5 Tips for Ensuring Patient Safety in Health Care Settings1

5 Tips for Ensuring Patient Safety in Health Care Settings

COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of the healthcare system in protecting the safety of everyone. The hospital is the only place where you can get treated from any sickness or diseases. A good healthcare center should be able to provide good quality healthcare. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for every hospital. In some cases, hospitals provide low quality, and charge patients more than what they are provided. This is why it is important to provide high quality healthcare, as it is your responsibility as a healthcare worker to provide the best of the best. Not only that, but the hospital can be a place for diseases to spread easily. So having safety protocols as well as promoting cleanliness is essential. 

Nearly 444,000 people die each year as a result of preventable healthcare errors. Fortunately, when healthcare providers, support personnel, and patients work together, patient safety can be improved. Organizations can increase team performance by implementing safety-focused team initiatives. One thing you might want to consider before meeting your patient is by having a patient portal software that will help keep track of your patient. Patient safety entails avoiding mistakes, preventing injury, and lowering the likelihood of errors through planning that promotes communication, lowers infection rates, and reduces errors. Here are more tips to help ensure that you are providing safety for your patients:

1. Have a Safety and Health Management System

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Assessment Tool for Hospitals, care providers should develop guidelines that determine enterprise safety and health management system performance. It is critical that administrators include all managers and employees in appropriate decision-making processes and conduct regular organizational performance assessments to encourage compliance with 

safety rules. 

1. Disinfection is Key  

Like most hospitals, sanitation is important. Disinfecting and sanitizing is essential as it helps in protecting your patients from receiving any medical conditions that can compromise the health of your patients. A great way to combat this is by implementing cleanliness protocols such as proper sanitization of medical equipment and spaces. Hygiene is an important aspect as well, so make sure that you are clean and sanitized before meeting your patient. 

2. Medical Machines Should Be Handled With Care

Medical machines and equipment can be expensive. No matter the price, machines and equipment should be handled with care. Handling these with care will not only save you money, but it will be less of a hassle in the long run. Not only that but checking if your machines are working well will less likely put your patients in harm. 

3. Safety Policy Should Be Implemented

Employees and employers must be aware of their responsibilities in terms of safety. In addition to informing each new employee on hospital safety, administrators should keep employees informed about policy changes on a regular basis. Employees must also be aware of their responsibilities in maintaining patient safety. Furthermore, every medical organization should have defined policies and procedures in place regarding safety.

4. Prioritize Hospital Design

In all treatment areas, patient-centered building design includes structural features such as air quality, important information closeness, noise dampening, and standardized feature locations, as well as anti-contagion fixtures such as employee hand sinks. Engineers also construct modern hospitals with wiring that supports new equipment that decreases errors, with special attention paid to areas designated as drug dispensaries. Most crucially, safe building designs include measures and benchmarks for facility conditions and characteristics such as information accessibility, noise levels, scalability, and other variables.