The importance of patient safety
Patient safety is such an important part of our health care system and it helps define quality health care. Keeping our patients safe is a challenging issue because errors and mistakes can and do happen. Error occurs "when a planned sequence of mental and physical activities fail to achieve the intended outcome and when this failure cannot be attributed to some chance intervention or occurrence" (Ballard, 2003). According to the Institute of Medicine, medical error resulted in as many as 98,000 preventable deaths per year; twice the rate of traffic fatalities and the estimated cost in the US could be almost 29 billion dollars (Wells, 2001). Someone has to ensure operational systems and methods are taken to help reduce the likelihood that errors occur, but who is responsible for taking these proper measurers? Is it society, patients themselves, physicians, nurses, nursing professors, administrators, researchers, physicians, or professional associations? In the long run, all of these entities are responsible for making sure the patient has the safest possible outcome. This is a nationwide and worldwide issue that will never be completely resolved because error is always prone to happen. As nurses we need to make sure we are
Nurses are also held accountable to follow the laws and rules, standards and ethics of the licensing authorities. As a beginning-nursing student, I am very conscious about problems that may arise as well as I have observed and heard my classmate's anxiety on this issue. Hospitals are successfully retaining and attracting professional nurses by providing: participative management, open communications, quality leadership, creative and flexible staffing, competitive salaries and benefits, and educational programs (Ballard, 2003). The medial industry is composed of humans and people do make mistakes. When nurses are spread too thin, patients do not receive the adequate care they need and dangers are more likely to arise. Nurses are directly in the core of patient care and can be caught in the middle of either witnessing medical error or being liable for a situation. This will not only protect myself but it will also make everyone involved in the patient's care well informed. The government has also taken action to improve patient safety by establishing practice acts and rules and regulations as well as improving the nursing workplace to reduce the burden on nurses. This thinking has been enforced for a long time. This more in depth training helps to decrease the risk of errors, violations of rules, and even patient death. Even Florence Nightingale, early in history, advocated for safe care. Patient safety effects society and how health care is viewed. This emphasizes the importance of proper, adequate and safe nursing care. There are many efforts taken to help patients have a safe environment. The US government allocated 100 million dollars to reduce error (Wells, 2001).
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Acceptance Essays
