Patient Safety Flashcards
Define ‘patient safety’
The prevention of errors and adverse effects to patients associated with health care
Define ‘iatrogenic’
Harm caused by medical investigation or treatment
What is the CQC?
Care Quality Commission
The independent regulator of health and adult social care in England
What did the CQC find in a recent study?
Too many people are being injured or suffering unnecessary harm because NHS staff are not supported by sufficient training, and because the complexity of the current patient safety system makes it difficult for staff to ensure that safety is an integral part of everything they do.
Define patient safety as a discipline
Coordinated efforts to prevent harm, caused by the process of health care itself, from occurring to patients
What is clinical governance?
A framework through which NHS organisations are accountable for continuously improving the quality of their services and safe-guarding high standards ofcareby creating an environment in which excellence in clinicalcarewill flourish
What are the 4 principles of the NHS?
- Secure improvement to health for all
- Promote, prevent, diagnose treat, care
- Be available to all on basis of clinical need
- Free at the point of us
What is the persons centred approach to error/patient safety
- Individuals who make error are careless/at fault
- They need to be blamed and punished
- Removing the individual will improve patient safety
What is the systems approach to patient safety?
- Poor organisational designs set people up to fail
- We need to focus on changing the system rather than the individual
- Changing the system is how you improve
What % of patients suffer from healthcare errors?
10%
What is the model of accident causation?
Swiss cheese. Used in risk analysis/risk management.
What are the 3 types of intervention used for lowering stress and better patient care?
Primary: Aiming to reduce the source of stress (proactive/preventative)
Secondary: Improve peoples resources in responding to stress
Tertiary: Help those who have become stressed
What are adverse affects?
Unintended injury caused by clinical management rather than the disease process itself
What is a patient safety incident?
Any unintended event caused by healthcare which either did or could have led to patient harm
What is the adverse event iceberg?
- Serious errors which cause harm are reported
- Insignificant/near misses and unnoticed errors are classified as unreported
