Patient Perspective

The entire purpose of health care is to administer preventative, or pertinent medical treatments to patients in order to cure, detour, or improve an illness or ailment. With any type of service where goods or services are exchanged, there are inevitably some instances that result in unfavorable outcomes for either the service provider or recipient. The main goal of health care is to keep a patient safe and free “from injury or illness resulting from the processes of health care” (Impact, 2012). A patient’s entitlement to be cared for in a safe and effective manner is extremely important because it is the sole reason for the existence of health care facilities and all of the staffs that inhibit and operate in it.

Patient harm can occur at several stages of treatment from a number of different sources. Health care facilities have an obligation to limit the possibility of harm to patients by monitoring qualified staff in multiple departments and lowering potential for negligence through environmental issues. Providing actual health care treatment can create issues in medical therapy such as procedural errors. Procedural errors can occur as unsanitary conditions, improper equipment utilization, and negligent or improper services rendered. According to the HSA6385 course powerpoint presentation on Patient Safety and Medical Errors, there are approximately 1.5 million injuries to patients that involve medication errors as well(Impact, 2012).

In some instances a doctor may feel as though a medical procedure has been a success while a patient does not find the treatment satisfactory. The majority of medical procedures require a consent form to be signed that has a liability disclaimer stating that unfavorable outcomes can result from the procedure. The medical community can view a slight improvement in condition as a success and the patient can still remain disappointed because of higher expectations for anticipated results. Patient safety in a health care facility should be preserved, protected, and improved and viewing the patient as a guest or customer makes that individual the most significant determinate as to whether an unfavorable incident has occurred.

References:

Impact of Quality on the Patient: Patient Safety and Medical Errors. (2012). [Powerpoint Slides]. Retrieved from https://webcourses.ucf.edu/webct/urw/tp14717307490131.lc14158134517121/displayContentPage.dowebct?pageID=14837728424111&resetBreadcrumb=false&displayBCInsideFrame=true

Food for Thought...

I always wonder if the doctor who uses billboards on I-4 to advertise for vasectomys really gets a good return on investment? How many guys driving on the highway have the desire to get a vasectomy after seeing that advertisement?

Nursing Shortages and the Impact on Quality Health Care

 A persisting quality concern in the majority of health care settings involves shortages in skilled employees, especially nurses. As the baby boomer generation grows older, the need for registered nurses (RN’s) and certified nursing assistants (CNA’s) has been increasing yearly. The shortage of nurses is anticipated to near a deficit of almost a million nurses in the next few years which presents a threat with the potential to negatively impact national health care quality (May, 2006). Complicating the shortage and quality concerns is the inability for schools and universities to increase nursing enrollment levels. According to Patrician, many unfavorable patient outcomes are preventable in health care facilities and are affected by inadequate RN and CNA staffing levels or overutilization of staff (2011).

Another contributing factor for deficiency of quality nursing levels is the lack of reimbursement and funding received by some health care facilities. Organizations that have the ability to hire more nurses fail to do so at times based on financial inefficiencies (Harrington, 2012). Instead of costing a health care facility more money by hiring another qualified nurse, preexisting nursing staff may be expected to work longer hours or more days consecutively. The largest concern with this practice is that the quality of care decreases directly as the amount of consecutive hours of (nurse) work increases (May, 2006). Patient quality care decreases through inability to properly transport patients, through medication errors, infection oversight, increased ulcers, and cross-contamination. According to Harrington, the larger hospitals have quality issues surrounding RN and CNA shortages but nursing homes experience more shortages and are more likely to overwork nursing staff which has more probability to lead to unintentional staff actions “that cause harm or jeopardy” to nursing home patients (2012).

As colleges and universities attempt to expand enrollment and keep up with the growing demand for RN’s and CNA’s, the U.S. job market that is willing to accept qualified nursing staff is growing at the same or faster rate. Quality standards for each health care facility are currently measured and compared to industry standards in the nation, state, and county. When the nursing shortage continues into the future, there will have to be some substantial organizational overhauls made by administrators and executives to keep quality standards at a historically acceptable level. Industry quality standards will undoubtedly decrease in time (if/when these trends continue) and future standards may receive better quality indicators and benchmarks by looking into the past instead of comparing with the rest of the understaffed health care industry.

 References:

Harrington, C., Olney, B., Carrillo, H., & Kang, T. (2012). Nurse staffing and deficiencies in the largest for-profit nursing home chains and chains owned by private equity companies. Health Services Research, 47(1 Pt 1), 106-128. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6773.2011.01311.x 

May, J., Bazzoli, G., & Gerland, A. (2006). Hospitals' responses to nurse staffing shortages. Health Affairs (Project Hope), 25(4), W316-W323. 

Patrician, P., Loan, L., McCarthy, M., Fridman, M., Donaldson, N., Bingham, M., & Brosch, L. (2011). The association of shift-level nurse staffing with adverse patient events. The Journal Of Nursing