The influence of nursing leadership as a driving force for changes

The influence of nursing leadership as a driving force for changes Essay Assignment Paper

The influence of nursing leadership as a driving force for changes

Nurses interact with patients most of their time. Patients spend more time with patients than any other health care professionals. Nurses can lead the change to enhance the patient safety because simple steps, like washing floors and the avoidance of slippery floors may be a part of nurses’ responsibility which can secure patients from falls (Gardner, Robertson, Campbell, 2000). Nurses may simply talk to patients to warn them against risks of falls which may occur because of patients’ current condition or because of the inattentiveness or carelessness of patients, when the risk of fall may be avoided. Therefore, nurses should lead the change and help patients to avoid falls.

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At the same time, the proactive position of nurses will encourage managers of the health care organization to introduce changes to enhance the patient safety through the introduction of more effective patient safety policies concerning falls. The protection of patients should become the priority for the health care organization, but managers may be unaware of the problem or underestimate the problem. The proactive position of nurses and their initiatives to decrease the risk of falls will increase the awareness of managers of the problem and encourage them to enhance patient safety policies and minimize the risk of falls.

The impact of current policies and procedures on safety issues

Current policies and procedures focus on standard safety measures that lead to the prevention of the risk of falls. However, different patients have different needs and they face the different degree of risk of falls. For example, elderly patients are more likely to fall compared to young patients (Foss, et al., 2006). This is why current policies need the enhancement to make the fall prevention policy more effective. Moreover, the prevention of falls should become the priority for the health care organization and the patient safety policy should address the problem of falls specifically.

The strategy to collect information about falls

To collect the information about falls, mangers responsible for the patient safety should focus on specific issues. The analysis of cases of falls registered in the health care organization will reveal why falls occur, what types of falls occur, and what the major causes of falls are. Nurses have to register every case of fall to provide the information to the manager to collect information about falls.Health Care Organization: Safety Improvement Plan

The evidence-based practice to improve patient safety with regard to falls

The evidence-based practice to improve the patient safety with regard to falls reveals that the effective strategy to prevent falls includes several steps. First, the health care organization has to lead an effort to raise awareness of the need to prevent falls resulting in injury (The Joint Commission, n.d.). The rise of awareness of the risk of injury caused by fall evokes responsive actions from the part of the nursing staff and patients to prevent falls. Second, the health care organization has to establish an interdisciplinary falls injury prevention team or evaluate the membership of the team in place (The Joint Commission, n.d.). This step will contribute to the creation of the team specialized on the prevention of falls that will lead to the prevention of falls. Third, the health care organization has to use a standardized, validated tool to identify risk factors for falls (The Joint Commission, n.d.). The use of the validated tool will help to measure the risk and occurrence of falls and, thus, to monitor the progress of the fall prevention policy. Fourth, the health care organization has to develop an individualized plan of care based implement interventions specific to a patient, population or setting (The Joint Commission, n.d.). The plan will include specific steps to eliminate risk factors, increase the awareness of the staff and patients and risks of falls and, thus, decrease the probability of falls. Fifth, the organization has to standardize and apply practices and interventions demonstrated to be effective, including: a standardized hand-off communication process and one-to-one education of each patient at the bedside (The Joint Commission, n.d.). In such a way, patients will be aware of the risk of falls and protected from such risks. In addition, the health care organization has to conduct post-fall management, which includes: a post-fall huddle; a system of honest, transparent reporting; trending and analysis of falls, which can inform improvement efforts; and reassess the patient (The Joint Commission, n.d.).Health Care Organization: Safety Improvement Plan