Accountability of Nursing Professionals Essay

Nurses are responsible for recognizing and reporting errors and error-prone systems, and openly discussing them with managers and nurse leaders. Leaders are responsible creating an environment where staffs are comfortable disclosing actual and potential errors. Leaders should promote organizational learning from these events and take action to ensure that nurses practice in a safe environment. To encourage upward reporting of

Over time the health care industry has become more complex. Health care is rapidly evolving and continuing to complicate our delivery of care, which in turn has the same effect on quality of care. This steady evolution and change results in nursing shortages and an increase in the prevalence of errors being made. In hopes of preventing these errors and creating safe and high quality patient care, with the focus on new and improved ways of thinking, The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) initiative was developed. The QSEN focuses on the following competencies: patient-centered care, quality improvement, safety, and teamwork and collaboration. Their initiatives work to prepare and develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are necessary to make improvements in the quality and safety of health care systems (Qsen.org, 2014).

The main objective of healthcare professionals is to provide the best quality of patient care and the highest level of patient safety. To achieve that objective, there are many organizations that help improve the quality of care. One of the best examples is the Joint Commission. Unfortunately, the healthcare system is not free from total risks. In healthcare activities, there are possible errors, mistakes, near miss and adverse events. All of those negative events are preventable. But, it is clear that errors caused in healthcare result in thousands of deaths in the United States.

Keeping patients safe is essential in today’s health care system, but patient safety events that violate that safety are increasing each year. It was only recently, that the focus on patient safety was reinforced by a report prepared by Institute of medicine (IOM) entitled ” To err is human, building a safer health system”(Wakefield & Iliffe,2002).This report found that approx-imately 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur each year due to medical errors and that the majority was preventable. Deaths due to medical errors exceed deaths due to many other causes such as like HIV infections, breast cancer and even traffic accidents (Wakefield & Iliffe, 2002). After this IOM reports, President Clinton established quality interagency

According to Kennedy (2010), “Medication errors continue to cause significant morbidity and mortality. Thus, in turn, cost the health care system millions of dollars each year in preventable costs.”(p.1). For this reason, a service such as Medication Therapy Management, also known as (MTM), which can be described as a diverse service or services that focus on drug therapy with the objective to improve healthcare services was introduced throughout the health care systems. This is done by improving pharmaceutical safety which results in enhanced therapeutic results for individual patients, meanwhile reducing cost for both the patients and healthcare institutions. In order for MTM to be successful and to ensure that patients get more

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) remains a big drawback within the hospital setting, with terribly high morbidity, mortality, and cost. Some people tend to perform an evidence-based review of the literature that specializes in clinically relevant pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions to prevent VAP. Thanks to the importance of this condition the implementation of preventive measures is predominant within the care of mechanically ventilated patients. There is proof that these measures decrease the incidence of VAP and improve outcomes within the intensive care unit. A multidisciplinary approach, continuing

The concept of stewardship is an ongoing part of nursing. As defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary, stewardship is “the activity or job of protecting and being responsible for something.” In this case that something corresponds to the nursing field as a whole. The concept of stewardship is not thought of as often as it should be. Sometimes stewardship can be confused with religious meanings or often is simply not a topic that is heavily weighted. However stewardship is indeed an intricate concept that is vital for the overall success of nursing. I believe stewardship in nursing is the ability to improve, enhance, and oversee the prosperity of how nursing as a whole functions. Stewardship entails many areas of concern such as safety, increased autonomy from other health care professions, accreditation, economics, and most importantly the overall needs of the patient. As nursing’s future continues to change, stewardship is vital in developing life-long learning practices and ultimately shaping current and future leaders. In order for standards of practice to support the future, nurse leaders demonstrating stewardship must be able to collaborate to form innovative models of care delivery in order to best serve the patient and work efficiently within the health care system. In this paper I will be discussing what defines stewardship and why it is important in nursing. Next, current issues involving stewardship in

There are numerous other techniques used to prevent VAP. Like many respiratory problems the head of the bed should always be elevated to between 30 and 45 degrees to prevent aspiration of fluids and sputum. The tubing for the ventilator should only be changed on a as needed basis. The continuous changing of tubes moves the bacteria and can introduce new bacteria into the respiratory system. Patients should also receive “sedation vacations” and prophylaxis medications to prevent peptic ulcers. Weaning of the mechanical ventilator should also be done as soon as possible

During this clinical intervention, I caught a mistake by the physician entering in the prescription. The patient was prescribed CIpro for an infection while in the ICU, however the dosage was too high based on the patient’s renal function. Over the last few days the patient’s renal function has continued to decline, as a result it is important to decrease the patient’s dose accordingly to prevent toxicity. I calculated the correct dose for the patients and recommended to the Certified Nurse Practitioner working in the unit. The nurse practitioner agreed and changed the dose of the Cipro to adjust for the decline in renal function. I think that it is important to have pharmacy involved with patient care because pharmacist are trained to monitor

Patient safety, and safety within the hospital is one of the most important factors in providing quality of care. Quality of care is an extremely vital aspect in healthcare, and patient safety directly correlates with quality of care. It is so important, because safety, or lack of, can have adverse effects if not maintained. Lack of safety not only affects the patient, but the nurse as well. This paper will discuss the importance of safety in nursing, the ways in which it affects both the patient and the nurse, and the culture of patient safety in the workplace.

“The delegation of the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) is to challenge nurses of their knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA) for continuous improvement for the quality and safety of the healthcare systems where they work. Ensuring safe care is a fundamental value and ethical responsibility of the nursing profession (International Council of Nurses, 2000).” All nurses should be well educated to understand that safety reduces the possibility of injury to the patients and providers; and after they are educated on safety they should implement the standards in their everyday practice along with helping to research on ways to improve safety measures.

Thirdly, nurses face the ultimate challenge of possible medical errors. Medical errors occur every day, the chances of dying from a car accident, injury, or HIV is far more less than possibly dying from a medical error. “To err is human: Building a safer health system”, describe how we human are prone to error, after all we are still human. Nurses are usually at the end of the totem pole when a

This article was found from the Patient Safety America. The need for promoting quality of care and patient safety becomes even more critical when we have to consider the alarming of how many people are dying due to malpractice. According to Patient Safety America (2013), the total number of Americans dying from medical errors is around 400,000 each year. Besides cancer and heart disease, medical errors have become the third leading cause of death in the United States each year. It is important to understand the role of the nurse practitioners in patient care management today. “Research suggests that NPs can perform many primary care services as well as physicians do and achieve equal or higher patient satisfaction rates among their patients”

The main objective of healthcare professionals is to provide the best quality of patient care and the highest level of patient safety. To achieve that objective, there are many organizations that help to improve the quality of care. One of the best examples is the Joint Commission. Unfortunately, the healthcare system is not free from total risks. In healthcare activities, there are possible errors, mistakes, near miss and adverse events. All of those negative events are unfortunately preventable. But, it is clear that errors caused in healthcare thousands of deaths in the United States.

The World Health Organization defines patient safety as “the reduction of risk of unnecessary harm associated with health care to an acceptable minimum”. (Emanuel, 2008) There are many things that nurses must do to assure that this is being executed while preforming care to each patient. The main concern when addressing patient safety would be the proper use of adequate staff and the newest evidence based practice. While it is imperative that each nurse and all other staff members are performing safe practice with each and every patient, it is also important that there are enough educated and qualified nurses and other staff using the most up to date proper