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Weiss, S. A. & Tappen, R. M. (2015). Essentials of nursing leadership and management (6th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: F. A. Davis Company. Read chapters 10 and 11
A Culture of Patient Safety
Introduction
The primary role of healthcare institutions and medical practitioners is to enhance patient safety and health. Healthcare practitioners achieve this objective mainly through enacting various interventions such as administering drugs, taking care of the former’s physical and emotional health and providing guidelines that can help patients live a healthy and productive life that is devoid of disease and suffering. Unfortunately, even though society relies on hospitals to enhance health and safety, the failure by such institutions to adopt a culture of patient safety leads to costly mistakes that predispose patients to harm, thus undermining their health and life. Accordingly, beyond providing the typical health and medical services, nurses and other healthcare professionals should ensure all their activities do not only focus on positive outcomes but also uphold patient safety at every instance. Achieving this objective requires both organizational, team and individual effort.
Factors That Led to The Change in Hospital Hope’s SICU
Even though Hospital Hope’s mission is to enhance patient safety through the adoption of a safety culture and practices, the operational model utilized in critical departments such as the SICU undermined the broader organizational objective, hence predisposing patients to danger. For instance, Mrs Jackson’s predicament indicates that instead the hospital being the bastion of hope and safety, the malpractices associated with its operational model turned it into an epicentre of infections. In particular, Mrs Jackson contracted pneumonia, central line infection and hypoglycaemia, which manifested in three different episodes (Sammer & James, 2011). The reality of diseases in the hospital’s most critical unit, SICU, raised the need for a new approach to patient safety, consequently informing an organizational wide adoption of a culture of patient safety (Sammer & James, 2011). On the whole, costly malpractices exposed Mrs Jackson to harm, thus informing a greater emphasis on patient safety.
Several factors contributed to the positive changes at SICU. In particular, the move by key individuals at the hospital, such as those in the executive, nurse leaders and individual SICU nurses to focus on patient safety as their primary mandate played a pivotal role in entrenching a new patient-centred culture. Chatterjee, Suy, Yen, & Chhay (2018) contend that instigating changes in a hospital setting can be challenging especially if critical stakeholders are not involved in making the changes. Besides, the lack of a common goal and a universal approach towards the envisaged changes undermines an institution’s ability to achieve desired changes (Chatterjee et al., 2018). Fortunately, all the leaders and individual nurses as hospital hope, especially those working in SICU had a common goal, which made it easy to create synergy and ultimately enhance positive changes. On the whole, a shared goal towards patient safety was the most crucial factor in enacting positive changes at Hospital Hope.
Focusing on evidence-based practice (EBP) was also a critical factor in enabling the positive changes at hospital hopes SICU. Generally, EBP enhances clinical practice and outcomes by incorporating research evidence into the healthcare procedures, ultimately allowing healthcare professionals to provide high-quality services that improve effective response to patient needs (Sammer & James, 2011). The collection, processing of crucial information aids this process. A focus on the evidence concerning a culture of patient safety and related benefits played an essential role in informing a positive change at hospital hope. For example, in order to encourage a culture of responsibility towards patient care, the nurse leader at SICU tasked one of the nurses to conduct a study on the topic and present the obtained evidence to the entire group (Sammer & James, 2011). The study’s findings encourage the nurses to take a team and individual responsibility towards patient safety. On the whole, relying on research evidence was instrumental in instigating changes at hospital hope.
Framework for Enacting Changes
The emergence of new types of infections and technology has informed significant changes in the healthcare landscape, thus necessitating the need for continuous improvement not only in the equipment used in providing services but also in organizational processes. The failure to enact the appropriate changes in the wake of a fast-changing world, characterized by new and complicated infections undermines the ability of healthcare systems to ensure patient safety (Panditi & Narayanan, 2018). For example, relying on traditional technology and treatment methods to provide care disadvantages both healthcare professionals and patients. Such practices undermine an institution’s research and treatment capabilities, therefore impeding positive patient outcomes (Panditi & Narayanan, 2018). Accordingly, healthcare institutions should focus on deliberate redesigning of their systems in order to ensure cost-effective and quality services.
In my view, the continuous quality improvement (CQI) framework is the best approach to deploy especially in circumstances that require changes. Ideally, (CQI) facilitates healthcare by aiding the identification of challenges, and in the implementation and monitoring of the enacted changes in order to ensure efficiency (Whitehead, Weiss, & Tappen, 2015). Accordingly, the purpose of CQI is to enhance an institution’s ability to establish weak areas or processes, develop corrective strategies and monitor the adopted framework in order to identify and solve the problems that are likely to undermine service delivery (Whitehead, Weiss, & Tappen, 2015). On the whole, the continuous quality improvement method is best suited to deal with changes at the organizational level.
CQI presents several advantages that make it suitable for managing changes in a healthcare setting. Firstly, the method enables organizations to work on their systems and processes in order to detect faults that might undermine its ability to operate optimally (Whitehead, Weiss, & Tappen, 2015). In so doing, institutions can streamline their operations and ultimately enhance service delivery. Also, CQI enables healthcare providers to focus on patients. For example, a review of the existing systems can establish whether they are patient-centred in terms of safety, health literacy, and patient engagement and ultimately aid the enactment of the appropriate measures that can enhance patient expectations and outcomes. CQI is also instrumental in the effect to improve care coordination, especially between different departments (Whitehead, Weiss, & Tappen, 2015). For example, continuous system monitoring helps solve hitches that can undermine coordination, hence enabling seamless operations. On the whole, CQI helps achieve positive outcomes by facilitating identification or errors and implementation of corrective measures.
Conclusion
Generally, the provision of quality health services necessitates the adoption of a patient-centred approach. Whereas the primary goal of healthcare institutions is to improve people’s health, the failure to focus on patient safety undermines this objective, hence predisposing the former to danger. The scenario at hospital hope, where Mrs Jackson contracted various diseases brings to the fore, the consequences of failure to focus on patient safety. Such challenges can only be solved by adopting a culture of patient safety that incorporates learning, use of evidence-based practice and creating synergy between different teams. While there are different change management frameworks, the continuous quality improvement framework is best suited for change management in a healthcare setting. Ideally, CQI enables organizations to continuously monitor their systems and enact corrective measures in order to eliminate defects that are likely to undermine service delivery.
References
Chatterjee, R., Suy, R., Yen, Y., & Chhay, L. (2018). Literature review on leadership in healthcare management. Journal of social science studies, 5(1), 38-47.
Panditi, M. D. D., & Narayanan, M. B. (2018). Need and the Conceptual Model for Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) System in Hospital Industry. International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, 118(20), 699-705.
Sammer, C., & James, B. (2011). Patient safety culture: The nursing unit leader’s role. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 16(3).
Whitehead, D. K., Weiss, S. A., & Tappen, R. M. (2015). Essentials of nursing leadership and management. FA Davis Company.
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