National Patient Safety Goals
The first goal relates to improved accuracy of patient identification, which nurses may ensure to meet by making use of two different patient identifiers (The Joint Commission, 2019). In this case, nurses would be expected to double check and confirm the identity of the patient before undertaking any medical procedure. That would serve as a positive outcome towards eliminating instances where medical procedures are undertaken on the wrong patient, which tends to lead to a high possibility of medical errors.
In dealing with the second goal relating to improved safety of using medication, nurses have a key responsibility towards maintaining and communicating accurate patient medication information. That means that nurses would always update patient medical files with regard to any changes or adjustments in medications, which would help towards eliminating the possibility of discrepancies in the expected information outcomes. Nurses have a key responsibility towards ensuring that they update patient information to avoid medication errors (Poghosyan, Norful, Liu, & Shaffer, 2019).
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Regarding the third goal on reducing the risk of health care-associated infections, nurses are expected to comply with the current guidelines on areas of hand hygiene. Health care organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have provided a wide array of guidelines on what is expected with regard to hand hygiene. Nurses have a key responsibility in the actual responsibility towards adoption of these guidelines to avoid transfer of infections.
In the fourth goal on reducing the risk of patient harm arising from cases of falls, nurses have a key responsibility towards assessing individual patients with regard to their risks of falls. That will play a key role in the implementation of relevant strategies that would be of value towards reducing the possibility of harm for the patients. Some of the strategies that nurses may consider include monitoring of patients using digital technological approaches and keeping the patient busy to help improve their balance (Savely, Muraca, Eller, Aljehani, & Kathuria, 2019).
Lastly, nurses also have a key responsibility towards identifying risks that may arise with regard to the inherent populations that they deal with as part of home care. An example of a risk that can be seen when dealing with patients revolves around the possibility of fires considering that patients are expected to use oxygen therapy. By identifying and evaluating these risks, nurses would be in a better position that would allow for the actual adoption of strategic measures to avoid the occurrence of such risks (Mueller, Neuspiel, & Fisher, 2019).
Article on Technology and Home Care
In the article ‘ Home care of children and youth with complex health care needs and technology dependencies ,’ Elias & Murphy (2012) argue that home care technology can be the most effective approach through which to dealing with children and youth diagnosed with complex health care needs. The use of home care allows for the patients to access the technologies that they would need in a bid to improving their health care outcomes as per expectations. Additionally, home care is seen as a solution towards dealing with the possibility of errors in nursing care considering that it helps towards maximizing on the overall possibility of personalized care.
The shift to home care will impact my day-to-day nursing practice, as it will require me to shift much attention towards dealing with patients within the home environment. Home care reflects more on ensuring that nurses provide personalized care with the focus being towards improving overall health outcomes for individual patients. Personally, this would mean that I would be expected to learn how to engage individual patients as part of my engagement in nursing practice.
References
Elias, E. R., & Murphy, N. A. (2012). Home care of children and youth with complex health care needs and technology dependencies. Pediatrics , 129 (5), 996-1005.
Mueller, B. U., Neuspiel, D. R., & Fisher, E. R. S. (2019). Principles of Pediatric Patient Safety: Reducing Harm Due to Medical Care. Pediatrics , 143 (2), e20183649.
Poghosyan, L., Norful, A. A., Liu, J., & Shaffer, J. (2019). Cognitive and Initial Psychometric Testing of the Errors of Care Omission Survey: A New Patient Safety Tool for Primary Care. Journal of nursing measurement , 27 (1), 16-32.
Savely, S. M., Muraca, P. W., Eller, M. F., Aljehani, N., & Kathuria, N. (2019). A Patient Safety Rounds Pilot Program at Clinics Affiliated With a Large Research and Education Institution. Journal of patient safety , 15 (2), 90-96.
The Joint Commission. (2019). Home Care: 2019 National Patient Safety Goals . Retrieved from https://www.jointcommission.org/ome_2017_npsgs/
