Mistake prevention in the work environment is achieved by educating healthcare workers to perform their jobs better (Grout 5). Specifically in the lab section, the rate of contamination associated with blood culture is lowered by having well trained laboratory personnel in place. In the case of mistake prevention, the hospital uses checklists as a way of achieving mistake-proofing. This is done particularly when the lists are made in a manner that makes it impractical to move from one step to another without making a confirmation that the previous step has been properly performed (Grout 6).
In the case of preventing the influence of mistakes, the facility employs written protocols and policies detailing responsibilities as well as providing contingencies when such responsibilities are not fully met or when they are not met at all. In addition, standardized protocols are employed in the health facility to prevent idiosyncratic improvisation. In the case of mistake detection, the hospital uses self-checks and successive checks (Grout 7). Successive checks usually involve revising the last steps in order to ascertain their completion or error occurrence. Self-checks are usually restricted to workers. They employ them to evaluate their own work. In addition, in the case of determining whether an error has occurred or is about to occur, the facility introduced a mechanism called Setting functions. It is effective as it differentiates between unsafe, inaccurate, safe, and accurate conditions.
If simulation had been adopted at our facility, it could provide significant insights into possible errors and also serve as a mechanism for the discovery of the causal and psychological mechanisms of errors (Grout 27). However, our facility has not yet employed this mechanism because of the technicalities involved. The facility stands to benefit a lot with the newly formulated Multiple Fault Trees since it offers insights into the errors or causes of failures and at the same time identifies the required resources for their generation (Grout 44). If the Fall Reduction and Bed Alarms mechanism are employed, patients in our facility would be protected from risk such as falling from their bed. They would also notify caregivers when patients are getting out of bed. Sometimes bed alarms are placed on the floor near the bed so that every time a patient’s foot touches the floor, an alarm sounds. This is critical especially in case of mentally disturbed patients.
Refrigeration Feedback: the refrigerators provided for the blood bank are equipped with devices that control temperature level. Thus, the fridge alarm produces a sound at the time when the temperature drops below or rises above the normal safety range. In addition, it will be easier for anybody at our facility to understand the information as alarms produce visual, digital readings and continuous chart recordings (Grout 48). Wristbands usually offer a physical space specifically for patients’ information to reside. Those are widely used in medicine as a means to provide sensory alerts for different conditions that patients may have. Additionally, the wristband is also used for patient identification; it can be a replacement for such technology as bar coding (Grout 49). In addition, the device has a magnetic device for storing data such as medical records. This device, if adopted by our facility, will be a wonderful improvement in terms of data storage as more often we suffer from data losses.
Works Cited
Grout, John. Mistake-Proofing the Design of Health Care Processes. AHRQ (2007): pp.1-166. Print.