For moral, legal and business reasons, patient safety should be any healthcare facility’s number one priority. Something as common as administering the wrong medication can lead to severe consequences for the patient and a very costly lawsuit for the institution. There are countless such scenarios which can be ruinous for a healthcare institution and deadly for patients in the facility.
Although nothing can prevent mistakes with a guarantee, here’s a look at some of the safety measures which could help your institution improve patient safety to a great degree.
Eliminate the Chances of Blood Infections from a Venous Catheter
According to the research data presented by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), it is not only possible to reduce central line-associated infections from venous catheter insertions, but such infections can be completely eliminated from ever occurring.
As suggested by the AHRQ, the five steps to be followed by the medical professionals doing the procedure are quite simple, and can be summarized as follows:
- Washing hands appropriately before touching anything
- Using full-barrier precautionary measures
- Cleaning the insertion area with chlorhexidine
- Being attentive towards always avoiding femoral lines
- Removing lines that are not required for the procedure
Eradicate Any Chance of Patients Getting the Wrong Medication
When a single patient gets the wrong medication, a number of complications arise from it, and sometimes, multiple patients may die due to that one mistake. It’s a tragedy for everyone, as well as a nightmare for the particular healthcare institution to deal with.
This can, however, be completely avoided by using a medication scanner and wrist band combo. For example, if you use Scandit, the wrist band on a patient has a barcode with his/her medical history and prescription, which can then be scanned in from any smartphone with a Scandit medication scanner app installed.
It eliminates the human error factor altogether, ensuring that no critical patient is missing their dosage, or a relatively healthy patient is not being made sick by a drug that they did not need.
Do Not Let Employees and Residents be Overworked
The more tired people are, the more likely are they to make a mistake, which is true in every field of life in general. However, as lives directly depend on the vigilance of medical personnel at any facility, overworking must not be allowed, and shift hours should be limited for every resident and hospital staff members. To know more about residents’ protected sleep periods and their maximum work hour limitations, visit this official link.
Additionally, it is also important that as the owner and supervisor at the healthcare facility, you implement regular training, repeated practice and even strict measures against medical personnel who were not careful enough to prevent hospital-acquired illnesses.
Take a look at how your healthcare facility operates and whether or not any improvements can be made. Use this guide as a starting point to help get your practice up to standard.
