Why are safety stories important?
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Pennsylvania patient safety advisory
- Author(s):
- Deutsch, Ellen S., author
- Contributor(s):
- Pennsylvania. Patient Safety Authority, issuing body.
- Publication:
- [Harrisburg, Pa.] : Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, December 2018
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Medical Errors -- prevention & control Medication Errors -- prevention & control Narration Patient Care Team Patient Safety Humans Pennsylvania United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- For healthcare professionals, intimate participation in the lives of patients and their families is both an awesome privilege and a tremendous responsibility--immensely rewarding and sometimes incredibly difficult. Healthcare providers who strive to provide the best, safest patient care must keep up with the increasing complexity of healthcare delivery and ever-escalating societal expectations. Embracing new data, new procedures, new equipment, new medications, and new treatment algorithms requires lifelong learning. Fortunately, "people working in health care are among the most educated and dedicated workforce in any industry." Most of us are eager to acquire new knowledge and refine our skills. However, the continuous desire to improve implies that there is always more we could know or do to enhance patient care. We work hard to provide the best patient care, but in pursuit of perfection, we can be very self-critical. This penchant to criticize our actions is often reflected in our approach to patient safety. The healthcare safety movement has made progress by looking beyond criticism of the "sharp end" provider, the individual whose direct act of commission or omission may have contributed to an adverse outcome for an individual patient. The "Swiss cheese" model popularized by Reason brought attention to the insight that any event that reached a patient had also been impacted by choices made at the "blunt end," by decisions that affect organizational goals, priorities, and resource allocation. However, this approach still focuses on events with undesirable outcomes and inherently criticizes individuals, alone or in groups, who make decisions and initiate actions--albeit on a different scale from healthcare providers interacting directly with patients.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-DC license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (4 pages)).
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101739383 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101739383