Patient Safety Series
Presenter Notes
Episode 2
Experienced Nurse Shares Safety Message
Hello Healthcare Consumers and welcome to the Gary and Jay’s Healthcare
Insider, the program that tries to help “Make healthcare easier to understand and navigate.”
We are committed to making healthcare personal.
Today’s program is a continuation of our Patient Safety theme and “What all consumers Need to Know. Today we have a Nurse sharing her insights on Patient Safety. Interestingly, because of cultural issues which still exist in healthcare, we’ve agreed to keep her identity anonymous.
With that being said, Jay will be the moderator for today’s program.
Today’s guest nurse (need to get some background info from Riley)
Gary and I are not clinicians. Our healthcare experiences are primarily in the business aspects of healthcare. So we’ve brought in a clinical person to share thoughts about clinical safety issues.
So let’s get started with today’s episode on Patient Safety.
Nurse Glad to be with you today. Let’s get started. Medication errors are unfortunately more common occurrences then patients are aware of and avoidable by safe staffing, which is accomplished by safe nurse to patient ratios, so that nurses have time to more thoroughly think through medication administration. While nurse staffing is an administration issue and not something a patient should know anything about. Having a feel for the activity level in a hospital can be an indicator of staffing. Are nurses and aides seemingly rushed? Are activities chaotic? Do things happen on time? Is there time to ask and answer questions?
Does there seem to be a double check system in place? An example of this is recognizing a blood thinner medication for a patient that has surgery scheduled for later that day or the next day. Sometimes providers forget to put them on hold, so the nurse needs to be able to recognize that it should be held and reach out to the physician to confirm this with them. This is also where a concept we will refer today as patient advocate can be important as a safety check. Having another person in the hospital room as an observer can be crucial.
The next area concerning patient safety are hospital acquired infections. The simplest form of prevention against these infections is hand hygiene or simply hand washing. This is another area a patient advocate can be a great help to the patient by providing a second set of eyes in the patient’s room to help monitor anyone contacting the patient washes their hands. While sounds simple is a very critical safety measure.
Another common safety issue in the hospital is patient falls. Despite many warnings to patients about asking for assistance when getting out of bed, patient falls are easily preventable safety issues. These are avoidable by calling for assistance when getting out of bed. Again, circumstances where a patient may be disoriented or confused bed alarms maybe used to alert staff a patient is attempting to get out of bed on their own. Some hospitals, will attempt to locate these types of patients closer to the nurses station for observation and safety. This is another situation where a patient advocate in the room can be very valuable.
Pressure ulcers are common during longer patient stays. These are avoidable by ambulating patients throughout the day if they are capable of walking. If the patient is bed bound they need to be turned every 2 hours. It’s also important for incontinent patients are being checked/changed every 2 hours or more frequently if needed. If a hospital is short of staff this can be an important responsibility for a patient advocate to monitor.
While becoming less common with the use of technology like scanners and patient wristbands, patient misidentification is a safety issue that can be easily prevented. As a patient, anytime medication or tests are occurring being aware someone is determining you are the correct patient is important. For disoriented patients, an advocate double checking this process is important.
Preventing venous thromboembolism is preventable by ambulating patients as soon as possible after surgery. If blood thinners like lovenox or heparin are prescribed, patients need to understand why. Physical equipment such as compression devices like cuffs or compression socks might also be prescribed.
Blood safety is very critical and transfusion errors are preventable by being sure lab technicians and nurses are verifying proper blood type.
The aforementioned are a few of the common issues impacting patient safety. Hospitals are very busy places and the demands on hospital personnel having clinical responsibilities are greater today than ever. Unintended mistakes can occur. Having someone in a patient’s room is directly proportional to the awareness level of the patient. The cognitive level of the patient is the primary consideration as to how much additional attention is needed. Hospitals can be dangerous places for the unprepared.
We hope you’ve read the ProPublica story we referred to in the previous episode, Eat What You Kill, to understand what can happen when safety measures and quality control systems fail.
Unfortunately, the culture of healthcare in this country is still not supportive of transparency and accountability. Mistakes having serious impact can still be made. Errors are still covered up. Understanding patient safety is a two way street with patient or third party involvement and participation crucial. In our previous episode, we shared a story about our friend that requested a second opinion which resulted in avoiding surgery. This is what it takes to be an informed healthcare patient today.
We’ll close today’s episode by sharing another newspaper article recently appearing in the Wall Street Journal titled,”Why We Don’t Trust Doctors Like We Used To.” We won’t reproduce the article here. We encourage you to read it as it presents a real time assessment of what’s occurring in healthcare today. It also emphasizes our theme of Patient Beware.
TAKE AWAYS
Again we’re emphasizing ever healthcare consumer or patient needs to take time to understand how patient safety impacts you and or your loved ones. Our next episode will provide some tools to use to make you a better healthcare consumer.
HCNC is your healthcare partner that offers healthcare consumers information to navigate the healthcare maze via our website.
The program and take away information of the program will be available on our website
www.healthcareconsumernavigatorcenter.com.
This concludes our program and our second Patient Safety episode. We hope the program provided insights into the Patient Safety environment.