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Introduction
Patient safety has become an everyday terminology in the healthcare sector. This is due to the growing attention that the concept has received not only from patients and their families but also from policymakers and the healthcare sector itself. In the clinical practice, the improvement of patient safety necessitates mechanisms for reporting and assessing events as well as the prevention of errors before they occur.
Nurses continue to play an ever increasing role in ensuring that patient safety is upheld in their organizations. This paper examines the role of nurses in enhancing patient safety through the implementation of change for evidence-based practice. It also applies the requirements of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to an identified patient care situation.
Accountability of the Nursing Profession to Implementing Change for Evidence for Practice
The identified patient safety practice involves the use of computer-assisted diagnosis to enhance the process used in making clinical decisions at care sites. Improvement of patient safety not only depends on systems but also on timely access to clinical data, for instance, laboratory and radiology examination results. Access to timely information can aid in minimizing redundancy, and permit a more proficient decision making. Clinical practice that has patient safety as one of its objectives needs to incorporate new research findings into everyday clinical practice – that is, evidence-based practice. Nurses play a key role in implementing changes for evidence-based practice. Nurses are leaders as well as change agents in the implementation of evidence-based practice.
As leaders in evidence-based practice, nurse practitioners produce and construe different sources of data together with members of their teams. This is done through clinical reasoning which is possible only at an expert level. They develop individualized treatment plans for patients based on prior research evidence outcome data. These data are also used by nurse practitioners to make policies, processes and standards of healthcare services.
They act as leaders in making recommendations, executing and assessing evidence-based practice. This implies that not only do they initiate evidence-based practice, but they also assess it regularly to ensure that it addresses the needs of the patients and organizations in terms of improved quality of life for patients and cost minimization as well as improved efficiency for the organization (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2006).
Evidence-based practice is also implemented by nurses through the integration of knowledge, research results and experience in order to improve nursing practice and uphold excellence in health care. Nurse practitioners are leaders in the development and conducting of research/outcome studies so as to maximize patient care. They carry out cost-benefit analyses and evaluations of the challenges faced by patients as well as the utilization of medical products and technologies. Monitoring and evaluation is also done to determine the cost-effectiveness of the projects (Institute of Medicine, 2003).
As change agents in evidence-based nursing practice, nurse practitioners act as role models, teachers, coaches and mentors by guiding other low-caliber nurses in the utilization and assessment of research results. Nurse practitioners acknowledge that not all research studies are credible. As a result, critique of research studies is important before the studies can be applied to practice. Nurse practitioners, especially the advanced nurse practitioners, guide other staff in the critique of research studies to determine their applicability to practice. This helps in improving the quality of nursing practice. They also act as advocates for evidence-based practice by educating other healthcare professionals on the importance of adopting such practice (Porter-O’Grady, 2003).
Application of AHRQ Requirements to a Patient Care Situation
The chosen patient care situation involves a retained foreign body left accidentally in a patient during a surgical procedure. The AHRQ requirements regarding retained surgical foreign bodies help to identify such incidents. In order to minimize cases of retained surgical foreign bodies in surgical patients, a number of measures will be taken in my practice. The principle of beneficence requires that healthcare professionals undertake to do their best for the patient in all circumstances whereas the principle of non-maleficence requires the healthcare practitioners not only to “do no harm” but also to do their best to ensure that no harm comes to their patient (Hunt, 1994).
It is in consideration of these values that commentators such as Schoenbaum, Strobel and Schonleben (2004) have identified the establishment of firm binding procedures and good interpersonal communication between theatre staff as essential ways of minimizing the retaining of surgical foreign bodies. Most importantly, the procedures followed in the operating room as well as the procedure for counting the surgical tools and materials should be standardized with a clear role description for each of the staffs involved in the surgery specifically the surgeon, the nurses and the radiologist. All these staffs need to work together as a team to minimize the retention of surgical tools and materials (Garwood & Poenaru, 2004).
Conclusion
Patient safety has become an important concept in the healthcare industry. Not only is patient safety advocated for by nursing practitioners but also by organizations such as AHRQ. This paper has shown that nurse practitioners can play key roles in enhancing patient safety. Specifically, nurses are leaders, change agents and implementers of patient safety through upholding evidence-based practice which goes a long way in reducing medical errors.
Reference List
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2006). The essentials of master’s education for advanced practice nursing. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Colleges of Nursing.
Garwood, S., & Poenaru, D. (2004). Tensions influencing operating room team function: does institutional context make a difference? Medical Education, 38, 691-699.
Hunt, T. (1994). Ethical issues in Nursing. London: Routlege.
Institute of Medicine. (2003). Health professions education: A bridge to quality. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.
Porter-O’Grady, T. (2003). Nurses as knowledge workers. Creative Nursing, 9(2), 6-9.
Schoenbaum, K., Strobel, A., & Schonleben, F. (2007). Retained foreign bodies from the surgical point of view. Chirurg, 78, 7-12.
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