Introduction: Healthcare workers who are focused on providing the best care possible to their patients are exposed to a wide variety of workplace hazards. Some of these hazardous exposures include infections, needle sticks, sharps injuries, back injuries, allergy causing substances, violence, stress, and radiation. “Worldwide, approximately three million needle stick or sharps injuries occur annually during healthcare procedures” (Zaidi, 2012). As a healthcare professional the first goal is to always protect the patient from harm whether it be biological, chemical, psychological, physical, or environmental. The second goal is to protect the health care provider by whatever means necessary. There are certain Infection Control Programs that
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The health care industry needs to be kept safe from the endless risks that are possessed from working in the field. It is important to maintain ergonomic environments in the healthcare industry to assure long-lasting careers. Many factors play a role in this matter including guidelines/protocols, healthcare administrators, OSHA, healthcare practitioners, patients, cost, and cleaning methods. But overall, does cost affect the measures taken to ensure the safety of health care professionals? I hypothesize that cost does affect the measures taken to ensure healthcare professionals safety while in the workplace.
Methods:
The population being studied is hospitals in different areas of the United States. The sample would contain two or three hospitals in each state. This will allow us to see if location, socioeconomic status, or other factors contribute to the finding if cost is related to the measures taken to ensure the safety of healthcare professionals. Location and therefore socioeconomic status will most likely correlate to what hospitals funds are spent on.
Once inside the chosen hospital a mixed method embedded design approach would take place. Employees from all departments whether clinical or non-clinical such as nurses, physicians, administrators, registration, and environmental will be given a survey to participate in. This survey will have questions such as: …show more content…
With more information on occupational safety in the hospital setting, more opportunities can be taken to improve the conditions. For example when there was an increase in needle sticks among healthcare professionals, they changed the method to not recapping the dirty needle, then even invented sharp safety devices that automatically cover the needle after the injection is performed (Stringer, 2013).
This study includes limitations such as a hospital taking all the precautionary measure and still having outcomes of occupational safety issues. Another limitation would be not being able to afford certain luxuries for example if a hospital is not in a sustainable economic status. There are also factors that could sway to results of the study. If participants decide not to take maters seriously by not reporting an injury it could cause an imbalance of data.
Overall conclusion The hospital employees are what make healthcare possible for people in need. In order to keep hospitals running there needs to be professionals to work without having risks on their safety. Occupational safety of the healthcare professional is of importance to not just them individually but everyone. Looking into the staffs and administrators perspective along with data gives a well-rounded idea of how to improve the illnesses and injuries that can be caused while working in a
The health care industry needs to be kept safe from the endless risks that are possessed from working in the field. It is important to maintain ergonomic environments in the healthcare industry to assure long-lasting careers. Many factors play a role in this matter including guidelines/protocols, healthcare administrators, OSHA, healthcare practitioners, patients, cost, and cleaning methods. But overall, does cost affect the measures taken to ensure the safety of health care professionals? I hypothesize that cost does affect the measures taken to ensure healthcare professionals safety while in the workplace.
Methods:
The population being studied is hospitals in different areas of the United States. The sample would contain two or three hospitals in each state. This will allow us to see if location, socioeconomic status, or other factors contribute to the finding if cost is related to the measures taken to ensure the safety of healthcare professionals. Location and therefore socioeconomic status will most likely correlate to what hospitals funds are spent on.
Once inside the chosen hospital a mixed method embedded design approach would take place. Employees from all departments whether clinical or non-clinical such as nurses, physicians, administrators, registration, and environmental will be given a survey to participate in. This survey will have questions such as: …show more content…
With more information on occupational safety in the hospital setting, more opportunities can be taken to improve the conditions. For example when there was an increase in needle sticks among healthcare professionals, they changed the method to not recapping the dirty needle, then even invented sharp safety devices that automatically cover the needle after the injection is performed (Stringer, 2013).
This study includes limitations such as a hospital taking all the precautionary measure and still having outcomes of occupational safety issues. Another limitation would be not being able to afford certain luxuries for example if a hospital is not in a sustainable economic status. There are also factors that could sway to results of the study. If participants decide not to take maters seriously by not reporting an injury it could cause an imbalance of data.
Overall conclusion The hospital employees are what make healthcare possible for people in need. In order to keep hospitals running there needs to be professionals to work without having risks on their safety. Occupational safety of the healthcare professional is of importance to not just them individually but everyone. Looking into the staffs and administrators perspective along with data gives a well-rounded idea of how to improve the illnesses and injuries that can be caused while working in a