Assignment: The Patient Safety, Risk Prevention, and Risk Management Paradigm

Assignment: The Patient Safety, Risk Prevention, and Risk Management Paradigm

In 2 pages, describe how a focus on patient safety, risk prevention, and risk management work together to decrease patient harm and mitigate resultant claims.

The Patient Safety, Risk Prevention, and Risk Management Paradigm

Ensuring that every patient is safe and free from hazards should be a priority in every hospital. Every facility should have policies to follow if the safety of patients is at risk or has been compromised. In this essay, I will discuss patient safety, risk prevention and risk management. I will further describe how the three work together with the focus of decreasing harm to patients and reducing resultant claims.

Patient Safety

The World Health Organization (WHO) describes patient safety as the absence of avoidable harm inflicted on a patient during care. Patient safety also involves decreasing the risk of preventable harm related to health care to the minimum acceptable level (WHO, 2017). To safeguard and improve patients’ safety in the provision of health care, organizations should formulate policies and scientific information that promote safety practices (Sujan et al., 2015). Additionally, employing skilled health providers and actively involving patients in their plan of care significantly helps in sustaining and improving patient safety.

Risk Prevention

Health organizations and staff should prevent risks to the least possible level. Hazards that pose a risk in health care are classified as biological, chemical, physical and mechanical (Tamers et al., 2019). The hazards put patients and staff at risk of acquiring nosocomial infections, accidents, and injuries. Nevertheless, the risks can be prevented by having clear guidelines on infection prevention and control, prevention of medical errors and safety precautions (Sujan et al., 2015). For instance, infection prevention can be practiced by having guidelines on aseptic technique practice, hand washing and using protective equipment such as gowns and gloves (Tamers et al., 2019). Safety precautions help prevent injuries and accidents such as falls and fire in health facilities.

Risk Management

Risk management involves quality and safety improvement of health services through the identification of conditions that pose a risk to patients and prevention or control of the risks (Alam, 2016). The process of risk management in health care includes identifying the risk, assessing the severity and rate of recurrence. In addition, the risk identified is eliminated or reduced to the acceptable minimum (Alam, 2016). Lastly, an assessment is conducted on the expenses saved when the risk is reduced and on the amount it will cost if the risk occurs. It is crucial that organizations have a risk management team whose roles is to conduct a risk assessment, design and implement a plan on risk management (Alam, 2016). The team further oversees the implementation of the plan by the staff to reduce exposure to hazards.

Decreasing Patient Harm and Mitigating Resultant Claims

Focusing on patient safety, risk prevention and risk management in a health organization help in decreasing harm to patients (WHO 2017). Health professionals should uphold the ethic of ‘Do no harm’, and this can be accomplished by preventing health risks that may deteriorate patients’ condition. Besides, if a patient is harmed during care, the patient can sue the facility (Sujan et al., 2015). Having a risk management plan ensures that patient care is not compromised, reduces liability cases and helps prevent fiscal losses.

Conclusion

To sum it up, health organizations should ensure that preventable harm to patients is reduced to an acceptable minimum. To safeguard patients’ safety, facilities should have guidelines on risk prevention that should be followed by the staff. In addition, a risk management team’s role in an organization is to identify risks, design and oversee the implementation of a risk management plan. This helps to a great extent in reducing harm to patients and mitigating financial loss due to claims.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• The is a great resource