Patient Safety: An Overview

Introduction-

A simple way to explain patient safety is the prevention of errors and adverse effects on patients associated with healthcare. Patient safety is essential in every aspect of life. Generally, the health caretakers, family members, and nurses care for patients at home or hospital. Patients should be responsible for taking care of themselves as they should be aware of the things to follow the safety measures at every place they visit. A patient should know how to handle chronic conditions, mental illness, weakness, and joint pain and can talk to their physicians or health care taker if they find any changes in their health.

What Is Patient Safety?

Nowadays, patient safety is going towards a compromising level resulting in a rise in patient harm in healthcare facilities which should not be avoided as taking care of themselves is very important in day-to-day life. It aims to provide a healthy environment with reduced risk, errors, and patient harm during treatment. Patient safety is fundamental in delivering quality essential health services and realizing patient safety's importance. Strategies like health policy, Ayushman Bharat policy, driving safety improvement, skilled healthcare workers, and patient knowledge of the disease are much needed to ensure a successful impact on patient safety.

Why Does Patient Harm Occur?

• Patient safety is in the hands of government or private hospitals or clinics and the involvement of doctors, nurses, ward boys, pharmacists, and all the medical healthcare professionals responsible for creating a healthy environment for the patients.

• Suppose a patient gets the wrong medicine due to similar packaging medicine. In that case, the risk of the pharmacist handing over the medicine comes, and they have to realize that the patient might get harmed or die due to the wrong medication.

• The prescription also has some importance as it should be prescribed correctly.

• The canteen in the hospital needs to be hygienic as people can become sick due to bad oil quality and unhygienic food.

• Due to unhygienic toilets and not using a disinfectant, the patients get infected with urinary tract infections, which leads to a bigger problem.

• Transfer of the wrong drug into the body is also an example of harmful factors which can lead to patient death.

• Using contaminated bed sheets, pillow covers, bandages, and intravenous injections are some of the major mistakes a hospital makes, which result in chronic illness.

How Does a Patient Get Harmed?

Every year there are a lot of cases in which patients die due to unsafe and improper health management through the hospitals. Many healthcare practitioners are under challenges for improper care of patients that tend the patient to either change the hospital or die from the lack of proper care. There are some concerns about patient safety, and they are:

• Medication Disturbances: These are a leading cause of several health disturbances, such as an overdose of sedatives making a patient addicted to them, and the patient will not be able to sleep without taking the medicines. Overdosing medicines harms their health and should always be bought with the doctor's prescription and on the doctor’s advice. In addition, several pharmacists and medical shops should stop selling drugs that have been proven harmful to patients.

• Health Care-Associated Infections: Occur in several hospitalized patients in high-income countries low, and middle-income countries, as some hospitals do not take care of patients’ hygiene. Improper cleaning of the bed and floor, not using a disinfectant, and improper discarding of syringes are a few examples that show that bad hygiene tends to make a patient more infectious.

• Unsafe Surgical Care Procedures: These are also responsible for causing death or severe complication, as proper instrument sterilization is the key point to be done. If there is any disturbance in the protocol or any contamination during the surgery, it can lead to infection or death of a patient.

• Unsafe Injection Practices: The healthcare industry can transmit infections, including HIV and hepatitis B and C, and impose direct danger to patients and healthcare workers. This happens when a contaminated syringe is reused or injected into other patients.

• Diagnostic Errors: In many cases, it has been seen that healthcare professionals do not sterilize the diagnostic instruments before placing them into the patient's mouth or any part of the body. Also, many more diagnostic errors are seen, resulting in a patient’s death or chronic illness.

• Unsafe Transfusion Practice: Exposes patients to the risk of adverse transfusion reactions and the transmission of infections. This happens due to mismatched and wrong transfusion of blood or medicines.

• Radiation Errors: Involves overexposure to radiation that can lead to several organ damages, and an X-ray is usually cancerous and can lead to death. Radiation can affect pregnant women as their child is more prone to any disability from the harmful rays.

• Sepsis: People infected through sepsis are not early diagnosed as it can be detected during routine tests or when it shows some signs and symptoms and rapidly deteriorates the clinical condition.

• Blood Clotting: Blood clotting is one of the most common and preventable causes of patient harm, contributing to one-third of the complications attributed to hospitalization.

What Are the Patient Safety Tips Adopted by Hospitals?

• A Culture of Safety: Implementing a safety culture develops systems to ensure staff is aware of safety measures, including reporting safety concerns and using safety checklists.

• Ensuring Patients Have a Voice In their Care: This encourages patients to participate by asking questions and advocating for their safety.

• Making Sure Staff Is Properly Trained: Hospitals ensure all hospital staff is adequately trained on safety protocols and procedures.

• Medication Monitoring: Hospitals use automated systems for accurate medication dispensing and double-checking orders before administering. This minimizes human errors.

• Utilizing Technology: Hospitals usuallyadopt new technologies to aid patient safety, such as bar code scanning and automated medication administration systems.

• Being Aware of Fall Risks: Hospital staff watches for potential risks, including cluttered hallways and uneven surfaces.

• Taking precautions With Infectious Diseases: The staff is trained to disinfect surfaces and wear personal protective equipment to avoid spreading infectious diseases.

• Following Evidence-Based Protocols: Hospitals and medical professionals stay up-to-date with best practices and evidence-based protocols for safe care.

• Investing In Communication Systems: Most hospitals install robust communication systems that allow staff to contact one another in case of emergency quickly.

• Regularly Assess Safety Protocols: Feedback ensuring safety protocols are regularly evaluated and updated to prevent errors and improve patient outcomes.

Conclusion:

Protecting the patient from health hazards and a correct diagnosis is crucial for their health. Patient safety is the responsibility of healthcare workers, pharmacists, nurses, medicine formulators, and the entire hospital and private clinic. Certain protocols are there that the health care workers should follow. Patients should also be aware of their safety measures, and if having any doubts, they can ask their health caretaker.