Fundamentals: Patient Safety

Question 1

Risks for Infant, toddlers, and prechoolers

Answer 1

Poisoning, and choking, injuries, fire, falls, motor vehicle accident, bicycle accident, drowning, and head trauma.

Question 2

Risks for school-aged children

Answer 2

head injuries, bicycle accidents, and not using seatbelts and car seats.

Question 3

Risks for adolescents

Answer 3

smoking, drink alcohol, drugs, motor vehicle accidents, and physical relationships

Question 4

Risks for adults

Answer 4

excessive alcohol use, smoking, and high levels of stress.

Question 5

Risks for older adults

Answer 5

physiological changes (due to aging, mult. medications, psychological and cognitive factors, and acute/chronic diseases), FALLS, wandering, and other issues relating to falling.

Question 6

What individual risk factors pose a threat to safety

Answer 6

Lifestye, impaired mobility, sensory or communication impairment, lack of safety awareness.

Question 7

Major risks to patient safety in the health care environment

Answer 7

Falls, patient-inherent accidents, procedure-related accidents, equipment

Question 8

Falls

Answer 8

results in minor to severe injuries such as bruises, hip fractures, or head trauma.

Question 9

Patient inherent accidents

Answer 9

accidents in which a patient is the primary reason for the accident.

Question 10

Procedure related accidents

Answer 10

caused by health care providers and includes meds and fluid administration errors, improper applications or external devices, and accidents related to improper performance of procedures such as dressing changes or urinary catheter insertion.

Question 11

Equipment

Answer 11

results from malfunction, disrepair, or misuse of equipment, or from an electrical hazard.

Question 12

Physical restraint

Answer 12

any manual method or physical or mechanical device, material, or equipment that immobilizes or reduce the ability of a patient to move his or her arms, legs, body, or head freely

Question 13

use of restraints must meet the following objectives

Answer 13

reduce risk of patient injury from fall.
prevent interruption of therapy such as traction, IV infusions, nasogastric tube feeding, or foley catheterization.
prevent patients who are confused or combative from removing life support equipment.
reduce the risk of injury to others by the patient.

Question 14

Alternatives to restraints

Answer 14

Walking, exercise, reduce noise level to allow patient to sleep and reduce their agitation, turn TV off, use bed/chair check, or use family members.

Question 15

RACE

Answer 15

R: rescue and remove all patients in immediate danger
A: activate the alarm. Always do this before attempting to distinguish even a minor fire.
C: confine the fire by closing doors and windows and turning off oxygen and electrical equipment.
E: extinguish the fire with an appropriate extinguisher.