Review of Patient Safety Standards for Hospitals by Joint Commision on Healthcare
Journal/Periodical Assignment Carey Brox, HCA 402 June 7, 2013 2013 Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goals for Hospitals The safety goals outlined for hospitals are intended to stimulate greater awareness of the elements of vulnerability or risk associated between patient and worker. Ultimately, patient safety, worker health and safe practice methods can have a positive influence on saving lives, reducing risk and controlling costs. The goals attempt to outline a uniform standard. When adopted by a health care organization, a successful culture of safety that benefits everyone has an opportunity to develop. The following are the Commission’s patient safety goals with respect to hospitals. The first goal is to improve the accuracy of patient identification. Patients are given the wrong medications, taken to the wrong surgical rooms, and specimens get contaminated or mixed up. To address this issue and achieve improved accuracy, implementation of two patient identifiers attempts to reduce these errors. First, the patient should be identified reliably by their name, telephone number or other number that is person specific. The second is to verify that the treatment matches the patient. The verification of the identifiers should be done with two individuals checking the same patient or having one person identify the patient, with a second verification assisted by the addition of a technology item, like a barcode. The second goal is to improve the effectiveness of communication among caregivers. Each clinical aspect of healthcare utilizes a different vocabulary. A patient may be seeing a psychiatrist, a physical therapist and a cardiologist at the same time. While each profession has a foundation of science that is designed help them communicate in a uniform manner, each clinical area will have specific language and understanding that may not translate from one specialty or discipline to another. Critical results of tests and