Safety Score Improvement Plan for General Hospitals

Safety Score Improvement Plan for General Hospitals

Nursing personnel is the significant actors in conserving a culture of quality care and safety of patients in the medical provision environment. Their work of addressing patient safety problems will be explained using the example of the General hospital characterized by a 1,500 bed, multispecialty healthcare practice situated in the United States of America.

The medical practice reports data about its performance to the Hospital Safety Score which is a non-governmental firm that positions hospitals according to their safety rates.

The orthopedic inpatient unit of the General Hospital presents an alarming increase in the number of patient’s injuries because of falls on the safety score. The image of the hospital can be affected by the negative score because the issue of patient fall is a preventable hospital-acquired problem.

The hospitals patient safety office has therefore advised the nurse manager of the unit to identify the leads to the question, create an evidence-based safety score improvement technique and come up with a long term measure for the safety problem.

Causes of Patient Fall

Patient falls are among the most patient safety incidents in most healthcare facilities. American Nurses Association explains that patient falls a peremptory challenge in the healthcare field because it can lead to permanent damage of certain body parts. The issue goes far to causing death for some of the patients which makes it a problem that needs timely attention.

 The system theory indicates that occurrences such as patient falls are directly related to the quality of healthcare provided at the front line of the functioning by healthcare practitioners such as nurses. Healthcare practitioners have depended on the system theory and system thinking to discuss safety issues as a nursing problem.

According to the theory, a problem in any part of a system or an organization like the nursing department affects the overall functioning of the whole healthcare practice. Therefore, the entire organization should be considered while making changes in the nursing department to solve the safety issues.

Effects of Leadership in Safety Improvement

Nurse leaders the General Hospital can play a significant role in creating change at the hospitals and clinical level. Proper guidance and how it helps in the achievement of better patient outcome was identified in the study of leadership techniques and styles.

According to the survey, the relational leadership style that focuses on people and relations has helped in the improvement of the patient healing process because of the better assessment, coordination of staff and equipment by the nurse leaders.

Nurse leaders in the General Hospital can, therefore, apply relational leadership structure to analyze the effects of the safety problem on the staff and patients. The leadership style is essential since it improves job satisfaction among the nursing workforce by improving the management and providing quality healthcare services.

Health care practitioners that employ relational leadership can also use system theory effectively to observe the policies of the organization and techniques that affect patient s directly and influence the procedure nurses to deliver healthcare services.

Effects of Policies and Procedures On the Safety Issue

Management of staff, methods of healthcare delivery, resources and equipment are all governed by policies and procedures in healthcare practice. When system theory has applied the policies and procedures governing the functioning of the health practice, nurse leaders can assess the competency of the available nursing professionals, plan schedules for prevention of workload, recruit more nurses to handle shortage issue and come up with effective strategies to keep current nurses.

System theory model is essential for nurse leaders to monitor and amend the policies. It also helps in creating of transparent medical care system by training nurses to provide proper care, prepare and avoid risky practices, collaborate with other medical professionals, monitor each other and to have an innovative mind open to new technology that promotes safety practices. The model demands that nurse leaders carry out active research on potential safety issues and collect enough evidence about the problems before applying changes.

Recommendations to Enhance Patient Safety

Changes for patient safety begin with a collection of information that will help in the evidence-based approach for problem solving. The collected data will be essential for the creation of a safety improvement plan. The procedure implementation can only be made effective only if the structured approach to the organizational change is employed.

The root cause analysis is also relevant for a systematic study of the common causes of safety problems. It also comes up with reliable measures to prevent future happenings of the same particular incident. About the system theory, the method of root cause analysis goes beyond blaming one person for medical mistakes and assess the organizational functions that can contribute to the errors

. All nurses have the responsibility of learning how to perform an RCA because of its teachings about the system theory. However, there are challenges experienced while obtaining information using the method. The team conducting the root cause analysis can accidentally omit essential information in a hurry to collect the data before the set 45 days by the Joint Commission. Inappropriate information can lead to the creation of wrong strategies for implementation of evidence-based changes in the attempt to solve the safety issue.

Development of competency employed in staff management is a proven important strategy in the improvement of the patient healing process. One of the evidence-based education plans that can be implemented in the clinical practice is the Quality and Safety Education in Healthcare process.

The program is financed by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and it integrated improvement in quality and management of safety in nursing education. The QSEN’s background in the system theory makes it relevant for employment in individual and organizational standards of healthcare. The competencies of QSEN are:

1. Patient-centered care
2. Evidence-based practice
3. Collaboration and working as a team
4. Safety
5. Improvement of quality
6. Informatics

Nursing practitioners who adapt and acquire the skills are in a better position to deliver safe healthcare and solve safety problems in the medical field. However, QSEN strategy is limited by the fact that it is more than a decade old with no update. Despite the limitation, competencies of QSEN is the critical component of adequate healthcare and patient safety.

Plan For Safety Recommendation Implementation And Monitory Of Outcomes

The education department at the General Hospital can employ QSEN competencies in the learning program using organizational learning known as the Baldrige framework. The framework outlines seven criteria that indicate quality for the corporate, educational programs which are:

1. Planning strategically,
2. Leadership
3. Much focus on patients, markets and other customers
4. Knowledge management, analysis, and measurement
5. Focus on the workforce
6. Control of processes
7. Results of the organization’s performance

Effects of the learning process can be assessed at two levels:

• System-level where production of the organization is reviewed by performing patient and customer satisfaction survey, scorecards and indicators of the workforce.
• Departmental level by pre and post testing of nurses, further training of the chosen nursing workforce evaluation of the course and assessment

Improvement of the safety levels at the General Hospital begins with the development of competency of the nurse leaders and the workforce. Nursing professionals take the front line of care delivery which makes it essential that nurse educators tailor programs and goals to fit the unique demands of the nursing profession.

Conclusion

Patient falls are frequent cases in healthcare practices. Healthcare providers should develop strategic thinking to timely identify patient safety problems and provide proper solutions before they cause damage. General Hospital example displays the importance of addressing safety issues within the relevant period instead of letting them develop which later affects the organization’s performance.

The general hospital and its leaders should, therefore, have an active interest in ensuring the nurses stay competent by focusing on safety education. Employing these ideas in the safety score improvement plan creates a long term culture of quality care and safety.