Community Analysis: Pediatric Intensive Care

Working on a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in a large teaching hospital, there is a complex system of health care workers that make up the team assigned to a patient. Intern’s, resident’s, fellow’s, attending’s, new nurses, experienced nurses and other health care providers are all a part of a patient’s care team. The parents of these children tend to be available and present for the greater part of every day and they want to be part of the team caring for their child. Empowering parents goes a long way in effectively executing patient-centered care, honoring cultural and ethnic beliefs and better, deeper communication about the patient and his/her condition. The Institute for Patient- And Family-Centered Care is based on forwarding the idea …show more content…
This group was founded as a Federal agency on the principles of QSEN and dedicated to improving KSAs; the website comprehensively covers everything from research to toolkits. Their “mission is to produce evidence to make health care safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable and affordable.” (ahrq.org) They list children as a priority population; they are seen as the most vulnerable along with the elderly. I appreciate their attention to certain populations that seem more at risk than others. More specifically, there are articles referring to specific safety improvements in tracheal intubation. This procedure is a very common practice on my unit and it presents a myriad of issues and challenges particularly for those not well trained. The high error rate, which includes severe consequences for doing the procedure incorrectly, needs to be addressed with transparency, training and follow-up. AHRQ seems dedicated to raising the level of awareness of human medical error and finding ways to reduce the risk whether through process, policy or training. I believe they are playing a pivotal role in pushing QSEN and KSAs to the forefront of improving patient-centered health …show more content…
Their mission is to create ways to eliminate the risk in health care settings by empowering the consuming public with information. The website is full of useful checklists, workshops and patient safety information. I chose this website to review because I have experienced a lack of information and a resistance to ask questions on the part of my patients and sometimes, my families. Enrolling family members as partners in the process for improved quality and safety does demand a level of knowledge and a true openness to learning on both the medical staff and the patient. It means sometimes I have to say that ‘I don’t know’ but will go find out so that we all know the