THE ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF NURSES FOR PATIENT SAFETY
IN GASTROENTEROLOGY UNIT
AT AMERICAN HOSPITAL, TÜRKİYE
Selda Korkmaz*, Çiğdem Özüçağlayan Küreş**, Senem Hıdır*, Çetin Keskin*
Patient safety is an integral part of all nursing practices. And there are many risks for
patient in gastroenterology units. In this presentation, the roles and responsibilities of nurses
for patient safety in gastroenterology unit at American Hospital, Türkiye will be shared with
the congress participants.
Nurses are responsible to use Joint Commission International Patient Safety goals in
the hospital. Some examples for nursing practices through these goals in the unit are as
follows;
 Identify Patients Correctly. American Hospital’s procedures identify a patient, with a
bar-coded wristband that includes the identification number, patient’s name and surname,
birth date. To provide correct treatments or procedures to correct patient, every step of
identification processes is checked by asking patient. And then, nurses look at a bar-coded
wristband and folder to check.
 Improve Effective Communication among caregivers. In gastroenterology unit , during
the procedure doctor gives to nurses verbal medicine orders. Before doing the order nurse
write down the complete order and read it back to doctor to confirm it.
 Improve the Safety of High-Alert Medications. When preparing the high-alert
medicines, such as narcotic analgesic -aldolan- ordered by doctors in the unit., two nurses
check the medicines to reduce risk of errors.
 Ensure Correct-Site, Correct-Procedure, Correct-Patient Surgery. The health care
team uses a checklist and time-out procedure just before starting a procedure as
gastroscopy or a surgical procedure as liver injection biopsy in the unit.
 Reduce the Risk of Health Care–Associated Infections. Hand hygiene guidelines are
used and also all the endoscopes are disinfected by the registered staffs of sterilizasyon
unit in gastroenterology unit.
 Reduce the Risk of Patient Harm Resulting from Falls. In the unit, patients have
sedation during procedures. Nurses use protocols that address to keep patient from falls.
* Gastroenterology Nurse, American Hospital, Türkiye
** Head nurse, Gastroenterology Unit, American Hospital, Türkiye