Benchmarking involves comparing and measuring an organization’s services versus other national organizations. An example of a benchmark underperformance in our organization with the potential for significantly improving overall quality and performance is improving patient safety. Patient safety affects the greatest number of patients since reduced safety results in increased hospital stays, complications, comorbidities, readmission rates, and increased healthcare costs (Weggelaar-Jansen et al., 2018). Additionally, reduced safety affects the greatest number of staff due to a high workload which causes burnout and poor health outcomes.
If a healthcare organization focused on improving patient safety, it would significantly reduce staff workload, and reduce patient and operational costs. Tracking this benchmark can help an organization identify which part of the care process the safety incidents occur and adjust its standards appropriately (Weggelaar-Jansen et al., 2018). Furthermore, improving patient safety can help reduce the incidents that compromise patient safety, such as medical errors, patient falls, and hospital-acquired infections. Improving patient safety can help meet metrics such as reduced hospital stays, readmission rates, and ultimately reduced hospital costs (Weggelaar-Jansen et al., 2018). Besides, it can improve overall health outcomes and patient satisfaction, thus increasing profits for the organization
My recommended action to improve patient safety in the organization will be directed to the hospital’s management to improve working conditions by increasing nurse-to-patient ratios. Nursing ratios can be increased by hiring more nurses and motivating staff to reduce high turnover that further worsens the understaffing situation (Bridges et al., 2019). Increasing nursing ratios will significantly reduce burnout and eventually lower turnover rates, which are the major cause of understaffing. When staffing nurses in various units, the nursing manager should consider factors, such as patient acuity, admission numbers, staff skill-mix and expertise, discharges, transfers, physical layout of the unit, and available technology (Bridges et al., 2019). Considering these factors will ensure that a unit is staffed based on the patient care workload and fair staffing.
The management should increase nursing staffing because nurses play a vital role in promoting patient safety while providing direct patient care. Nurses assess patients for deterioration in clinical status, track errors and near misses, and perform numerous tasks to make sure that a patient is provided high-quality care (Bridges et al., 2019). Besides, they understand care processes and shortcomings in systems that may compromise patient safety and communicate changes in patients’ health status. Missed nursing care incidents are strongly connected with a high patient workload and cause undesirable consequences for patients and nurses (Bridges et al., 2019). Consequently, increasing nursing ratios can ensure that a nurse is not overwhelmed and lower incidences of medication errors, falls, pressure ulcers, infections, and readmissions.
Increasing nursing ratios is an ethical action since it upholds the principle of beneficence and nonmaleficence since it promotes better health outcomes and prevents harm to the patient. It also promotes the welfare of nurses since they have reduced burnout levels and promote better physical and mental wellbeing (Bridges et al., 2019). Besides, increased staffing promotes justice because more nurses are available to take care of patients who require their services.
A dashboard contains goals set by users and constantly meets their expectations since the end-user experience is a major feature of dashboard software. Benchmarks laid down by the Federal are set by the U.S HHS under the Network of Patient Safety Databases, which the AHRQ runs. Shortfalls identified in the evaluation of dashboard metrics include high treatment costs, high readmission rates, and an unhealthy staff-to-patient ratio. A healthcare organization can face challenges such as a lack of IT resources and unsuitable IT infrastructure when meeting the Prescribed Benchmarks resulting in unreliable results. My proposed solution to address the benchmark underperformance on patient safety is increasing nursing ratios. The action will reduce incidences of missed nursing care, reduce incidences of compromised patient safety, and improve nurses’ wellbeing.
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