Sam
Medical entities could face breaches of safety if the facilities/engineering teams fail to properly upkeep the power distribution and HVAC systems. A lack of proper upkeep could result in loss of power, a loss of power redundancy and a lack of clean and conditioned air, which jeopardizes patient safety and could cause loss of life. It’s a possibility that the facilities/engineering team lacks a proper maintenance program and or high standards, which is extremely problematic. This safety concern directly affects the workflow of everyday operations, for it can completely halt all of them.
JCAHO should implement preventative maintenance standards to reduce the likelihood of these issues. This could be done by creating a program that can be used to manage and track the overall upkeep of equipment by listing the maintenance items with their respective periodicity and the personnel responsible for conducting the procedures. For example, a hospital’s transformers might require bi-annual maintenance for proper upkeep, so this maintenance item will populate in the program and will be assigned to the chosen personnel by the maintenance planner. Once the procedure is done, they shall report its completion in the program and the system will not populate this maintenance item again until its required again. JCAHO could conduct random and or yearly audits to verify compliance and monitor maintenance. This could apply to all medical facilities that have a facilities/engineering team.
To make this work, required periodicities must be enforced, and proper procedures and workflows must be created. This process would require a lot of work to be done to implement and maintain, but the hospital would be less likely to experience issues that would jeopardize the lives of its patients. These issues include, but are not limited to power outages, equipment explosions, the flow of polluted air and the flow of unproperly conditioned air. It’s safe to say that both patients and providers would have a stronger sense of safety from knowing that the facility/engineering team have strict and structured guidelines that require them to maintain high standards.
Thomas
Patient Safety is imperative. An article appeared In the Washington Nursing News, in October 2022, that can make a patient experience safer. It is just a very simple yet effective method that all cultures, races, and ethnicities understand. “Civility.”
Civility is part of every culture, race, and ethnicity. Every individual responds positively to receiving respect in a welcoming environment, open to others without hostility, there is no bias for diverse groups and views. Civility allows you to think carefully before you speak and gives a person the ability to differentiate facts from opinions.
Each and every type of healthcare setting is able to adapt to Civility. Civility allows all team members to share knowledge and wisdom and be open to others without hostility for all the everyday challenges. Civility increases patient/resident outcomes to the life-saving work all healthcare workers provide.
The Joint Commission JACHO Standards, Division of Health Care Improvement, the newsletter has stated “Civility is a system value that improves safety in health care settings.”
https://www.jointcommission.org/-/media/tjc/documents/newsletters/quick_safety_issue_24_june_2016pdf.pdf
Jenny
Think about safety issues that medical entities could be facing. Come up with a method that JCAHO should review and discuss ideas that can make a patient experience safer. Make sure to provide detailed information, but also answer these questions: What type of healthcare setting is this for? How would it help the issue you have mentioned?
Pediatric surgery is rarely elective and should be performed when indicated by a child’s medical team. When Covid-19 entered the picture, all hospitals necessarily needed to define enhanced safety protocols within a short timeframe. However, Children’s hospitals are unique in that all of the patients are dependent on their caregivers for support; a child who needs to go to the hospital for surgery is typically joined by a family – one or two primary caregivers, sibling(s), extended family – some kids will come with an entourage. During the pandemic, Children’s hospitals needed to implement increased restrictions on visitations to the hospital.
JCAHO should review these adjustments made during the pandemic to identify some restrictions that make sense to maintain beyond the pandemic in enhancing patient safety. Restrictions on visitations included:
- increased use of telehealth appointments to reduce visits to the hospital facility pre-surgery
- required testing for Covid-19 for all patients and visitors
- masking for all visitors and staff (and patients outside of their hospital room)
- reduction in the number of visitors to patients allowed at the same time (usually 0-2, depending on the hospital facility)
- visitor education regarding hygiene within a hospital setting
Moving forward, I think it makes sense to especially evaluate the effectiveness of telehealth appointments where no physical examination is indicated, ensure each child’s visitors are educated in expectations for hygiene in a hospital setting, and a reduction of concurrent visitors to no less than two. My family supported a child through major surgery in 2021. At that time, we were at a hospital that allowed only one visitor at a time and no siblings under 18. This created hardship for our family in providing support and sadness and confusion for a young sibling. There is usually one family member who is more effective as a support provider and that person ended up staying at the hospital for a week without quality sleep instead of being able to help the other supporters learn how to care for the child and have breaks in care. Just sayin’ ? We were lucky to be able to have one visitor though, in some other hospitals, no visitors were allowed and that would have been traumatic and scarey for the child going through surgery and extra strenuous for hospital staff.
Cerner Corporation. (Apr 27, 2020). Pediatric hospital leads the way in providing COVID-19 careLinks to an external site.. Cerner.
“Has a doctor”. (n.d.). Pediatric Surgery During the COVID-19 Pandemic: What You Need to KnowLinks to an external site.. Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Shah, N. R., Ramji, J., Vaghela, M. M., Mehta, C., Vohra, A., and Joshi, R. S. (Jul-Aug 2022). Challenges and Changes in Pediatric Surgical Practice during the COVID-19 Pandemic EraLinks to an external site.. Journal of Indian Association of Pediatric Surgeons, 27(4), 455–461
