Patient Safety Standards and Practices.

Patient Safety Standards and Practices.

Patient safety standards and practices cover many areas such as medication, procedural and surgical skills, the teamwork of health workers, timely communication, and more. Patients can not only be harmed by misuse of technology but also a small mistake, such as misinformation between different health care providers.

Health professionals must share a common understanding of patient safety to reduce the burden of harm due to unsafe medical care. According to the World Health Organization, medication errors are a leading cause of injuries and avoidable damage in health care systems. Globally, the cost associated with medication errors has been estimated at US$42 billion annually. A shared understanding not only helps to minimize the harm caused by patients but also reduces economic costs for the health care system.

According to Molla Sloane 2008, an error can occur in health care as well as every other very complex system that involves human beings. The policy implications from accepting that mistakes are healthy to social result in blaming individuals for specific errors. This causes health care workers to shy from admitting “near misses” because of the repercussions, such as lawsuits and doubt in oneself. Therefore, instead of one learning from a mistake they made, they end up trying to blame it on someone or something else.

Health care system leaders must change employment policies related to punitive actions when an error occurs. It is necessary to differentiate between individual factors and system factors that cause errors. System factors are attributed to equipment malfunction or working conditions. Personal factors are when people make errors, which is usually dependent on the working conditions, especially if they are tired. Prevention of mistakes requires improving work conditions to modify conditions causing errors.

References.

Mitchell, I., Schuster, A., Smith, K., Pronovost, P., & Wu, A. (2016). Patient safety incident reporting: a qualitative study of thoughts and perceptions of experts 15 years after ‘To Err is Human.’ BMJ Qual Saf, 25(2), 92-99.

Bates, D. W., & Singh, H. (2018). Two decades since to err is human: an assessment of progress and emerging priorities in patient safety. Health Affairs, 37(11), 1736-1743.

Pronovost, P. J., Cleeman, J. I., Wright, D., & Srinivasan, A. (2016). Fifteen years after To Err is Human: a success story to learn from. BMJ Qual Saf, 25(6), 396-399.