Patient Issue
Thomas and Galla (2013) define patient-centered care as “the provision of care that is in accordance with the patient’s needs, values, and preferences while at the same time ensuring such attributes guide every clinical decision” (p. 395). For very many years, physician-centered care has failed to improve the outcomes of many patients. Modern scholars and physicians are focusing on the best approaches to increase the level of collaboration with patients with terminal diseases.
The targeted patient issue is the ability to offer evidence-based and safe care to more people (Forman, 2010). Patient-centered care is a powerful approach that makes it easier for practitioners to improve the level of patient satisfaction. This is achieved through healthy patient-doctor relationship, effective hospital designs, and minimal use of diagnostic testing. This teaching exemplar targets medical practitioners, relatives, non-nursing personnel, and interdisciplinary team members.
Risk Factors
Several risks explain why many patients are unable to get quality and safe care. To begin with, the current use of physician-centered approach has proved ineffective because it is characterized by many diagnostic tests and re-hospitalizations. The absence of information is a major issue affecting the quality of care available to many patients. Patients with terminal diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and obesity lack adequate health promotion models (Forman, 2010).
Statistics
Studies indicate that the number of patients with various diseases is on the rise (Forman, 2010). For example, over 14 million citizens had been diagnosed with cancer in 2014. The number is expected to rise in the future. Over 9.3 percent of Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes. These statistics show that terminal diseases continue to affect many people in the country.
Prevention
The use of multidisciplinary teams and patient-centered approaches can play a positive role towards addressing various health conditions. Healthcare practitioners should embrace the best approaches in order to provide evidence-based support to every affected patient (Forman, 2010). Family members and social workers should also be involved in such multidisciplinary teams (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2016). By so doing, the affected patients will be able to lead normal and healthy lives.
Suggestions to Consider
Safety Design Principles
Several issues can be considered whenever planning to provide evidence-based and patient-centered care. To begin with, human factors should be taken seriously in order to achieve positive results. For instance, medical institutions should hire competent workers and caregivers who can provide quality patient care. The workers should also be empowered and equipped with the relevant tools. Such measures will ensure the best care is available to the targeted patients (Reiling, 2005).
The other issue to consider is the use of effective safety design principles. The design should be driven by various safety principles. Some of these principles include “checklists, multidisciplinary teams, and common beliefs” (Forman, 2010, p. 48). Such principles have the potential to improve the level of patient safety. Healthcare practitioners have a role to establish a culture of patient care and safety (Reiling, 2005).
Medicare “Never Events”
Safety in medical care can be improved by examining various sentinel events outlined by Medicare. Sentinel events are believed to affect the quality of care delivered to different patients. Some of the widely reported never events include suicide, wrong-site surgery, delayed treatment, patient fall, and medication error (Thomas & Galla, 2013). Safety culture practices and strategies can play a positive role towards reducing such never events.
In order to achieve the best goals, healthcare practitioners should design effective departments and medical care processes (Forman, 2010). Medical practitioners should make patient-safety the guiding principle in order to deal with various errors and sentinel events that might affect the quality of care.
Healthcare practitioners should establish multidisciplinary teams whenever providing quality care to different patients. Healthcare leaders should also collaborate with different practitioners in order to design the best health promotion models. The focus should be on safety-driven strategies and principles that will improve the quality of patient care (Reiling, 2005). Family members and social workers should also be involved in every healthcare process. By so doing, the major risk factors resulting in various sentinel events will be reduced significantly.
Quality Improvement Methods
Several quality improvement (QI) methods can be used to deal with this issue. The first approach is the use of brainstorming. This strategy is used to identify a specific conclusion that can be used to address a particular problem. This group creativity strategy will ensure every healthcare facility outlines the best practices towards improving the level of patient safety. The second QI approach is benchmarking (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2016). This concept focuses on the performance of healthcare facilities towards improving the level of patient safety. Medical practitioners and facilities can consider the measures undertaken by various institutions that have received the Magnet Status award.
The Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) can be used to improve the quality of care provided to different patients. This approach is used to examine the gaps in healthcare facilities and present new measures that can improve the quality of care. The use of Six Sigma will also be effective towards improving the safety of nursing care (Reiling, 2005). This QI tool is usually data-driven and is used to eliminate various defects.
The tool embraces “the use of the 6 standard deviations between the mean and the specification limit” (Thomas & Galla, 2013, p. 398). The tool can be used to reduce various malpractices that can result in medical errors and falls (Reiling, 2005). The approach will make it easier for different healthcare institutions to increase the level of patient satisfaction and eventually maximize profits.
Issues in My Current Practice
Our healthcare facility has been using various strategies in order to improve the quality of patient care. For instance, concepts such as leadership and use of multidisciplinary teams have been embraced in order to improve the outcomes of many patients (Reiling, 2005). Personally, I have been embracing the use of safety design techniques and informatics. Such measures are undertaken to reduce errors, improve the quality of care, and minimize various sentinel events. However, new measures such as QI methods can be used to increase the level of patient safety.
Concluding Remarks
Hospitals should embrace the use of various methods and QI improvement measures to increase the level of patient safety. Every patient expects to receive evidence-based and patient-centered care from different healthcare institutions. Medical facilities can focus on the concept of Magnet Status in order to improve the level of patient safety. Safety design measures and checklists should be developed to improve the quality of care (Thomas & Galla, 2013). Multidisciplinary teams should also be designed to deliver safe and quality patient support. These lessons can therefore be used by caregivers to offer patient-centered and culturally-competent care to their patients.
Reference List
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: Section III. (2016). Web.
Forman, D. (2010). Nursing leadership for patient-centered care: authenticity, presence, intuition, and expertise. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.
Reiling, J. (2005). Creating a culture of patient safety through innovative hospital design. Advances in Patient Safety, 2(1), 425-439.
Thomas, L., & Galla, C. (2013). Building a culture of safety through team training and engagement. Postgraduate Medical Journal, 89(1), 394-401.