As the hospital strives to achieve some of its intended safety goals, it finds itself facing a vast array of opportunities and challenges that support and act as barriers to the achievement of these goals. The hospital is committed to implementing necessary measures as part of its strategic approach to achieving the National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG). One of the key goals that the hospital strives to achieve is goal 1, which focuses on improving the accuracy of the identification of individuals served. Patient identification is one of the most significant issues that health care facilities encounter where a lack of proper identification mechanisms leads to identification errors (De Rezende, Melleiro, & Shimoda, 2019). The lack of proper identification mechanisms is often linked to the increasing number of medical errors occurring within health care settings. However, this equally presents an opportunity for hospitals in their bid to advancing overall efficiency as they provide the best patient safety standards.
Another essential patient safety goal that the hospital strives to achieve is goal 7, which involves reducing the risk of healthcare-associated infections. Hospital-acquired infections are common in multiple health environments; hence, the need to come up with strategic measures to help reduce exposure of patients to possible risk factors for such infections. The hospital, where I work, has been at the forefront in delivering on these two goals as part of its strategic approach to positioning itself as a health facility of choice. Therefore, the hospital finds itself experiencing a wide array of opportunities and challenges, which act as support structures and barriers for the achievement of the set patient safety goals. Regarding the opportunities arising from the two goals, one of the key opportunities that the hospital encounters is that the goals have aided the implementation of a patient-centered approach to health service delivery.
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The hospital has adopted policies that reflect on patient-centered care as part of its efforts to minimize identification errors and reduce risks associated with health care-associated infections. The establishment of patient-centered care reflects solely on the idea that each patient has unique needs and wants that a hospital must deliver, especially on existing patient safety standards. The management understands that achieving the two goals depends on its ability to focus on individual patients where it becomes much easier for nurses and other health professionals to provide the best possible health services. Another opportunity associated with achieving the two goals is that they have helped elevate patient satisfaction and confidence. Patient satisfaction is one of the key aspects of consideration for any health care facility considering that patients must experience a sense of satisfaction with the quality of care offered. As the hospital strives to deliver on the two goals, as indicated, it finds itself improving the quality of health care services to its patients, which, in turn, improves patient satisfaction levels.
On the other hand, the two goals have equally introduced a set of challenges for the hospital, which have become key issues of concern as the facility maximizes its capacity to offer care to its patients. The main challenge associated with the goals is the financial implication considering that the hospital has been forced to spend more on staffing to guarantee patient-centered care. Staffing is an essential aspect to ensuring that facilities provide the best possible care to their patients; thus, meaning that hospital managements must ensure a reduced staff to patient ratio (Cho et al., 2016). In my work environment, the management spends a significant amount of money in ensuring that the staff to patient ratio remains low, which has serious financial implications. Another challenge is on hospital infrastructure, which is an essential part of ensuring the overall achievement of the two goals. The hospital faces serious challenges due to inadequate infrastructure, which becomes a key issue of concern because it finds it hard to deliver on its set goals.
References
Cho, E., Lee, N. J., Kim, E. Y., Kim, S., Lee, K., Park, K. O., & Sung, Y. H. (2016). Nurse staffing level and overtime associated with patient safety, quality of care, and care left undone in hospitals: a cross-sectional study. International Journal of Nursing Studies , 60 , 263-271.
De Rezende, H. A., Melleiro, M. M., & Shimoda, G. T. (2019). Interventions to reduce patient identification errors in the hospital setting: a systematic review protocol. JBI Evidence Synthesis , 17 (1), 37-42.
