Reflective Essay On Long Term Care

Superior Essays
Introduction
I work in the long term care facility, where mostly seniors lives. Hazard assessment is the part of my job routine. Safety of the residents and staff members always comes first. The goal of the hazard assessment is to prevent injuries, accidents, and any other adverse events. I did my hazard assessment audit in this facility. In this report, I will discuss the hazards identified as priorities by my employer, risks and hazards observed during the audit, how my employer address these risks and hazards, and closing with recommendations.
Risks and Hazards Identified as Priorities
My workplace have seven different units and each unit has a common area, dining room, a kitchen, utility room, spa room and resident’s rooms. A main laundry
…show more content…
Staff was not informing the housekeeping on time. In some rooms, loose carpet was noted. In some washrooms lights were not working properly. In the kitchen, dietary staff was wearing the mesh shoes, a hot coffee, tea or soup can spill and can result in burn injury. Also, staff was not utilizing the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) properly. Some staff was noted wearing gloves in the hallways. Furthermore, some staff members were not following the four moments of hand hygiene; before initial patient/environment contact, before aseptic procedure, after body fluid exposure risk, after patient environment contact (Public Health Ontario, …show more content…
WHIMS training is provided to all employees on hiring and thereafter annually. Many in-services are given on the job. WSIB information is available on the health and safety notice board. All the policies and procedures are available on intranet, staff are encouraged to read them when they are unsure of anything. Staff are required to wear close toe shoes, no mesh shoes are allowed to wear at the workplace. Staff are required to wear PPE for infection control purposes.
Recommendations
Following are some recommendations for management to fill up the gaps in occupational health and safety practices:
• The management should address the issues in the timely manner.
• Staff should be encouraged to report all near misses and incidents without the fear of reprisal.
• An extended in class and on the floor orientation should be given to all new hires.
• Staff who follows the policies and procedures correctly should be rewarded
• Units where rate of infections are lower in compare to other units should be recognized for keeping the infection rate low
• Management should do the inspections more frequently
• Leaders should demonstrate the safe behaviors to set an example for

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In the March of 1911, one hundred and forty five workers, the majority of which were women, perished in a textile fire due to the neglect of their employer to provide a safe working environment. (“Triangle Shirtwaist Fire”, 2009) This event became known to history as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and was the catalyst for many progressive reforms in New York City such as the establishment of the Bureau of Fire Prevention, changing the Municipal Building Code and eventually the overhaul of the state’s labor code. (“Legislative Reform at State and Local Level”, n.d) Our inheritance from these reforms is that we as a society have placed the expectation upon employers to provide and ensure the health and safety of their employees in the workplace and that failing to do so has consequences.…

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Est1 Task 5.2

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages

    4.4 Properly use personal protective equipment and clothing as required or directed. 4.5 Consistently act in a safe manner, being constantly aware of their surroundings, work conditions, equipment operation and the activities of others. 4.6 Comply with the Drug and Alcohol policy. 4.7 Immediately report all safety and health hazards to their…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Unit 3 P1

    • 544 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The health and safety act the main piece of legislation covering health and safety in all workplaces in Great Britain. The Health and Safety Executive, alongside local authorities (and other enforcing authorities) is responsible for applying the Act and a number of additional Acts related to the working environment. The health and safety act applies to everyone in the work places. If the organisation do not meet the demands of the heathy and safety work act, they will not be allow to function.…

    • 544 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Infection Prevention: Hand Hygiene Kayla M. Fleming Milwaukee Area Technical College NRSAD 114: Management and Professional Concepts October 16th, 2016 Infection Prevention: Hand Hygiene It’s hard to imagine washing or sanitizing your hands every time you touch someone you’ve known for a very long time. Hand hygiene seems common place in hospital settings but may sometimes go lacking in long term care settings due simply to familiarity with the people being cared for. Regardless of the setting, the Clinical practice guidelines are the same. The purpose of this paper will be to explore the Long Term Care National Patient Safety Goal of Infection Prevention: Hand Hygiene, the Evidence-based guideline related to the National Patient Safety…

    • 1511 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Quebec Hospital System

    • 442 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Contaminates can exposed everywhere inside the institution without individuals knowing that the hospital can be contaminated or not. In addition, hazardous events often occur within the hospital that bring an impact on the health of the patient. For example, a total of “255 patients who experienced adverse events, 106 were judged to have one or more with a high preventability rating.” (Blais, R. Brown, A. Cox, J. Derflingher, L.P. Etchells, E. Flinton, V. Ghali,…

    • 442 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many do not know that hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. These cost the healthcare industry nearly six billion dollars annually (Benson, 2011, p. 36). The statistics can be quite shocking considering people typically go to the hospital to improve their health. Hospital-acquired infections are a significant problem worldwide and are by far the most adverse events in the healthcare industry. Infection control can be defined as “the policies and procedures used to minimize the risk of spreading infections caused by bacteria or viruses” (medical dictionary, n.d.).Thus, infection control is imperative in order to reduce the number of hospital-acquired infections and provide essential patient…

    • 938 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Safety is a major concern in the work place, and high insurance premiums will drastically decrease company profits. To improve safety, Lance Durban will spearhead the new safety division, which includes: in depth safety training of job associated risks to all employees, mandatory personal protective equipment (PPE) policies applicable for various job tasks, hazard recognition and near miss investigation forms, and lastly pre-job hazard assessment forms. All-inclusive, the new safety program which takes in account employee feedback should set loss time accidents and personal injuries as a KPI to watch, review, and decrease to nothing over a ten year period. To address the issue of communication, there will be weekly production and safety meetings, which will include all members of management and the union president. The objective of the meetings is to formulate a weekly plan and approve or delegate side projects to certain employees which will streamline objectives, address concerns in the employee suggestion box, and create opportunities to keep the remaining staff informed and included.…

    • 991 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Hospital hazards are anything that can directly or indirectly cause hazards to those working in a health and safety environment. Health and Safety Executives are accountable for carrying out health and safety in work legislation. They play an important role in guiding advice on health and safety issues, and advice on appropriate law. The Health and Safety Act place a duty on all employers to guarantee fair viable of the health, safety and welfare at work for their employees. The Health and Safety Act demands safe undertaking and maintenance of the working environment, safe use of handling and storage of dangerous substances, sufficient training to secure health and safety for the wellbeing provided for staff at work.…

    • 169 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Healthcare-Associated Infections Overview Most people around the world have a general understanding that hospitals are a place where people go to get better. However, it is not common knowledge amongst the world’s population that these are also places where infections can, and often do, occur (Fremgen, 2012). Previously termed nosocomial infections, and now referred to as healthcare-associated infections, these infections are contracted while individuals are being treated for other health related disease or illness (Carlton & Adler, 2013).…

    • 381 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    OSHA Essay

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages

    On December 29, 1970, President Nixon signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, which included three agencies. Among those three was the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). OSHA is responsible for implementing standards to ensure safe and healthy working conditions for those men and women in the workforce. One way OSHA has been successful is by reducing injury in the workplace. Occupational hearing loss has been a major concern for workers as early as the 1960's.…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Introduction Healthcare associated infections (HAIs) are a source of financial problems and preventable complications including death, for hospitals throughout the United States of America. According to an article found in The Journal of Infection Control, the focus of research has been on hand sanitization of healthcare workers, and there has been a lack of research regarding patients’ hand hygiene practices (Istenes, Bingham, Hazelett, Fleming, & Kirk, 2013, p. 794). This becomes problematic because as Barker et al. (2014) suggest, “patients are a common source of their own infections” (p. 585). Ardizzone, Smolowitz, Kline, Thorn, and Larson (2013) support this statement by suggesting that many infections are due to patients’…

    • 1463 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Complying With Statutory Regulations And Organisational Safety Requirements Describe the roles and responsibilities of themselves and others under the Health and Safety at Work Act and other current legislation(such as The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations, Workplace Health and Safety and Welfare Regulations, Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations, Manual Handling Operations Regulations, Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations, Display Screen at Work Regulations, Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations) The responsibilities I have as an employee means I have a duty to take care of my own health and safety and that of others who may be affected by my actions at work. I must…

    • 2328 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The second element to comply with is ensuring that each employee who may be at risk to some type of exposure is thoroughly donned with the proper personal protective equipment. “For the dental community, the proper personal protective equipment includes: a facemask, eye protection with side shields, medical exam gloves, and a lab gown.” OSHA uses the CDC guidelines for this element (Baker). Each employee should be trained on how to properly wear each piece, understand the importance of each piece, and…

    • 1148 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dynamic Duo Case Study

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages

    should look into creating is a job hazard analysis (JHA). “JHA is a multistep process designed to study and analyze a task-or job- then break down that task into steps which provide a means of eliminating associated hazards” (Swartz, 2002, p. 27). While it may be hard for the facility to create a JHA for every job, maybe they should look at the jobs or areas where the employees are getting injured the most or the areas the employees are becoming ill. The plant obviously has some safety issues to address since five employees became injured about the compliance officer visited the facility, so I would recommend establishing a JHA for those areas first then worry about the other areas and jobs later. A JHA is beneficial because it provides detailed procedures on how to safely perform a task in different areas of the plant.…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Introduction/Review of Literature Introduction Hospital acquired infections (HAI), also known as healthcare associated infections or nosocomial infections, are infections transmitted to patients while in a hospital or other healthcare facility. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2015), there were approximately 722,000 patients suffering from hospital acquired infections in the United States in 2011 of whom 75,000 suffered fatalities. Accordingly, hospital acquired infections accounted for more deaths in 2011 than the 32,367 fatalities from motor vehicle accidents combined with the 41,374 fatalities from breast cancer in 2011 (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014, September; U.S Department of Transportation,…

    • 1608 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays