Nursing Role in Patient Safety: Issues and Solutions

Introduction

The nursing workforce is the largest workforce in the healthcare industry. Nursing staff in hospitals are primarily tasked with patient surveillance in both ambulatory settings and care facilities — a function also referred to as patient monitoring, evaluation, or assessment. Patient surveillance is important for recognizing errors and preventing adverse incidents. Most patient safety experts believe in cultivating an impartial system that acknowledges both systemic and individual contributions to adverse incidents and successful outcomes, thereby facilitating a reduction in errors. This notion is addressed in To Err is Human, which states that the prevention of error and the augmentation of patient safety are best achieved when a system is designed around an individual approach that targets the underlying conditions giving rise to errors. Since nurses constitute the largest workforce in the healthcare industry and are largely engaged in the detection, commission, and prevention of errors and accidents, they and their work environment are key factors in patient safety (Page & Institute of Medicine [U.S.], 2004).

This paper highlights some of the issues that are currently major causes of concern within the nursing industry. This approach helps identify human aspects and systemic flaws that exist within healthcare and then address these issues at their root. Patient care and safety is defined as the provision of an appropriate and ethical standard of medical care in which a patient's medical concerns are adequately addressed and resolved, and no additional concerns arise due to carelessness or mistakes. This is an extremely important issue for nursing, as nurses are the medical care providers who have the most interaction with patients; when nurses perform their role effectively, the overall standard of patient care and safety improves.

For this reason, the paper examines the main issues by dividing them into historical, social and cultural, political, and ethical dimensions, as well as barriers to resolution. The primary concern for all nurses is patient safety. The paper highlights why patient safety is important and the role nurses play in its provision. It then moves on to the social and cultural aspects of the nursing industry and identifies communication as one of the key determinants of appropriate patient care — when communication deteriorates, patient safety is compromised. Accurate reporting is recognized as another important facet of high-quality patient care, and the role of nurses in accurate reporting is examined under the political concerns of current nursing structures. The combination of human and system errors, and the effect this has on error reporting, is identified as a major ethical concern. Furthermore, the paper discusses the role of Registered Nurses (RNs) in the current structure, as well as the overall positive effect they have on patient care and safety. The paper concludes with a recognition of the need to further investigate the incorporation of technological advancements in medicine and the impact of those advancements on nursing in the short and long term.

Historical Analysis

The safety of patients is one of the most critical issues in healthcare, and nurses are the primary professionals responsible for detecting errors and preventing harm. It is not only their job description but their code of ethics that requires nurses to facilitate safe, competent, and ethical care. Patient safety is the top priority of the nursing profession and is of vital concern to nurses working in community settings, acute care hospitals, and long-term care facilities. It is of major importance across all fields of practice, including education, clinical practice, research, and management and leadership positions.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has led a nationwide effort to reduce medical errors and increase patient safety. AHRQ established a research and demonstration program to finance research identifying sources of medical errors and to create models for reducing their frequency. The program also encourages impartial reporting, review, corrective action, and the reduction of administrative paperwork. Regardless, changes remain important in areas such as accreditation, regulation, payment, and policy, all of which affect healthcare delivery (Canadian Nurses Association & [University], 2004).

References

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