Short Answers of Week 6

Assessment 1
400777
Leadership for Quality and Safety in Health CareSpring 2020

CC
8/23/2020

Contents
Assessment 1: Short Answer.................................................................................................................2

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 Patient Safety.....................................................................................................................................2
Safety Culture................................................................................................................................5
Measuring the safety culture..........................................................................................................5
Significance of poor safety culture................................................................................................5
Purpose of development of Standards................................................................................................6
Changes over time.............................................................................................................................6
Two (2) legal or monitoring requirements incorporated in NSQHS..................................................6
CLINICAL AUDIT.......................................................................................................................6
MEDICATION SAFETY..............................................................................................................7
References:............................................................................................................................................7

Assessment 1: Short Answer

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Question 2: What is meant by the term 'patient safety'? Differentiate between safety in
health care and patient safety. In the context of patient safety, what is understood by the
term risk management, and what is its aim? Briefly discuss the approaches and/or tools
that a health professional is likely to use when completing a risk analysis.

Patient Safety
A complete and concrete definition of patient safety has been revealed, although different
medical institutes have set their definition. That definition portrays what they think is
important in safety.

According to IOM, the prevention of harm to patients is called patient safety. In this
definition, the institute finalized three (3) main factors as mandatory safety measures, which
are:

Personal Error (Human Fault)

Avoid past errors and practices that once harmed someone

Must be structured on Culture Safety

Elaborating the previous definition as understood by (Vincent, 2011) by prevention of harm

refers to the state of the patient within hospital's boundaries or under medical check-ups,
freed from accidental and preventable injuries due to the negligence of healthcare
professionals or workers. Thus, patient safety also involves patient safety practices that are
defined as, "Practices that reduce risk of negative effects upon patients such as correct
diagnosis when a patient approaches a doctor."

As per WHO, patient safety is the absence of harm that could be prevented and a noticeable
decrease in risk. There is still a minimum chance of harm, but it is acceptable. As no matter
how much care a process takes place, there is still a certain degree of inherent un safety.

Uncovering the slightest difference between the safety in healthcare and patient safety as the
people within the perimeters of the healthcare department should be safe and not harmed in
any way while the patient safety is particular to the sick ones only.

Risk management in patient safety is a set of rules and regulations that need to be followed in
all healthcare professions. With that being said, now all the focus of the medical department
lies in the patient's health, safety, recovery, and financial liability. Technology took place and
now every patient is monitored by a physical as well as a virtual assistant. The medical

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industry's fast pace has now introduced multiple regulations regarding risk management.
These are:

The Basic: The patient has the right that he must be provided a clean atmosphere, proper
attendance and diagnosis, and treatment that is affordable by him/her.

The Advanced: The patient's profile and diagnosis are said to be remained confidential,
provide awareness to have less contact with other patients in the hospital, and reduce the risk
of brand impairment as reimbursement moves away from a fee-for-service model.

Tools used in Risk Management in Patient Safety

First of all, the purpose of risk management needs to be clear, thus the list down have
briefed these as:

Organizational Risks Management

Manage all the processes taking place within healthcare organizations.

Clinical Risks Management

This factor is the assurance of patient’s time with the medical staff and department.

Medical Staff Management

Recruiting the best staff is also included in the Patient Safety Risk Management as any
negligence in the hiring can lead to harm and vulnerability of patient safety.

Financial and Managerial Management

This is also known as RMIS which functions as computerized management of data and
information and balances the financial sheets, hence any damage to the records can make it
hard for the organization and patient to cope up with each other.

Risk Management Tools (RMT)

The following steps are said to be the methodology behind risk management:

Figure out the context (know which particulars are going to be evaluated)

Identify the damage or predictable damage that could occur

Analyze all the aspects of risks (means to make hypothesis)

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Evaluate the risk (most of the experts use a mathematical relationship to find the likelihood
“Risk score (R) = Likelihood (L) × Severity of impact (S)”

Treat the risk after concluding the disturbing or ulcerating points

That is how the healthcare professional figures out the risks and develop different approaches
in accordance with that.

Question 3:

Explain what is meant by the term ’safety culture’ in health care and discuss how it can
be measured? What is the significance of a poor safety culture for health care
professionals and patients?

Safety Culture
Safety Culture is the product of individual and group values and attitude that prevails within a
society or nation regarding the healthcare department. The competency, the patterns of
behavior, perception of care, and medical staff's commitment and behavior are included in
safety culture.

Some of the common practices of safety culture are:

Great team work during surgeries and operation

A systemic work in which each member plays its role effectively

Preventing and reducing the risk

Ask for patient’s permit before check-ups and so on

Measuring the safety culture

The safety culture is generally measured and evaluated by taking surveys and collecting the
response through questionnaires. The response will then be analyzed and the results
determine whether the safety culture is well-organized and well-perceived or disorganized
and non-functional.

In the article by the author (Bodur & Filiz, 2009), the authors took a survey in a primary
healthcare department in Turkey. They engaged 180 people in the survey and recorded their
responses. Among them, the majority was related to the medical profession. After their cross-
sectional study, they finalized that the better the safety culture that can be measured through
culture score, the better the health and safety score of the patient.

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Significance of poor safety culture
The significance of poor safety culture is the later outcome that would affect every individual
of that particular community or nation who has less culture score. The Patient Safety Culture
Survey provides annual data and progress over the years. If the scores are overall below
average, then safety culture is most likely to be considered poor.

Question 5:

In 2012 the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare implemented

National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards and were reviewed in
2017. Contd.

Purpose of development of Standards

The NSQHS Standards are developed to help out the public from harm and damage. They
have the purpose of improving the health related services which were once hard to get.
People used to travel and face obstacles while trying to get a meeting with someone who
would advise them on how to get rid of a certain ailment.

The standards now try to provide quality assistance and treatment by assuring that the
procedures are intact and followed by one another without interruption. The Australian
Scheme AHSSQA updated its standards to give national coordination to all the running
medical sectors and ease of availability for patients.

Changes over time

The Australian Scheme changed its focus from individual to public. They set standards that if
they educate the public regarding disturbing things that would save their time and health for
later. The following change in attitude can be summarized as:

Educate and spread awareness on the public level

Protect the public from damage

Enhance the health services provision

The healthcare department focuses more on developmental changes rather than temporary
treatment

Two (2) legal or monitoring requirements incorporated in NSQHS

According to (Standard, 2012), the two monitoring requirement that has been incorporated in
NSQHS is:

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CLINICAL AUDIT
Clinical workforces have been updated and it has been made mandatory to invest in clinical
audit and monitoring services. As it can help in better screening, patient safety, and risk
management and as well as for patient identification and procedure matching, the audit is a
must.

MEDICATION SAFETY
This step or strategy was developed to reduce the risk factor and enhance medication or
treatment. Thus, this medication audit checks the pharmaceutical errors and improves patient
health where poly pharmacy contributes to other health conditions, and safety and quality
risks. This integrated screening, assessment, and risk identification processes to develop an
individualized care plan alongside with the basic patient safety program. The NSQHS was
further enhanced by making a better ecosystem of hospitals, providing a system for
clinicians, lesser stay, and less cost of treatment.

Bibliography

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Bodur, S., & Filiz, E. (2009). A survey on patient safety culture in primary healthcare

services in Turkey. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 21(5), pp. 348-

55, doi: 10.1093/intqhc/mzp035.

Standard, Q. (2012). Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. Retrieved

from

https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/sites/default/files/migrated/Standard4_Oct_2012

_WEB.pdf.

Vincent, C. (2011). Patient safety. John Wiley & Sons, ISBN: 978-1-405-19221-7.