Applying Research Skills
As the world is evolving, so is the healthcare that evolves with it as new diseases and challenges are introduced. There are now several approaches to gaining pieces of research; these approaches have also evolved with the research materials. With the evolution of medical practices and research, patient safety is one area that must be addressed. My job as a medical transcriptionist requires the conversion of audio medical records of healthcare professionals to texts. My work does not directly involve me in any medication errors, but my work is recorded in the Electronic Health Record (EHR). The importance of storing accurate data is what makes my job important too. An example could be when a patient was brought into the healthcare facility complaining about pain in his chest, Nitroglycerin was prescribed to the patient. The dosage of this medication was documented to be 30mg instead of 3mg. This could have been a medication error that was prevented after I verified the data, fixed it, and then recorded it.
Applying Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
I accessed journal articles that are mostly associated with Pubmed. A search engine was used that goes across Capella University Library DataBases to find relevant peer-reviewed articles. The keywords that I used while carrying out the research were “medication errors”, “patient safety”, “quality care”, “nursing”, “evidence-based practices,” and “improved outcomes” so that I could find the most relevant pieces of literature. All the articles accessed were ensured to be peer-reviewed, belonging to an authentic genuine source with known authors, and published within the last five years.
Assessing the Credibility of Information
The criteria that I followed were to assess the credibility of the information gathered by incorporating the CRAAP test (University of Washington, n.d.). This test goes over the timeliness of the information making sure the publications are recent and relevant to ensure the topic of the articles is what is needed, the source of information, who is the author, and who is well-known. And finally, it goes over the accuracy and purpose to define why the information exists and how truthful it is (University of Washington, n.d.).
Analyzing Academic Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
Farokhzadian, J., Dehghan Nayeri, N., & Borhani, F. (2018). The long way ahead to achieve an effective patient safety culture: challenges perceived by nurses. BMC Health Services Research , 18(1) .
This article talks about a study that helped in the analysis of establishing a safety culture for patients and its challenges. The most important challenges that were recognized in this study were the poor work environment, lack of resources, the incompetent infrastructure of the organization, and weakness in the empowerment of staff. A study in the UK highlighted that it emphasized human resources to promote a culture of safety. Quality improvement systems were also recognized as useful tools for promoting a safety culture. Leadership strategies can be implemented, and healthcare managers play an important role in allocating resources and employing social and cultural beliefs to achieve a safety culture by engaging the healthcare team. Modern management styles were also emphasized in this article to overcome the barriers of safety culture. This article was selected to understand the challenges of promoting patient safety and what tools or approaches would be the most suitable to overcome them and establish a safer culture for the patients.
Amiri, A., Solankallio-Vahteri, T., & Tuomi, S. (2019). Role of nurses in improving patient safety: Evidence from surgical complications in 21 countries. International Journal of Nursing Sciences , 6(3) , 239–246.
This piece of literature analyzes the role of nursing staff when it comes to patient safety, mostly during surgeries where several complications can arise due to errors; one such error could be medication errors. The article verifies the relationship of patient safety with hospital nursing characteristics and nursing staff. The association is mostly with the nurse’s working environment, nursing education, nursing experience, promotion of decision-making, effective communication, implementation of evidence-based standards, collaboration relationships, management of conflict, and usage of tools for medication errors. The article concluded the relationship between increased levels of nursing staff with improving the quality of care by reducing safety failures.
This article was selected to gain a deeper understanding of the role of the nursing staff when it comes to the promotion of patient safety. The article emphasizes improving working conditions, enhancing communication and collaboration, fostering effective decision-making, and implementing tools and strategies that reduce errors. The article also mentioned how this study would make policymakers aware of the patient safety risks associated with nursing shortages.
Ackerman, S. L., Gourley, G., Le, G., Williams, P., Yazdany, J., & Sarkar, U. (2018). Improving Patient Safety in Public Hospitals: Developing Standard Measures to Track Medical Errors and Process Breakdowns. Journal of Patient Safety , 17(8) , e773–e790.
This research article does an amazing job of analyzing the patient safety gaps in health systems. There were about five Californian leaders that participated, and proposals were made for patient safety measures. All the transcripts and surveys were evaluated to understand the process. With the help of this study, it was recognized that with active engagement of the stakeholders in the health care system, which include the staff, clinicians, patients, health system leaders, and data system professionals, there could be an improvement in patient safety. It was realized a consensus can be reached with all the proposed feasible methods, which were nine in total. The study concluded that active participation can improve the safety level of patients in a healthcare facility. This study was chosen because it discusses an important approach to improving patient safety and realizes the importance of all the stakeholders involved.
Mutair, A. A., Alhumaid, S., Shamsan, A., Zaidi, A. R. Z., Mohaini, M. A., Al Mutairi, A., Rabaan, A. A., Awad, M., & Al-Omari, A. (2021). The Effective Strategies to Avoid Medication Errors and Improving Reporting Systems. Medicines , 8(9), 46.
This research was chosen as it recognizes the threat to patient safety which is the high rates of medication error. It also recognizes the medication errors as something that is avoidable. The review in this research provides an analysis on the medication errors and the reporting system. The review gives us a numerical value of 1.5 million which are the victims of medication errors every year. It also gives us a tenant to measure the incident reporting system, which is the enhancement of patient safety with the information being attained through these systems. The research emphasizes on the organizations implementing a safe reporting system without the blame culture to make the practices safer. There should be a safer infrastructure for the administration of medications. The review concludes telling us that medication errors are a burden on health care system and the reporting system should include everyone, supported with resources that are needed, and are safe for the reporter.
Learning
The peer-reviewed journal articles helped me expand my knowledge of patient safety, and the roles nurses have in promoting it. I learned about the challenges that are associated with the promotion of patient safety. With the help of the annotated bibliography, I could choose the most appropriate sources to help understand the patient’s safety.
References
Ackerman, S. L., Gourley, G., Le, G., Williams, P., Yazdany, J., & Sarkar, U. (2018). Improving patient safety in public hospitals: Developing standard measures to track medical errors and process breakdowns. Journal of Patient Safety , 17(8) , e773–e790. https://doi.org/10.1097/pts.0000000000000480
Amiri, A., Solankallio-Vahteri, T., & Tuomi, S. (2019). Role of nurses in improving patient safety: Evidence from surgical complications in 21 countries. International Journal of Nursing Sciences , 6(3) , 239–246. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnss.2019.05.003
Farokhzadian, J., Dehghan Nayeri, N., & Borhani, F. (2018). The long way ahead to achieve an effective patient safety culture: challenges perceived by nurses. BMC Health Services Research , 18(1) . https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-3467-1
Mutair, A. A., Alhumaid, S., Shamsan, A., Zaidi, A. R. Z., Mohaini, M. A., Al Mutairi, A., Rabaan, A. A., Awad, M., & Al-Omari, A. (2021). The effective strategies to avoid medication errors and improving reporting systems. Medicines , 8(9), 46. https://doi.org/10.3390/medicines8090046
The University of Washington. (n.d.). Library Guides: FAQ: How do I know if my sources are credible/reliable? https://guides.lib.uw.edu/research/faq/reliable