Running head: SAFETY AND QUALITY CARE IN NURSING
Safety and Quality Care in Nursing
Jordan Lentz
Ferris State University
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SAFETY AND QUALITY CARE IN NURSING
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Safety and Quality Care in Nursing
Safety and quality care in nursing is the heart of the healthcare industry.
Standards of practice, laws and policies influence safety and quality care in nursing.
The nursing standards of practice were established by the American Nurses Association
they include: assessment, diagnosis, outcome identification, planning, implementation,
evaluation, ethics, education, evidenced-based practice and research, quality of practice,
communication, leadership, communication, collaboration, professional practice
evaluation, resource utilization and environmental health (ANA, 2010). The American
Nurses Association (ANA) incorporates safety and quality care through every standard.
There are many laws that protect the safety of patients as well as healthcare workers.
Each facility has a multitude of policies to protect patients and their employees. The
Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) improves
the quality of care and safety to the public. Evidence-based practice plays a key role in
providing safety and quality nursing care because those are the best practices to follow
when giving safe patient care (Joint Commission Organization Website, 2013).
Dorothy E. Johnson’s central idea for her theory is “Nursing problems arise when
there are disturbances in the system of subsystem or the level of the behavioral
functioning is below an optimal level” (Taylor, Lillis, LeMone, & Lynn, 2011, p. 75).
The theory explained in a clinical practice is to support, maintain, educate, counsel and
modify the patients and families behaviors. The theory incorporates providing safe,
quality nursing care because the nurse will support and maintain the patient behavior by
being their advocate for safe and quality nursing. Healthcare providers will educate
patients and their family members on safety issues pertinent to their lifestyle. The safety
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and quality of care use team work to change or modify the patients and families
behaviors to have the best outcome. Safety and quality care are essential every skill the
nurse does from talking to preforming sterile procedures.
Sterile procedures occur every day which include tracheostomy care, wound care
and using indwelling catheters. There are many different ways that patient safety and
quality care can be compromised. Urinary Tract Infections (UTI) are the most common
hospital-acquired infections, UTI’s make up 40 percent of hospital acquired infections.
80 percent of the UTI’s are from indwelling catheters. Indwelling catheters are an
important part of everyday patient care (Nicole, 2008). Indwelling catheters do not get as
much attention as other healthcare-acquired infections because they have a lower
morbidity and mortality rate but this is no excuse and healthcare providers need to be
more aware of catheter-acquired urinary infections.
The utilizing of indwelling catheters is a skill every nurse knows but there are
times when the quality and safety of the patient is at risk. The patient is at risk if the
nurse does not use proper sterile technique and this can easy lead to catheter-acquired
urinary infections. Indwelling catheters should limited to amount of use, monitored how
long the catheter is in the bladder and correct catheter care and should be implemented
(Nicole, 2008). Hospital-acquired urinary tract infections need more research data to
reduce the rate of the infection. More policies need to be implemented into every
healthcare setting to reduce hospital-acquired urinary tract infections. Public policy and
quality incentives did not have the strength to encourage a reduction in catheter-acquired
urinary tract infections (Conway, 2013).
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Safety and quality care nursing should be the basic standards of every nurse’s
practice. Quality and safety practices should continuously be improving because of using
evidence-based practice in all healthcare settings. Many outside sources influenced
safety and quality nursing care such as laws, JCAHO, standards of practice and facilities
policies. Every nurse needs to be educated on constantly improving safety and quality
care nursing such as reducing catheter acquired urinary infections.
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References
American Nurses Association. (2010). In Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice (2nd ed.,
pp. 9-11). Silver Spring, MD: American Nurses Association.
Conway, L. J. (2013). Adoption of policies to prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infections
in United States intensive care units . American Journal of Infection Control, 40, 705710. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2011.09.020
Joint Commission Organization Website. (2013). Retrieved From
http://www.jointcommission.org
Nicole, L. E. (2008). Healthcare-acquired urinary tract infections: The problem and solutions.
Retrieved from http://www.webmm.ahrq.gov/perspective.aspx?perspectiveID=68
Taylor, C. R., Lillis, C., LeMone, P., & Lynn, P. (2011). Fundamentals of Nursing (7th ed.).
Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott-Raven.