7 Tips to ensure patient safety in a health care setting
Patient safety in a healthcare setting is an aspect of safety that individuals in the healthcare setting need to improve upon to prevent avoidable deaths.
The care providers, support staff and consumers can work in unison to improve patient safety.
Every year, More than 250,000 people in the U.S. die from medical errors,.And these are avoidable deaths if more care is involved.
When we talk about patient safety, we are looking at improving the safety of patients at the hospital. However, patient safety means avoiding errors from the hospital team. Increasing performance, reducing mistakes likelihood, limiting harm, and lowering the infection rate.
There is a lot the healthcare team can do to ensure improved patient safety.
These points below will guarantee progress in such a direction.
7 Tips to ensure patient safety in a health care setting
#1. Create a health and safety management system.
The health and safety management system is the company structure, responsibilities, practices, procedures, processes and resources for implementing health and safety management.
The HSE management system is the quality management system for managing risk and ensuring the protection of people, assets, reputation, and the environment.
OSHA mandates that such a system must exist to determine enterprise safety and health management performance in hospitals.
Well, having a health and safety management system will help the hospital to operate safely.
#2. Set up a rapid response system.
Nothing beats a system that is prepared, efficient and ready to deliver. Here, a rapid response system called TeamSTEPPS can cater for patient safety. TeamSTEPPS connotes Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety.
TeamSTEPPS is a teamwork system developed jointly by the Department of Defense (DoD)and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to improve institutional collaboration and communication relating to patient safety.
#3. Educate workers on safety policy.
Create a safety policy in place if there is none. Policy forms part of the health and safety management system requirements.
So constant education on the safety policy will make all concerned parties understand the safety aspect of the job.
Policies are documents that show the management’s intention towards the health and safety objectives, principles of action, performance and aspirations concerning health and safety.
#4. Develop a safety plan
A safety plan is a document that shows how an organization will carry out activities safely within a particular context. The safety plan may contain safety policies and objectives, management responsibilities, hazards identified and risk assessment, emergency response procedures, and audit and monitoring plans.
Information on the safety plan will help the organization build a community of trust as a responsible organization and promote Positive treatment for patients.
#5.Effective Safety communications.
An informed patient is a safe patient.
Healthcare providers should devote more to educating patients on what they need to do to reduce medical errors.
An educated consumer receives safe treatment when empowered through information. Information at their disposal makes them ask the right questions.
#6.Safe hospital designs
Having a safe hospital design will improve patient safety in many ways.
This has to do with the ease of information access, the noise levels and air quality.
Safe hospital design will ensure that the patient is not affected.
Areas with Increased noise levels like power generating sets should be located far away from the main building where the patient attends.
Allocate more spaces to places in the hospital where people are likely to cluster to reduce crowding.
#7. Encourage more signs and signage.
Signages indicating locations in the hospital and offices to be in place to reduce patients’ time to get to their desired locations when taking treatment. Placement of safety signs to indicate areas like the muster points, emergency exits, fire extinguisher points,
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Onyeka Emma is a QHSE Professional with more than 10 years of experience in occupational health and safety, which spans many industries such as construction, beverage, oil and gas, etc. He has many health and safety certifications, including NEBOSH IGC, ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015, and ISO 45001:2018 Lead auditor certificate. A member of IOSH, ISPON, and Nigeria Red Cross Society. He is interested in business, entrepreneurship, Speaking, and motivating people to do better for themselves. He enjoys leisure with a good motivational book.
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