Defining Patient Safety and Quality Care

The RUA transition topic is patient safety and the position that nurses can play in improving patient safety. Nurses are perceived as critical members of the health care team, with good reason as they are a constant presence at the bedside as they have regular contact with patients, family members and other medical personnel. Among all medical personnel and other stakeholders, nurses have the best opportunity to play a critically important role in ensuring that patients are kept safe while receiving medical care (Black, 2016). Although nurses have the opportunity to improve patient safety, non-adherence to established standards for quality of care improvement and prevention of practice errors. In fact, there is an awareness that patient safety presents a real concern as unsafe care has been linked with loss of 64 million disability adjusted life years across the world every year. This makes patient accidents one of the top ten causes of death and disability across the world. Improving patient safety is expected to reduce the health care costs by $108 every year in the USA while generating savings of 60,000 inpatient care days. This makes it clear that there is a health and financial/economic justification for nurses to actively participate in improving patient safety. Defining Patient Safety and Quality Care

ORDER A PLAGIARISM -FREE PAPER NOW

Still, nurses do not actively participate in patient safety because they are not aware of the principles of patient safety (Vaismoradi et al., 2020). Motamedzadeh et al. (2017) similarly notes that patient safety is a major health care problem affecting with the potential for occurrence during every encounter between patients and medical facilities. The study notes that nurses’ involvement in practices and interventions targeted at patient safety are limited by established practice protocols, principles, standards and knowledge levels (Motamedzadeh et al., 2017). As a result, the topic will focus on evaluating the nurses’ knowledge levels, practice protocols, principles, and standards that influence their participation in patient safety practices and interventions.

References

Black, B. (2016). Professional Nursing: Concepts & Challenges. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Motamedzadeh, M., Mahmoudi, H., Nehrir, B., & Ebadi, A. (2017). Patient Safety in Nursing: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Medical Reviews, 4(2), 52-57. https://doi.org/10.29252/ijmr-040205

Vaismoradi, M., Tella, S., Logan, P. A., Khakurel, J., Vizcaya-Moreno, F. (2020). Nurses’ Adherence to Patient Safety Principles: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(6), 2028. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17062028

Defining Patient Safety and Quality Care