In the contemporary nursing environment, patients are exposed to a number of risks form the possibility of their personal information being disclosed to a third party due to imperfections in the security system to the threat of developing a nosocomial infection as a result of inappropriate nursing strategy chosen by hospital staff (Allen et al., 2015). Therefore, patient safety must be deemed a priority for contemporary healthcare and nursing organizations. For this reason, the identification of strategies for maintaining patient safety high, as well as the use of nursing safety champions in the realm of a healthcare facility must be regarded as essential.
The identified measures are bound to lead to a rapid improvement in the quality of care. Particularly, the promotion of responsibility in the workplace, emphasis on patient education, and compliance with instructions will be facilitated. As a result, the number of positive patient outcomes will rise.
Patient Safety in Professional Nursing
To increase the possibility of a positive patient outcome in the setting of modern nursing, one will have to place a heavy emphasis on nurse education. Particularly, fostering the qualities such as personal and professional responsibility, communication skills, and care for patients’ well-being must be recognized as essential steps toward improving patient safety rates in a healthcare setting (Allen et al., 2015). For this purpose, one must reinforce the importance of a nurse’s role in patients’ recovery. The specified step will demand massive change in nurses’ attitudes toward their duties. Furthermore, the performance standards will need to be updated so that nurses could identify the goals for their further professional growth and locate the strategies that they can use to meet the specified goals successfully (Hood, 2014).
Nursing Safety Champions
Patient safety is regarded very highly in professional nursing. However, a recent study also shows that, in the realm of contemporary healthcare, patients are exposed to an increasingly vast number of factors that cannot be controlled when viewing the nursing process from a single perspective (Allen et al., 2015). Herein lies the significance of creating an interdisciplinary team, where knowledge and experience sharing among team members will allow for a rapid and significant enhancement of patient safety. Indeed, with the efforts of an interdisciplinary team, an array of factors that define patient safety in the context of a healthcare facility can be identified. As a result, a range of threats starting from patient falls and the following comorbidities to the development of nosocomial infections due to post-surgery complications will be evaluated and prevented successfully (Hood, 2014). Furthermore, the active use of evidence-based information must be encouraged to promote a patient-centered approach.
Conclusion
Creating the environment in which patients’ needs can be identified and met successfully is essential in the ever-changing environment of global healthcare. Because of rapid growth of diversity rates in modern communities, a nurse must be prepared to provide appropriate services to a community member of any cultural, ethnic, or national background. Hence, it is imperative to create multidisciplinary teams where nurses will be able to share knowledge and acquire new skills. In addition, the reconsideration of a nurse’s role in a recovery process must be altered. Particularly, the process of communication between a nurse and a patient has to be enhanced so that nurses could determine culture-specific needs of target demographics and identify the threats to which patients are exposed more efficiently. As a result, new and improved strategies for managing patient safety will be designed, leading to a rapid rise in the number of positive patient outcomes.
References
Allen, D., Weinhold, M., Miller, J., Joswiak, M. E., Bursiek, A., Rubin, A.,.. Grubbs, P. (2015). Nurses as champions for patient safety and interdisciplinary problem solving. Medsurg Nursing: Official Journal of the Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses, 24(2), 107-110.
Hood, L. J. (2014). Leddy & Pepper’s conceptual bases of professional nursing (8th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.