Errors and mishaps can occur at any time and any place, but in healthcare settings, you cannot afford them. It can lead to severe consequences that can put the life of any individual at considerable risk. According to different Healthcare quality research centers, strong measures need to be taken by hospitals in advance to avoid any incident. Such actions show the quality standards of the particular hospital. Healthcare measures include process, outcome, and structural action.
The architectural practice provides an idea to the consumer about the capacity and procedures of the hospital to ensure quality care for the patients. Process measures highlight that what hospitals can do in their ability to improve their health care operations quality for patients. Like it identifies how many patients are receiving mammograms and other preventive services. Outcome measures represent the healthcare impact service that the hospital provides to a patient. It includes the identification of patients who die due to surgeries and also indicates the rate of hospital-acquired viruses or infections.
But there are more aspects that hospitals could take care of to bring more stability and effectiveness in their services. Here is a complete guide to understanding what essential healthcare measures hospitals usually take for patients to ensure better health for them.
- CENTRAL LINE-ASSOCIATED BLOODSTREAM INFECTIONS
One of the major concerns for any hospital is central line-associated bloodstream infections. If you are working in any hospital as a nurse or a doctor, you need to be extremely cautious to prevent this infection. You have to take precautionary measures that involve the following steps.
- Firstly, you need to wash your hands and then utilize full-barrier precautions.
- Wash your skin afterward with chlorhexidine.
- Make no contact with any femoral lines during this whole procedure.
- Lastly, get rid of needless lines.
By taking these measures, you can surely prevent this deadly infection from spreading anywhere else to the patients.
Whether you work as a nurse or a doctor, it is essential to complete the healthcare courses. It educates you on how to stop such infections from infecting people. So, to begin your nursing practice with a sound foundation, you can enroll in courses for acquiring nursing certificates online. Likewise, if you are a doctor, then you should also do such courses that are related to your specialty.
- EFFICIENT DISCHARGE PLAN
The system needs to assess the discharge plan to minimize the readmissions. You can assign the staff member wisely to take care of patients’ needs and remaining staff to manage medications and schedule the appointments. By building a simple discharge plan for patients, you can easily maintain the medication schedule and the record of all future assignments.
The statistical study showed that this efficient planning helps you to reduce preventable readmissions by almost 31%. Eventually, it leads towards better, productive, and high-quality healthcare services for the patients.
- SAFE USE OF BLOOD THINNERS
For patients’ safety, it is vital to educate them on how they can use blood thinner safely. It is essential to keep the record of patients who are about to discharge from the hospital after surgery. So, when they leave the hospital, they have a different prescription of blood thinner to prevent the formation of deadly blood clots.
It is one of the significant healthcare measures that hospitals need to adapt to guide and inform patients about safety measures even after getting well. Blood thinners can cause severe damage if they don’t use it correctly. If a patient does not know the proper use of blood thinners, uncontrollable, and immense bleeding can occur, which can ultimately lead to death.
Hospitals and healthcare centers need to take initiatives to create awareness among patients about safety measures. Creating a booklet guide or educational video for the patients can play a crucial role in making patients aware.
- RESTRICT SHIFT DURATIONS
By restricting shift durations for staff and medical residents, you can give them a proper rest time. Record of past cases shows that fatigued medical staff is most likely to make mistakes while treating the patients.
Medical staff must get sufficient sleep, so their shift durations should be appropriately scheduled.
Ideally, the medical experts who treat patients for 16 hours should have 5 hours of sleep. It also enables them to focus on their job correctly and to provide better healthcare treatment to the patients.
- PATIENT SAFETY CORPORATION
This organization provides information and experience to control preventable mistakes. It also helps to improve patient outcomes, and in a safe environment, nurses, clinicians, and all hospital staff can get valuable learning. The overall quality of the healthcare setting can surely improve by highlighting the risks and their possible solutions to improve patient care practices.
- PROVIDING COMFORT TO PATIENTS
For improving safety and quality services for patients, it is crucial to enhance the convenience level. Patient falls one of the main issues in hospitals, so patients should be appropriately given designed bathrooms and rooms with easy walking paths.
To reduce infections, single beds are mandatory for patients. Also, sinks should be installed at convenient locations where patients can go smoothly.
- ANALYSIS OF PATIENT SAFETY CULTURE
Patient safety culture is necessary for any hospital because it helps to overcome the issues that exist in their healthcare practices. It all starts with inspecting the hospital staff’s performance and determining the effect of the intervention.
Then the survey of emergency medical care groups and laboratories in hospitals needs to be done. It gives a clear idea of how safe patients are in the hospital premises.
- ACTIVE RESPONSE SYSTEM
Better response teams play a crucial role in providing emergency assistance to patients. Hospital staff should be trained for effective communication in such sensitive situations. Hospitals need to sharpen the skills of the emergency medical care team so that they can provide the required assistance quickly and effectively.
- CONCLUSION
The measures, as mentioned above, are usually taken by hospitals to ensure safety and better quality care for patients. Higher authorities of hospitals and healthcare centers are responsible for making all these measures and implementation. It will decrease the risk of patients getting affected by an infection, disease, or any unpleasant incident in the hospital.
