Chain Of Command In Nursing Care

Improved Essays
Nurses are key pieces to the sometimes puzzling features of safety. At my workplace nurses go the extra mile to keep patients safe while under our care. Although policy of our hospital is to round on patients every hour, we have a designated staff member who rounds in between each hour throughout the day. We use three patient identifiers, which include name, birth date, and the last four of their account number. As with many to all hospitals there are plenty of protocols and policies to keep the patient and employees safe. We utilize the aforementioned aspects multiple times through the day. One that sticks out most is grand rounds twice daily. During this time the attending, resident, and intern of each specialty care, radiology, lab, primary …show more content…
Meaning we start with the person who committed the error, progressing to the charge nurse, and if escalated we go to the nurse manager. We also have a system in place where regardless of where in the chain of command we took the error, we as employees report it by filling out an incident form. This gets followed up by the proper people, usually the assistant nurse manager handles these meetings. We also have a separate form to fill out for near misses. These primarily stay within the unit counsel and is brought up for our monthly meetings. We as a team decide what could be done to prevent coming close to an error, and how to continue to be vigilant in protecting each other from making mistakes. In short, we hold each other accountable on each of our actions, without the conflict of holding grudges against each …show more content…
I am however certain that majority of you students will touch on my missing subjects since safety is a universal competency. I find that the hospital I work for does a great job by creating a safe environment for its employees. Any reports of errors will not lead to a termination of those who report a wrong doing. However, there is always room for improvement of safety in hospitals. My improvement would be a mandatory annual skills check. This will keep everyone from the new grad to the most seasoned nurse competent in patient care skills. This improvement will help reduce the possibilities of harm done to the patient. Chamberlain College of Nursing’s (CCN) online lesson explains, “Fatigue in the nurse is a crucial issue that can affect safety and quality in nursing care” (CCN, 2016). A decrease in the quality of nursing care leads to many safety issues, I find that most hospitals are under staffed and tend not to be in a rush to solve the staffing issue. My unit has 10 nurses, one charge nurse, 5 techs, 1 rounding tech, and an admission/ discharge nurse per shift in order to provide safe care without the usual staffing issue. Although it is great to have, my last improvement will be a quality given report by the admission/ discharge nurse to the primary nurse. During the admission possess we as nurses gain the most information on the patient.

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