Introduction
Healthcare facilities have always strived to improve and enhance care and support despite the differing clients’ medical complexities. Improvement efforts to promote a safe, healthy, and conducive working environment help alleviate safety risks that are eminent in every healthcare provider. Premature deaths of clients while receiving medical support at the healthcare facility are a significant risk due to limited healthcare professionals who cannot meet the healthcare needs of the many clients seeking medical support at the healthcare facility. Giving healthcare professionals a chance to further their educational levels increases their expertise levels that help meet the medical needs of every client. The patients die because the needed medical support may not be readily available due to the lack of a broad scope of practice among healthcare professionals. Thus, patient deaths while undergoing treatment are an undeniable problem that can be alleviated by creating a collaborative workforce and increasing the healthcare professionals’ scope of practice.
Factors Leading to a Specific Patient Safety Risk
A shortage of healthcare professionals is a significant cause of premature deaths of clients in healthcare facilities. The shortage of nurses limits the level of medical and social support they provide clients. The gap of understaffing in healthcare givers continues to widen every year due to the unprecedented increase in population growth rate. As noted by the World Health Organization, the population growth rate stands at 0.8%, which is estimated to be one billion individuals (Montegrico et al., 2023). Currently, the nurse-patient ratio is beyond the recommended 1:4, which limits the nurse’s capacity to provide services to every client. As such, the nurses cannot monitor clients’ health conditions and provide them with their medications in time. Delaying medical services to clients makes the pathogens resistant to drugs, hence, deteriorating their health conditions despite taking the doses. Notably, the United States alone has a shortage of three hundred thousand nurses. Eventually, clients die because of the partial service delivery caused by a shortage of healthcare professionals.
Healthcare’s mandate to cut costs by adopting technology is another crucial factor that necessitates premature deaths of clients. Like any other business, healthcare providers make cost-efficient employment choices to reduce expenditure and generate profits. The economic capacity of a healthcare giver determines the level and quality of services rendered. As such, healthcare providers employ few healthcare professionals to cut costs and save money used to invest in technology and purchase the most advanced medical equipment (Olaleye et al., 2022). The adoption of technology in healthcare has made it possible for healthcare to employ a few professionals with advanced computer skills to manage a large number of patients. Computers require a healthcare technician to operate. Despite computers being efficient in analyzing, compiling, and sending medical reports of clients to respective departments, the huge workload triggers burnout and monotony for healthcare technicians. As such, the computer user can give wrong commands, which analyses and generates an erroneous treatment report. The clients’ medical conditions can get worse, and they eventually die when given the wrong medicines.
Evidence-Based and Best Practice Solutions to Improve Patient Safety
One of the best practice solutions that healthcare facilities can utilize to reduce clients’ deaths due to the shortage of healthcare professionals is to employ additional professionals to fill the existing gap. The world health organization recommends that physicians can render effective and efficient services when the nurse-patient ratio is kept at 1:4 (Dall’Ora et al., 2022). When nurses are adequate, they share the workload, which reduces instances of burnout, and stress that cause erroneous treatment procedures, fills the gap of the delays in providing clients with medicines at the stipulated time, and increases nurse-patient engagements (Dall’Ora et al., 2022). Wrong and delayed medical support has a profound consequence on the health and cost of medication towards clients. Notably, administering the wrong medicines or delaying medical services deteriorates the client’s health, which increases the cost of medical bills linked to lengthy stays at the facility and treatment (Montegrico et al., 2023). The cost of medical treatment in a healthcare facility corresponds to the length of stay at the hospice and the time needed to recover from an ailment. As such, increasing the number of nurses would ensure that they recheck and confirm the accuracy of the treatment model before administering them to clients. Resultantly, clients spend less on medication and a few days of stay at the medical facility.
Ways Nurses can help Coordinate Care to Increase Patient Safety
A collaborative workforce is crucial in alleviating premature deaths of patients that occur due to falls, erroneous medical treatment, and delayed medical support. Having a workforce that shares experiences, expertise, and decisions in handling clients is essential in providing optimal care and support that is devoid of medical errors, injuries, and deaths. Nurturing the spirit of teamwork ties individual liability to the whole team, even if an individual physician caused the clients’ death (Montegrico et al., 2023). When nurses share roles, knowledge, and skills, they use little time to provide quality care that reduces the cost of treatment that would have otherwise arisen when they work individually. For instance, when a nurse is tasked to serve two clients simultaneously, he or she can request another free co-worker to assist in providing medical service to one of the clients to ensure that both patients receive timely medical services. Resultantly, nurses limit instances of medical errors, including giving clients the wrong medicine that occurs when obliged to attend to more than one client at a time. As such, a collaborative working environment among nurses helps clients to heal quickly and save money that would have been spent on worsened health complications stemming from medical errors. Since the patient’s stay at the healthcare facility corresponds to the cost of treatment, the nurses’ effort to foster health promotion ensures that clients spend less on medical support.
Stakeholders with whom Nurses would need to coordinate to Drive Quality and Safety
The healthcare facility’s mandate of safeguarding lives and health promotion requires the collaborative efforts of nurses and other stakeholders. Other healthcare facilities with advanced quality care are one of the stakeholders that nurses would need to team with to learn and embrace quality medical care in their organizations. The quality of services that healthcare providers offer varies greatly depending on technological levels, professional knowledge, and the quality of medical equipment used. As such, nurses can coordinate and learn from advanced healthcare facilities to gain effective, cost-efficient approaches and error-free techniques for providing medical support to clients (Paddick et al., 2023). Notably, nurses can be informed about staying close to the healthcare facility so that they render medical services to clients even when other professionals are engaged in other tasks. The move ensures that patients receive medical services on time, which helps them assume proper health. Resultantly, high-quality medical treatment ensures that clients spend little on medical bills (Montegrico et al., 2023). The move would promote quality care by utilizing tested medical procedures. Besides, patients are another fundamental stakeholder that nurses need to coordinate with and drive quality medical support. Nurses can collect clients’ reviews on the level of interaction, treatment models, and engagements to bolster their shortcomings and improve the level of medical support.
Conclusion
Enhancing safety and promoting the quality of care are essential mandate that helps a healthcare giver to prevent patient harm and foster proper health. The undeniable reality is that the shortage of healthcare professionals is a significant cause of deteriorated health and premature deaths among clients seeking medical support in healthcare facilities. Besides, the healthcare’s effort to cut costs and generate more profits is another crucial cause of patient death in hospices. One of the best practice solutions that healthcare facilities can utilize to reduce clients’ deaths due to the shortage of healthcare professionals is to employ additional professionals to fill the existing gap. Having a workforce that shares experiences, expertise, and decisions in handling clients is essential in providing optimal care and support that is devoid of medical errors, injuries, and deaths. Nurses can coordinate with advanced healthcare facilities to gain new approaches to providing medical support to clients, which helps reduce instances of worsened health conditions and premature deaths.
References
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