable facilities, work nights, weekends, and holidays, and spend a considerable amount of time on their feet. They have to be available at a moment’s notice. Nursing also has its hazards all employees of care facilities are at risk for infectious disease, radiation poisoning, back injuries, shocks from electrical equipment, and hazards posed by compressed gas. Nurses are the link between doctors and patients.
Being a nurse comes with a lot of responsibility. You need to be kind and able to