The Need to Wash Hands Between Clients
Clean hands can serve as a guarantee of a patient’s safety, which is why it is crucial to ensure the utilization of the procedure by all the staff members. Considering the procedure, it should start not from the medical personnel but the management of the healthcare organization. The management should ensure that the conditions for the maintenance of the plan are provided and the staff has access to them.
The first step to introduce obligatory handwashing in a medical organization is to get the personnel familiar with the probable consequences of their actions. More specifically, the personnel must know why exactly they should wash their hands before serving each client. The information on the risks imposed by doctors’ unwashed hands can be spread using different channels, for example, by delivering a lecture on the topic supported by evidence and the opinions of authors published in scholarly journals. Another way, which may be even more effective, is including a rule of washing hands in the internal normative documents of the organization, as well as in a personal contract.
Secondly, the management of an organization should provide the necessary resources for implementing the plan. In other words, the second step is the procurement of soap. This, evidently, should be outpaced by calculating the required amount of soap and comparing the alternatives of, for instance, liquid or solid soap. Generally, the pace of consumption of solid soap is much longer than that of a liquid one. Therefore, the management should compare the prices on each alternative, taking the consumption rate into account.
The third step would be to create and implement a system of monitoring the personnel’s compliance with the new rule. This step would include choosing the most suitable way of checking the accuracy of the doctors in following the rule of washing hands between patients. One of the possible solutions is, for example, asking patients whether they saw their doctor washing hands when they entered the room. Thus, the assessment would be fair and independent.
The fourth step in setting the system of obligatory handwashing between the patients for doctors is introducing a stimulation system. According to the study conducted by Chmielewska et al. (2020), the level of satisfaction of medical workers with their job is one of the most potent factors of motivation. Hence, the discussed change should be accompanied by some attractive stimulation measures. This may be, for example, a small extra allowance for their compliance with the rules or an opportunity to get two more non-working days during the year. On the other hand, the aim of this measure may vary depending on the initial attitude of the medical staff to the introduced change. More specifically, the doctors may be not rewarded for their behavior but punished for their violation of the rule, which may be a form of deprivation of bonuses.
The last step for this plan is assessing the repercussions of the implemented decision and the practice-based assessment of its relevance. Moreover, this step may include researching the patients’ wishes for the organization’s future improvement. This step is crucial due to the vitality of quality management in medical organizations for the performance of all structures and the dependence of the company’s reputation on it (Parast & Golmohammadi, 2019). Hence, management should always listen to the patients carefully to reveal the existing problems or prevent potential ones.
Providing Knowledge of Fire Extinguisher Use
No doubt, the safety level is the most critical aspect of most jobs that affects people’s level of satisfaction with their working experience. However, this indicator depends on the employees as well as on the professionals since there may be extreme situations when ordinary people must take action to protect the lives of others. One of the most widespread causes of such situations is fire. Hence, every person, disregarding the social status, employment, age, or any other sign, should be trained to know how to behave in unexpected and dangerous for life occurrences.
The first step in implementing this plan is related to the theoretical aspect of the issue, similar to the previously described plan. It would consist of explaining to the personnel the importance of being familiar with the mechanism of a fire extinguisher in the event of unforeseen circumstances. According to Mohamed et al. (2019), it is essential to appoint a fire safety manager in the company, who may be a staff member, but would also be responsible enough to perform this function. Thus, the further steps would be coordinated by this person, as well as the actions of employees in the extraordinary events, including fire.
The second step includes a more practically oriented process – an immediate teaching process. It should be organized after the company has purchased the number of fire extinguishers required for the building where it is located by standards and extra ones for the training. The instruction should be carried out either by a professional in fighting the office fires or at least by people who know how to use the fire extinguisher. The training should be organized in a specially prepared location, where the employees would not destroy anything during the process. Moreover, each employee should be encouraged to attend the training to ensure the proper level of safety in the office.
The fourth step involves a practice aimed at reaching a permanent level of the staff’s preparation for emergencies. In other words, it implies the repetition of this training at least once a year to maintain the required level of skill and develop it. This step is essential because, firstly, staff members may change during the year, implying that new employees may be recruited, and their level of familiarity with a fire extinguisher should be assessed. Secondly, employees may forget some of the steps or details of the rescue plan. Thirdly, the fire extinguishers may be developed, which would lead to the necessity to train the staff to use the new ones. Therefore, regularity is required in this case if the company wants to contribute to the level of its employees’ safety.
Finally, it would be essential for any company to introduce one more step to the program. This stage is connected with the building where the office is located and requires checking its condition for compliance with the standards of fire-safe performance. According to Salleh et al. (2020), this step is critical at every stage of the company’s activity since the condition of the building predetermines the probability of the staff’s safety in case of fire. In other words, even the training aimed at teaching employees to use the fire extinguisher may not help if the building is too old or simply not prepared to save people in case of fire. Therefore, the special services should assess the building and state whether it is safe for offices or not.
References
Chmielewska, M., Stokwiszewski, J., Filip, J., & Hermanowski, T. (2020). Motivation factors affecting the job attitude of medical doctors and the organizational performance of public hospitals in Warsaw, Poland. BMC Health Services Research, 20.
Mohamed, S., Ebenehi, I. Y., Sarpin, N., & Adaji, A. A. (2019). An introduction to fire safety management in buildings. In T. W. Seow (Ed.), Environmental Management & Sustainable Development: Series 1 (pp. 93-97). Penerbit UTHM.
Parast, M. M., & Golmohammadi, D. (2019). Quality management in healthcare organizations: Empirical evidence from the Baldrige data. International Journal of Production Economics, 216, 133-144.
Salleh, N. M., Salim, N. A. A., Jaafar, M., & Sulieman, M. Z. (2020). Fire safety management of public buildings: a systematic review of hospital buildings in Asia. Property Management, 38(4), 497-511.