Representative Brian Prince
409-D, Coverdell Legislative Office Bldg
Atlanta, GA 30334
Dear Representative Prince,
This letter is written to address one of the most crucial challenges to current healthcare policy for the state which are related to patient safety standards and those of ethical behaviors prevalent in current facilities. As a member of the governing council of the most prominent Non-profit healthcare organization in the state, I strongly advocate the practical admissibility and legislative acknowledgement of these changes proposed in the current health policy.
Proposed policy and motive behind its implementation
The proposed policy change in current healthcare policy is in terms of introducing a mandatory compliance norm for hand hygiene in all the healthcare interactions and procedures. The motive behind this policy is to implement stringent compliance standards providing vital information on the precise time of using hand hygiene (When) in aiding to lesser transmission of infectious pathogens. Further, the compliance needs to be linked with adequate training on proper hand hygiene methods (How), and expert guidance over the consequent results of maintaining perfect skin health and patient safety standard to ensure maximum patient safety standards (Why).
Why the policy change is needed?
Patient safety at health care facilities is affected by a lot of factors and infection is a key aspect in this list of factors that the legislature needs to address via proper policy changes. Almost 80,000 deaths every year are occurring due to infection and the involved costs regarding infection at health care facilities ranged to $33.8 Billion in 2007 (Pfoh, 2013). These infections and associated costs can be easily mitigated through adequate hand hygiene measures. It has already been proved by a number of studies that almost all the infections related to healthcare-linked pathogens can be reduced in their transmission via hand hygiene (Pfoh, 2013).
Propose action plan for the compliance
The proposed policy aims for patient healthcare safety enhancement via reducing the scope of transmission of infectious pathogens using effective hand hygiene compliance. This compliance can be implemented by applying the basics of evidence based practice in nursing with regards to hand hygiene intervention in current practices. This is done by using a holistic guidance program which compiles evidence-based interventions with governance oriented goal-setting methods which can be further evaluated through proper leadership and deployed measurement tools. The proposed compliance is to be introduced in form of an intervention which can be described in four steps:
(1) Awareness and acceptance phase: Expert agency guidance on how to improve the current knowledge and awareness standards of the hospital nursing staff regarding the proper hand hygiene based on evidence-based practice.
(2) Hands-on training phase: Live practical application for mock situations so as to have the workers getting demonstrated with the implementation basics of their hand hygiene knowledge.
(3) Resource allocation and availability phase: Leadership level intake upon ensuring the availability of sanitization resources like the alcohol-based rub and non-surgical gloves for nursing staff which works at the patient’s interface point of care.
(4) Evaluation of proper adherence to hand hygiene compliance phase: This phase intends to ensure that the nursing staff’s perception and acceptance of the competency parameters in the taught procedures of hand hygiene are evaluated after the module. Further, the implementation of the statutory norms needs to be periodically verified and the reviews should be done by an authentic external agency.
Importance of the proposed change and issues that have evolved to make it a concern
There are two prime aspects which can be addressed by implementing the aforesaid policy change in the current health care system. The primary intent is to resolve the rising issues in current health care setting which hamper the deployed patient care measures. A number of international studies have already ratified the prominent issue of more severe damage to patient health safety caused as a result of infections and injuries caused due to adverse system settings in the hospital and social healthcare settings. These infections cause an internal threat to the system from a facility that is actually supposed to aid his recovery from the ongoing ailment and the adverse impact of infections actually causes more damage (Department of health and Children, 2008). The secondary impact is in terms of the rising costs incurred at the hospitals and other healthcare settings have been estimated to reach beyond $33.8 billion almost 8 years ago. Hence, the policy change can be a crucial turnaround on both of these critical issues of modern healthcare systems.
Who will be affected by the proposed change: the stakeholders?
The proposed policy change calls for a participation from all the major stakeholders in the healthcare system who are patients, nursing staff, hospital management, monitoring and licensing authorities, and the legislative body. The given change will be installed into the current healthcare policy system by a legislative intrusion which will be monitored and implemented as a mandatory compliance from specific government agencies. Further, the training, monitoring, implementation, resource allocation, and execution at the patient interface level will be carried under the governance of management leadership. The final changes in hand hygiene norms will be carried by the nursing staff and patients will be benefitted in terms of augmented safety.
Responsibilities of the organizational leadership and impact on resources
The responsibility of the healthcare organization’s leadership is to implement the proposed policy changes via channelized nuances of clinical governance which defines the organization’s culture, the patient safety related values, the processes which define attainment of organizational goals, and the proposed change procedures (Department of health and Children, 2008). The organization’s leaders should incorporate the stated compliance norms in their vision to ensure a sustained quality of care that includes initiatives of developing a culture where all the standards of hand hygiene and patient safety are aptly mixed with the patient-centric care. Hence, the hand hygiene compliance must reform the prevalent form of clinical governance executed by Board and CEO of a healthcare organisation (Department of health and Children, 2008).
The resources which will be primarily affected by this compliance are those of organization level resources which need to be involved to ensure thorough implementation of the procedures. Human resources are required for perfectly training, executing, evaluating, and reviewing the implemented changes of hand hygiene at all levels of patient interface. The material resources are those regarding the availability of sanitization resources like the alcohol-based rub and non-surgical gloves for nursing staff which works at the patient’s interface point of care. Finally, capital will be required for implementation and training modules for the nursing staff. The consequent change will definitely impact in terms of lowering the costs incurred for fighting infection problems.
Licensing board requirements
There are no specific initiatives required from the licensing board as the proposed policy change is more of an ‘evidence based practice’ enabled compliance which requires more ethical and moral stance from the involved stakeholders. The licenses allotted to the emergency departments are already self-sufficient in enforcing the compliance to these changes as well.
Impact of not following ethical standards of patient safety
The violation of ethical approach in patient safety standards by nursing staff has severe impacts on the patient’s health. The consequences of not following the ethical standards of patient safety come in the form of practices which result in careless and negligent care practice for the patients and deliberate aversion of mandatory disclosure to the clients (Lachman, 2007). Staff who avoid adherence to ethics of patient safety may avoid disclosing the exact reasons of the medical error to the patient and the physician which might ultimately lead to a delayed medical response to the exact cause of patient safety violation and consequent health hazards (Lachman, 2007).
Responsibility of licensing boards towards patient safety
The professional licensing bodies are very crucial in ensuring the adherence to enforcement of ethical and professional excellence in maintaining the true essence of patient safety protocols by the hospital staff (Croskerry & Cosby, 2009). The role of licensing boards gets more prominent in issuing licences to the emergency departments because the patient safety protocols have a high vulnerability in case of emergency situations and the threat of infection is imminent in such scenario. Hence, bodies like the American Board of Medical Specialities define the ethical and professional standards of patient safety to ensure that there are least violations of stipulated norms for maximum patient benefits (Croskerry & Cosby, 2009).
I hope that above-stated change in the modern healthcare policies and presented rationale behind the proposed change will be apt enough to seek your attention and call for a legislative action on the same. I have more detailed reports regarding various health care centre statistics which can be referred for an elaborate view of each health centre’s performance in the state as per stipulated patient safety norms.
Regards,
References
Croskerry, P. & Cosby, K. (2009). Patient Safety in Emergency Medicine. Lippincot Williams & Wilkins publishing: 344-347. Print
Lachman, V.D. (2007). Patient Safety: The Ethical Imperative. Ethics, Law, and Policy. Medsurg Nursing. Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/EthicsStandards/Safety/Patient-Safety.pdf
Pfoh, E. (2013). Interventions to Improve Hand Hygiene Compliance: Brief Update Review. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK133371/
