Analyst Paper Assignment, Essay Example

The healthcare profession is not an exact science. Although quality care and elimination of errors is a high priority, mistakes happen. Hospital errors impact everyone; patient, physician, nurse, family and insurance carriers. Health care policies are created as an attempt to be proactive and limit errors. Nursing professionals can contribute to the development of these policies to promote the delivery of competent healthcare on all levels.

Hospital errors contribute not only to poor healthcare delivery, but can cause the death of a patient. A study performed in the year 2004 showed an average of 195,000 people died between 2000 through 2002 because of potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors (Consumer Affairs, 2010).  Often when a patient presents to the hospital the care is focused on the condition at the time of presentation.  However, patients can and do develop complications or totally different diagnoses during their stay. The typical causes of these deaths are attributed to the failure to rescue. This is basically a phrase coined to define a physician’s inability to save a hospitalized patient’s life due to a complication occurring during the hospital stay; separate from the admission diagnosis (McGee, 2010).

A part of failure to rescue is attributed to the nurses training. Those trained for emergency care were quicker to recognize and give aid in a situation. However, the nurses who were great at their jobs as long as emergencies did not arise are not as equipped to recognize and respond to unexpected complications. While nurses are trained to respond to emergencies, the day-to-day routines often create a conflict between the academic/mental knowledge and the daily practice of nursing.

Patient safety is also a concern for hospital error mortality. Others include bed sores, postoperative sepsis, and postoperative pulmonary embolism (Consumer Affairs, 2010). By focusing on key areas and promoting a team approach, the hospital clinical staff can be proactive to watch for early warning signs of complications.  In addition, patient safety training is important to reduce injuries. Caring for patients is the fundamental basis for the nursing profession. However, due to a plethora of historic events, nurses and physician now spend a large amount of time in documentation.  While this is important, laws and policies have created a great deal of extra paperwork that now occurs in the hospitals and healthcare industry.

It is important to understand that these issues do exist and everyone must take them seriously in order to reduce the chance of errors. Nursing basics include pain management, appropriate medication administration, assessments and adherence to procedures (McGee, 2010).  Adhering to patient safety practices is also vital to nursing care. As nursing students this impacts us on different levels. It makes us aware of the need to look beyond the admission diagnoses and keep mortality and morbidity quality practices in mind. Going through training for best practices and taking action to be a competent nurse and recognizing complications with frequent assessments is vital to limiting unnecessary hospital errors and resultant death.

Nurses have first-hand experience regarding the effects of healthcare policies in providing quality of care; providing a unique perspective on healthcare policy making (ANA, 2010). Healthcare policies are ultimately created for patient and medical personnel safety.  Nurses play a significant role in policymaking. They have the practical experience to know how the healthcare industry works and how the hospitals are organized and function. The role of the nursing profession on shaping healthcare policies is essential to healthcare quality and patient safety. Insurance executives and pharmaceutical industry should have a lesser role in policy decisions; this creates a dysfunctional system that focuses on business models and revenue instead of outcomes of quality care (Barclay, 2010).

Nurses are the lead caregivers in the current hospital systems and therefore, have the best practical experience to understand and know what needs to be changed or revised in current policies and practices. Currently nurses do not have as important a role in healthcare policy development and are placed behind other entities. Nurses understand evidence-based practice and can work cooperatively with all healthcare specialties and subspecialties, giving them an advantage in policymaking.

In order to become more involved, a group of nursing professional should become more involved with legislative events and organizations to work towards an improved policymaking structure for healthcare matters. Nurses moving into leadership roles have been a growth trend for several years in the healthcare field.  Current leadership both political and medical, need to recognize the need for nurses to work alongside this leadership team to add the needed component of first-hand knowledge. Nurses can also provide the needed experience and knowledge to help in legislative matters for any component of patient and public health. The nursing profession has earned the recognition of a profession that is not just about bedside care, but is about being a vital part of the whole team treating the patient.

Nurses play an important role in both hospital error recognition and elimination, and in healthcare policymaking. The profession of nursing has evolved and been transformed by many great nursing leaders; working for the recognition of how nursing is not limited to one facet of care giving.  From Florence Nightengale to Jean Watson and other famous nursing leaders past and present, the value of nurses and their expertise and input are imperative to all matters of healthcare.

References

ANA (2010). Health Care Policy. American Nursing Association. Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/HealthcareandPolicyIssues.aspx

Barclay, L. (2010). Nurses Should Play Greater Role in Health Policy Planning, Management. Medscape. February 2, 2020.  Retrieved from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/716344

Consumer Affairs (2010). Study Find Nearly 200,000 Deaths Annually from Hospital Errors. August 12, 2004.  Retrieved from http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/hospital_errors.html

McGee, E. (2010). Failure to Rescue. Advance for Nurses. Retrieved from http://nursing.advanceweb.com/Article/Failure-to-Rescue.aspx