Safety Quality and Informatics

Document Type:Research Paper

Subject Area:Nursing

Document 1

In taking care of just a single patient, a number of distinct medical staff may be involved. The patient may get confused because of the language used by the staff, as they may not be familiar with the terminologies used or rather the entire technical language. In most large healthcare organizations like hospitals, and even in the smaller premises like clinics and doctor’s offices, the doctors take many necessary steps to make sure that their patients are safe because medical errors still occur once in a while (Starfield, Shi & Macinko, 2015, p. Regularly, medical errors also referred to as adverse events take place when a misstep occurs within the chain of the activities associated with care delivery. Experts and researchers in the field of patient safety have identified various ongoing patient safety challenges; one of which has been prominent and recurring within the Mercy Health Org.

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Owing to such statistics, Mercy Health Org has sought to enhance quality management and reduce uncertainty across the entire testing process, particularly in laboratory diagnostics. Laboratory tests are the greatest means that the organization focuses in addition to other healthcare areas to ensure improvement in quality of healthcare and lessen adverse patient outcomes. The organization believes that timely diagnosis is vital in ensuring that the patient gets the most appropriate care. It has therefore worked to prioritize diagnostic process improvements that enhance efficient use of tests and resources, and make sure that the most appropriate and required diagnostic protocols and procedures are used. To achieve this objective, the organization first introduced analytics before even embarking on improving diagnostic process. For instance, it is crucial to identify patients with diabetes long before they develop complications or rater during the prediabetes stage.

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The systems use data to determine what to diagnose earlier, particularly in those conditions where early diagnosis are vital to patient outcomes. Engaging Patients and Families: At Mercy Health Org, health systems engage not only the patients, but also the family members of the patient to minimize diagnostic errors and ensure their safety. Family members and sometimes friends are considered to have a big picture view, or rather a global perspective regarding the lives of the patients. Getting a better understanding of the medical condition of the patient as well as his/her other social determinants pertaining their health leads to improved diagnostic accuracy, better patient engagement, stronger submission to treatment, and, eventually, better outcomes (Henry, 2015, p. They may even ask to leave the organization and work at a different place where ethical standards in healthcare are upheld.

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Healthcare is a sensitive sector to work in, and every stakeholder desires to be associated with an organization that promotes patient safety through upholding ethical standards (Henry, 2015, p. Every healthcare organization is obligated by the law to ensure that care delivered to the patient is of the best possible quality and that appropriate information is given to the patient on time. When diagnostic errors are made, it is required that the healthcare organization tells the patient what has happened and how the error is going to affect, or has affected their safety as well as the process of getting treatment. When a patient learns of the error through means other than the organization itself or its personnel, they are bound to seek legal counsel regarding what they can do, an action that often leads to litigation.

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Since many errors occur due to human factors like biases, it is recommended that organization try to eliminate diagnostic errors by sealing the loopholes associated with human errors. The healthcare organization should create the safest working environment of addressing errors by creating a blame-free culture, educating personnel, introducing checks to cut off errors before they reach the patient, and reengineering systems through standardization, simplification, forcing functions and use of constraints. These system improvements can broadly be divided into organizational changes of its personnel and institution or procedural changes in the treatment system. A good example of such an organizational change is introducing a clinical pharmacist who is ward-based with a constant quality enhancement team (Rathert & May, 2007, p. On the other hand, the organization can introduce high quality technology applications to bring about process changes.

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Table: How to Use Health Information Technology to Reduce Diagnostic Error Process How technology can help Information gathering Technology helps in ensuring that previous health records and data are available. It helps in collecting key clinical data, making sure that relevant critical questions are asked, thus enhancing completeness of the history in parts often neglected (like family history, smoking, and latest travel). Use of trigger tools can help identify patients more susceptible to having a diagnostic error. This is the best and most appropriate intervention for our organization in reducing diagnostic errors. Detection of diagnostic errors Technology helps to make double checks, which can help to catch mistakes. Helps generate a wide differential diagnosis Technology helps to offer suggestions on key follow-up tests or questions to consider.

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The differential diagnosis generators will be applied to offset hasty conclusion about a single diagnosis. Organizational Barriers to Change To eliminate the diagnostic errors and enhance patient safety, it implies that the organization will need to undergo a significant change from its culture to the process of care delivery as well as personnel-patient relationships (Kim & Bates, 2006, p. Such changes in an organization may take longer than perceived or even fail to happen in some areas due to various barriers. Poor teamwork and communication is one of the barriers that adversely affect change. Enhancing consolations and creating a blame-free environment can help organization maneuver past the barrier. References Henry LL. Disclosure of medical errors: ethical considerations for the development of a facility policy and organizational culture change.

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