Safety Strategies Every Nurse Leader Needs to Know
By: American Nurses Association
11 Strategies for Health Care Organizations
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought both patient and staff safety concerns to the forefront. Organizations are critically examining their safety protocols and processes and adapting them to meet the changing demands of this crisis. Through these many changes, organizations are learning valuable lessons about the importance of interprofessional collaboration to achieve safety goals.
The well-being of patients and staff must be the priority for all health care organizations. Nurses and their interprofessional team members should establish safety practices through a collaborative decision-making approach, based on strong evidence and focused on improving patient and population health outcomes. By incorporating evidence-based practice, organizational values, and staff expertise, organizations can develop solid safety and quality protocols that result in better patient and staff outcomes.
Consider these 11 strategies for improving patient safety and quality of care, recommended by the ANCC Pathway to Excellence® team:
- Implement process improvement strategies to help tackle the pandemic (e.g., LEAN, PDCA, etc.).
- Create a response team with staff representation from departments across the organization.
- Coordinate efforts to prevent duplication.
- Prioritize in accordance with
- Network with other organizations – share with, and learn from, each other.
- Listen and respond to the lived experience of staff at the bedside.
- Gather information from evidence-based studies.
- Follow the recommended guidelines (i.e., CDC, OSHA, HHS).
- Establish your own protocol that meets your organization’s unique needs (triggered by scarcity of resources, level of patient acuity, number of cases admitted, etc.).
- Ensure timely training and dissemination of information.
- Be vigilant and open to taking risks!
Should you fall, be brave enough to get back up, learn from those mistakes, and move on!
To see how Pathway to Excellence can help your organization achieve its patient safety goals, click here.
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