Opportunities and Challenges with Patient Safety Goals

Opportunities and Challenges with Patient Safety Goals

One of the patient safety goals is to prevent infections in the hospital setting. Hospital-acquired infections are a burden on US healthcare costs. According to the CDC (2021), one in every 25 hospitalized patients gets infected within the hospital on a given day. Apart from adding cost to healthcare, these infections also cause harm to the body and can lead to death, especially if the infection is multidrug-resistant, contagious, and difficult to treat. When proper procedures are followed, the CDC (2021) reports that it is possible to prevent and reduce infection spread in hospitals. Preventing infections at healthcare facilities has been a challenge, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when there was an increased spread of the disease, but facilities had nurse shortages (Willan et al., 2020).

According to Willan et al. (2020), during the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers faced an increased workload, social exclusion, psychological distress, a lack of incentives, poor quality or not enough personal protective equipment (PPE), poor management, and a lack of coordination while on the job. These difficulties contributed to an increase in infection spread at the facility. I recall the nurse on duty complaining about the lack of enough nurses in the emergency and critical care units. According to Sinambela (2020), an increased workload causes job stress, reduced performance, and decreased motivation. In the hospital setup, high patient-to-nurse ratios can be linked to increased overall complications and infection rates in inpatient care settings (Damani, 2019). Increased workload caused burnout at my place of work, which led to poor judgment and forgetfulness that were associated with poor infection prevention.

However, hospital administration attempted to devise measures and policies to prevent infection spread within the hospital. One of the policies was to often wash hands vigorously with soap and clean running water for at least 20 seconds and use 70% alcohol-based sanitizer to prevent infections (Damani, 2019). Washing hands with soap is necessary when entering a surgery session and before eating, providing care, drinking, and caring for patients, but sanitizers were placed all over where everyone was required to use them. A policy on infection control was developed, showing clearly when a patient should be kept in isolation or prevented from contacting healthcare workers or other patients. This policy was based on the CDC’s universal isolation and quarantine policies (CDC, 2018).

The hospital also invested in providing PPE to healthcare workers to ensure they are safe and participate in preventing hospital infections. All healthcare workers wear face masks and gloves, but those in the emergency and critical care units and those dealing with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients wear full uniform PPEs. Hospital surfaces are kept clean through disinfection using the hospital surface-disinfection policy to eliminate any contagious pathogen that may cause harm to patients and healthcare workers. Linens are changed often and on a daily basis, and are cleaned and even sterilized. Healthcare workers and patients are also educated and often reminded to adhere to infection control policies on hand washing techniques and the prevention of contagious diseases.

Furthermore, the hospital has invested in improving the laboratory to incorporate research practices to ensure healthcare workers can identify contagions before they spread and cause harm. According to Damani (2019), highly infectious infections, such as Clostridium difficile, should be identified early enough before they cause infection. For example, in my workplace, any patient admitted with diarrhea is tested for this infection right away. Additionally, people who have respiratory problems must be tested for influenza and COVID-19 viruses. The hospital has also ensured that samples are taken from hospital surfaces, patients and healthcare workers’ bags and phones, the hospital environment, body fluids, and even patient wounds for culture and sensitivity testing to identify potential and resistant pathogens.

Conclusion

Despite the rise in infections, hospitals have tried to reduce their spread by adhering to recommended WHO and CDC policies. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a lot of unpreparedness that healthcare workers had in preventing and combating infections, but their hard work and resilience recovered the world from the pandemic. Infection prevention is one of the safety goals that hospitals have to help improve patient outcomes. Therefore, healthcare workers should invest in improving their knowledge and expertise in preventing all possible nosocomial and community-acquired infections. Hand cleaning techniques and other preventive measures from WHO and CDC have helped healthcare institutions prevent these diseases and even help in their management.

References

CDC. (2018, September 29). Quarantine and isolation. https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/index.html

CDC. (2021, May 6). Infection control in health care facilities. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/infectioncontrol/index.htm

Damani, N. (2019). Prevention of healthcare-associated infections. Manual of Infection Prevention and Control, 233–304. https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198815938.003.0007

Sinambela, S. (2020). The effect of workload on job stress, work motivation, and employee performance. International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation, 24(04), 1373–1390. https://doi.org/10.37200/ijpr/v24i4/pr201109

Willan, J., King, A. J., Jeffery, K., & Bienz, N. (2020). Challenges for NHS hospitals during covid-19 epidemic. BMJ, m1117. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1117

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Select one of the 2021 National Patient Safety Goals.

Share your thoughts about the opportunities and challenges related to achieving the goal in your work environment.

Submission Instructions:

Your initial post should be at least 500 words, formatted and cited in the current APA style, with support from at least two academic sources. Your initial post is worth 8 points.

You should respond to at least two of your peers by extending, refuting/correcting, or adding additional nuance to their posts. Your reply posts are worth 2 points (1 point per response.)