Quality and Safety

Quality and Safety Like most people, nurses included we take joy and pride in the work we do and the patients we take care of. Safety and quality is one of the most important aspects of how we care for our patients. Patient safety is at the core of how we start to choose policies and procedures on treatment plans. It is not just making sure policy and procedures put patient safety first but also that the nursing staff has safe patient to nurse ratios. At my hospital I am chair elect for the safety and quality committee. In this committee we discuss many different forms of how we can improve patient safety in things such as falls, medication errors, and CAUTI’s. We analyze data from our hospital and make sure all aspects of patient safety were upheld to the gold standard and how we can improve out number of mishaps. We openly discuss barriers and how to prevent the incident from happening again. Improving safety and quality is a collaborative effort that requires all team members to participate to improve. Evidence-based Practice Evidence based practice are the types of practices we use to treat our patients. In my previous course C361- Evidence based practice and applied research, it taught me how to look at an article and determine whether it was research on non-research article. Research showing evidence-based practices and how to apply them to current nursing practices. At my hospital I am apart of several committees such as safety and quality, professional practice, CAUTI prevention, and partners. I can review several forms of evidence-based practices we adopt as a hospital and understand the date better. Being a part of these committees allows me to be apart of the change and suggest different practices other hospitals may be using by understanding what evidence-based practice is and what is opinion-based changes. Applied Leadership On my unit, I am currently a seasoned preceptor to new grads, new hires and students, charge nurse, and chair of shared governance. Communication is the most important quality in my opinion as a leader. Communicating effectively, respectfully and professionally to other team members. I attend several different types of meetings monthly; some I lead and others I am just a participant. Meetings help discuss issues/problems on the unit or with a certain topic. I learned in C820 my strong attributes and my struggles based of my Dynamics Report. This helped me home in on my most effective means of communication. This helped me learn how other people perceive me as a whole and the way I communicated with them. I changed my communication style when speaking to certain team members to have a more effective and beneficial conversation. Community and Population Health Educator is an important role that nurses play. We educate our patients on new medications, healthy lifestyles, and the diseases or conditions they may have. Teaching a patient on how to take care of themselves and stay healthy is our number one goal to achieve as a nurse. Some patients are not even aware of what medications they take, or they may be but are unsure of why they take the medication. Knowing what medications, they are on and what they are for is the first two steps the final is common side effects these medications can cause and what can be life threatening. In the emergency room we have many resources available to give to patients that do not have insurance or have low income. Thing’s people take for granted like dentist or eye doctors. We have many community clinics that aid those in need but educating patients on what resources are out there is not utilized like it should be. I make it a point to show new hires where we keep these resources and how to obtain them to provide to those patients needing it. Health and wellness of the community will in turn lower emergency room visits and admissions to the hospital. It is our role as the nurse to help facilitate these teachings to our community.