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Ensuring Patient Safety

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Submitted By christyz71
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Today’s healthcare institutions and providers strive to be safe places for patients to receive care, but past data indicates it has not always been so. The Institute of Medicine determined in the late 1990’s that 44,000 to 98,000 patients die from medical mistakes each year (Wachter, 2008). This tremendous number of deaths places medical care mishaps between the fifth and eighth leading causes of deaths in the United States (Kizer, 2001). In 2002, The Joint Commission established National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG) to help accredited organizations with patient safety in specific areas. An advisory group comprised of nurses, physicians, pharmacists, risk managers, clinical engineers, and others with appropriate experience advises The Joint Commission on how to address emerging patient safety issues. This group also periodically develops and updates the goals. The goals are grouped into broad categories and for 2011-2012, cover such categories as patient identification, health care-associated infections, improving communication, medication safety, reducing falls, and risk assessment. A discussion of selected elements underlying the current NPSG such as hand washing techniques, training, and lack of communication between healthcare personnel that can lead to medication errors, to falls, and even death, plus other related factors such as staffing shortages, problems with using outdated equipment, considerations in using the electronic medical records, and compliance with statutes provide insight into the challenges faced by today’s healthcare institutions and providers.
Healthcare institutions have guidelines and laws they must follow to ensure patient safety. Some institutions have their own policies on patient safety, but these healthcare institutions must to adhere to standards set forth by national organizations for patient safety. For example, The World Health

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