Safety, Quality, and Informatics Assignment

Safety, Quality, and Informatics

For the past decades, my organization has majored in providing special care to the aged or rather the senior citizens. Among the services provided by my organization include: time-to-time attention, subsidized primary needs, infirmary care and daycare to the adults. The organization has also included a nursing home purposely to offer shelter, medical care and food to the aged. The reason for this organization is because in many families, the ageing population suffer financial constraints, they are unwell and neglected by their close relatives and sometimes neglecting them leads some of them being mentally disturbed. This organization connects the ageing population to the hospital as once they are neglected, the hospital serves as their main source of hope. Since this generation finds solace in the hospitals, there is a lot to be done to ensure that this delicate generation is safe at the health centers.

Patient-Safety Issue

            Due to the safety reinforced and concerns of quality at my place of work, services offered has significantly improved. Recent medical reports have indicated that conditions acquired by the hospital have dropped significantly by about 16.99 percent as from the year 2012 to the year 2017. This decrease has seen lesser death rates at the health facility. Even with the decrease, medication error has remained a major challenge (Zhong, 2013). This challenge is on the rise and presently it contributes to about 13 percent of the patients who are hospitalized. The major causes of medication errors have been attributed to carelessness of the health workers, incompetence of some workers and the complexity of the sicknesses suffered by the ageing population. As opposed to the medical unit, surgical unit has over the years recorded the highest number of the medication errors. This is so because in the entire facility, surgical unit has the highest number of cases prior and after treatment. History has demonstrated times without number that out of the 10 percent of the surgical patients, at least one suffers medication error. In this case, medication error, is as a result of wrong dosage, poor labels, wrong documentation and ignorance of the patients.

            From the past few reports, it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that about 13 percent of the elderly patients encounter problems related to errors of medication. However, about 70 percent of this ignorant cases can be prevented. It is quite unfortunate that these complications lead to death unless identified early by the highly skilled medical professionals. The problem of the continued mismanagement of the elderly has been linked to the poor safety rules. The negligence not only affects the patients but also the families and the entire hospital fraternity. Finkelman (2015) argued that medical errors and poor safety measures hike the medical cost as the patient is forced to overstay at the hospital and can contract other communicable diseases in the process hence other medical costs incurred. It is therefore in order that the government together with the health facilities redesign the healthcare system to avoid any further costs and potentially preventable deaths of our loved ones.

How the organization Addresses Patient-Safety Issues

            As the number of senior citizens grows, the care needed by the elderly is increasingly inevitable. The main reason why medical professionals have not been able to offer general services to the ailing elderly generation is because of the old diverse cultural beliefs that our ageing population still cling on. The top management has come up with a multidisciplinary team to cater for diverse aging population by responding to the needs of each and every patient but the operation has not been sufficiently successful. For this reason, most of the managers in the health facility are opting for technology work on the patient’s care and enhance the safety that is required.

            There is a leadership and interdisciplinary education opportunity called Safety, Quality and Informatics program. This program helps the medical care providers to make out the patient’s safety and learn on how to offer the best and quality services to their patients. Despite the fact that curbing all the costs is challenging, my organization has put her best foot forward in ensuring that a high valued care that is free from medical errors is offered efficiently and quality outcome is seen as a result of the quality services given. For any clinical setting, safety science skills and change management informatics are paramount in ensuring a high quality healthcare.

Legal and Ethical Consequences of Not Addressing the Issue

            No one can out rightly say that medical errors are intentional and in any case they show carelessness. However, these errors can be connected to certain violations which need to be subjected to proper assessments. Almost all of the medical professional’s work on their reputation and their service to the patients. For this reason, all noticed errors that goes unattended are quite few since the purpose of the caregivers is to ensure that everyone is safe. In the event of the intentional errors, disciplinary measures and law suits takes course with regard to the medical bodies established by the caregivers themselves (Barnsteiner, 2017). In the event of any legal action to be taken, the medication error will be tracked from the violations committed by the caregiver. The legal response taken by the bodies is equalized to the harm caused by the medical professional and no morality of life is considered in the process of giving the verdict.

            From the previous analysis, it has been confirmed that almost all the patient-related harms are as a result of the violations of the rule of law. In the layman’s understanding, violations have been defined as the intentional actions which lead to medical errors. One of the causes of intentional errors is a medical professional omitting details of the dosage to the patient. Medical error investigators pay greater attention to the violations to determine the level of moral culpability. According to the legal law of the medical practitioners, the error cannot be accidental if it was as a result of ethical failure. It is so because it involved deliberate disposition to take risk however with no bad intentions to harm the patient. Once the error is established to have been caused by the medical caregivers’ ignorance, lawsuits and disciplinary measures are taken and it extends to any member of the public who could have in any way contributed to the medical errors.

Evidence-Based Interventions to Address the Patient-Safety Issue

            To begin with, it is very important that my organization major in offering the best information and communication technologies to work on the efficiency and reduce all the probable medical errors. Back in the year 1998, a Quality Healthcare Care committee was established. The reason of the committee was to come up with ways that could enhance healthcare and safety of patients in America (Tietze, 2019). The committee was not tied to safety alone, it farther focused on the consistent that was delivered by the caregivers. From the projects put forward by the committee, it was resolved that information and communication technology was the backbone of the quality healthcare anticipated.

            In addition, patient education programs should be considered by the organization. It has been proved over the years that proper patient education improves the quality of healthcare. For the past ten years, United States of America has endorsed patient education as part of the process of diagnosing, treating and caring. Since the program is still under review, almost all medical practitioners across the entire states want patients to be involved in the treatment process. The reason for patient education is to ensure that patient’s make out the medication prescriptions and follow them hence reduce any probable medication errors.

How Technology Can Be Used to Improve the Issue

            There are few strategies which have been pointed out as key to do away with the medication errors.  These strategies include: electronic medication management, automated dispensing cabinets, computerized doctor order entry and bedside bar-coded drug administration. The medication management should be made easy by the organization by embracing latest information technology. Clinical decisions should be efficient once given by the caregivers. This will be made possible once the caregivers are able to remember, learn by heart and blend large volumes of data from areas that are quite vulnerable. The importance of having information technology systems is to ensure that detailed information is accessed with easy, organized and linked efficiently as required by the medical practitioners. Modern IT systems will offer rightful information to the caregiver in case he or she forgets patient’s related allergies, dosage description and interaction of the medications.

            The other reason why hospitals should embrace IT systems is to ensure that doctors embrace computerized doctor order entry to reduce any possible occurrence of the medication errors. The importance of the IT systems in prescription is that it offers robust intervention in the doctor-client decision. The following are the objectives to be achieved if the IT system is implemented:

1. Orders will be complete and legible.
2. Issues of drug interaction will be addressed.
3. Dosage adjustment will be made possible with regard to reasons of the clinic. This can be attributed to the functionality of the renal system.
4. Constant laboratory results will be guaranteed.
5. Interactions as far as computing medications is concerned.

            In addition, errors occur due to the high volumes of drugs dispensed in the facility. Automated dispensing cabinets ensures that errors of packaging, identification and dispensing of drugs is reduced by embracing the selective bar codes (McAuliffe, 2018). Reports have shown that proper use of automated dispensing cabinets will cut off the errors by over 30 percent.

            Another alternative by the hospital can be bar-coded medication administration (BCMA). BCMA calls for the scanning of the patient’s identification bracelet together with the drug’s unit dose. In the event that there is a mismatch between the two, BCMA will alert the caregiver. This system is important as it ensures proper dosage by giving the right patient the right medicine and dosage for the right route at the right time. This system if well implemented reduces errors by 55 percent.   

Possible Organizational Barriers to Change          

            Change is inevitable, but barriers are inevitable to change. Among the barriers to revolutionizing the medical industry include: staff resistance, financial constraints, shortage of skilled manpower and poor management. As the ageing population grows, more pressure is exerted on the health facilities and issues of government uncertainties in reimbursements makes the entire process complicated (In Rigby, 2016). Of course lack of enough money will mean insufficient training of the medical staff and few medical facilities will be purchased.

            The quality of the healthcare has also been compromised by the critical shortage of the workforce. These shortages are witnessed with the number of registered Nurses, physicians, technicians and pharmacists. The implementation of the IT systems has been made difficult in some areas because of the medical practitioners who are not willing to embrace change. In principle, poor leadership makes the implementation process of the IT systems difficult.

Strategies to Overcome Barriers to Change

            There is need for the institution to implement strategies that will see it progress. First and foremost, the methods adopted in the projects should manage costs and revenues to have required medical services. Secondly, the government should in line with the organization seek to employ more medical practitioners to reduce shortages in the workforce. Thirdly, the issue of employee resistance should be dealt with by engaging all employees in decision making and organizing for the monitoring and communication programs. This is so because employees will be motivated and will feel part of the organization.

            In conclusion, the top management should look for ways that can change negative thinking of the employees and conduct employee performance to determine promotions, hence boosting their morale to work hard for the reward that is ahead of them.