Patient Safety: Achieving Zero Preventable Deaths - Essay Sample

Introduction

The high rates of adverse events and increasing cases of medical errors are clear evidence that numerous patient safety issues continue to thwart effective and quality care provision. World Health Organization (2019) defines patient safety as a healthcare discipline that aims at preventing preventable harm on a patient, especially during the care provision process and reducing the associated risks to acceptable minimums. Despite efforts that aim to achieve zero preventable deaths due to safety issues, unsafe care practices remain one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide, killing at least 2.6 million people annually (World Health Organization, 2019). In the United States, insufficient safety is the third leading cause of death (Patient Safety Movement, 2020). Such statistics suggest that there is a need to intensify safety efforts in all care facilities by implementing various patient safety strategies. An evidence-based practice that is achievable through clear policies, robust leadership, skilled and cooperative care provision, continued research, and patient-centeredness is imperative to reducing risks and errors that can cause harm.

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Evidence-based practice (EBP) is an effective response to reducing adverse events and medical errors and promoting overall patient safety. EBP is the application of consciousness and current scientific pieces of evidence to make the best decisions that would improve healthcare safety and outcomes of individual patients in the process of care provision (Oliveira et al., 2014). It calls for healthcare practitioners and leaders to use relevant and valid scientific up-to-date information to determine the accuracy of certain diagnostic tests, potential harm from particular medications, practices, or environmental hazards in making the best choices to optimize safety and reduce risks and promote quality care.

Various reasons underscore the importance of integrating evidence-based practice in improving patient safety. First, it provides the basis for accessing and using most recent and updated valid information to make the best medical choices that would foster not only safety but also the holistic care outcomes (Oliveira et al., 2014). Since patients expect to be provided with the most effective care, basing medical and care decisions on traditional sources such as textbooks, ineffective deductive education, and unreliable experts might potentially increase the risk of unsafe practices. This is primarily due to the fact that the diseases and the medical environment are continuously evolving, indicating that some practices that were valid some years back might prove inappropriate in the contemporary environment. Secondly, it supports continuous learning and research and ensures that practice is current and relevant and is consistent with current policies, and medical ethics (Oliveira et al., 2014). Finally, it boosts confidence in decision making since professionals understand that patient care and safety measures suggested are based on concrete and proven scientific research making the decision less bound to failure.

An effective evidence-based practice is a process with various stages. The first stage is the conversion of the issue or clinical problem into a clinical question that is answerable through scientific approaches. In this case, practitioners must ask why specific adverse events or errors occur or exhibit the potential risk of occurring. The second stage is tracking down relevant and valid current evidence that can assist in answering the question. Thirdly, critically appraise the validity, impact, and practicability of each source of evidence to ensure its trustworthiness and clinical importance (Oliveira et al., 2014). Next, integrate the evidence into clinical decision making to resolve or prevent the determined patient safety problem or risk. Finally, to ensure continuous learning and improvement, evaluate each of the above steps, and determine the best approaches to improve them.

In addition to evidence-based practice, keeping abreast with ethical, legal, and regulatory provisions and responding to the related concerns can help drive patient safety in the right direction. Clinical practice with respect to patient safety is deeply rooted in ethics and law. Ethically, every healthcare professionals are expected to have respect for persons and aim at doing good and avoiding harm while upholding justice, veracity, and fidelity in their practice (Kadivar et al., 2017). Failure to adhere to these codes of ethics is likely to increase care-related risks, thereby placing patients at further risk of further harm.

On the same note, there are various licensure, state, and federal laws that tend to regulate the standards of care provision. One such law is the Patient Safety Act of 2005, which was created to promote reporting and analysis of medical errors and resolve patient safety issues (Kadivar et al., 2017). Failure of practitioners to follow the accepted standards might expose them to potential litigation based on failure to exercise reasonable care or negligence. Thus, finding effective approaches to respond to patient safety issues is beneficial not only to the patients but professionals as well. Studying patient safety as a topic would help to provide the basis for creating healthcare environments that focus on their patients and the need to maximize the quality of healthcare outcomes and reduce preventable risks.

Conclusion

In conclusion, patient safety will remain a daunting problem for most healthcare facilities until appropriate evidence-based practices are adopted and ethical and legal provisions adhered to, not only at the organizational level but also at the individual level. Evidence-based practice allows healthcare professionals to make the best decisions based on current and valid information, leading to better and safer healthcare outcomes than traditional approaches. Holding to ethical and legal provisions is also critical in ensuring that healthcare practice remains within the confines of the social and legal standards.

References

Kadivar, M., Manookian, A., Asghari, F., Niknafs, N., Okazi, A., & Zarvani, A. (2017). Ethical and legal aspects of patient safety: a clinical case report. Journal of medical ethics and the history of medicine, 10. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6150915/

Oliveira, R. M., Leitão, I. M., Silva, L. M., Figueiredo, S. V., Sampaio, R. L., & Gondim, M. M. (2014). Strategies for promoting patient safety: From the identification of the risks to the evidence-based practices. Escola Anna Nery - Revista de Enfermagem, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.5935/1414-8145.20140018

Patient Safety Movement. (2020). Medical Errors and Patient Safety Challenges. Patient Safety Movement | ZERO preventable deaths. https://patientsafetymovement.org/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw_ez2BRCyARIsAJfg-kug_HdYTYgZiw3ulVY-pBTPm3wmXVYTF1HVNvLXT3c7hIsGZwV7QYcaAph2EALw_wcB

World Health Organization. (2019, September 13). Patient safety. WHO | World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/patient-safety