By Jackie Roberson / Special to Healthcare Facilities Today

While we all know that hospitals and other healthcare facilities do a wonderful job of caring for many millions of patients across the country each year, unfortunately lots of negative incidences do also occur onsite.

All too often workers or patients are injured through slips, trips, falls, or other accidents; while many patients find themselves suffering from infections and other maladies they have picked up from their time in a healthcare center. As well, many of the medications administered can cause side effects in patients; both minor and major complications; and even death in some cases. Just take a look at new reports of a recall for opioid overdose antidote drug Naloxone, or reports of medical issues arising from the anti-seizure drug Dilantin.

Healthcare administrators and employees must do everything in their power, then, to reduce the risks of issues occurring. This is not only for the good of patients and workers, but also for facilities, which can be at risk of malpractice suits. If you’re keen to increase the safety levels at your healthcare facility, read on for some tips you and your team can follow today.

Noise reduction

While it may not be something that immediately comes to mind, noise in a healthcare environment can lead to a range of issues for both patients and medical staff. For example, noise can not only be annoying and contribute to stress and fatigue for patients and workers, but also affect healthcare employees’ performance by creating distractions and interfering with their concentration, cognitive abilities, and communications. Memory is also said to be sensitive to noise. When it comes to healing, noise also disrupts sleep for patients, plus can increase pain levels, elevate blood pressure, and reduce the overall perceived satisfaction level of a facility.

There are a few different things that organizations can do to reduce noise in their facilities, much of which regards altering the reverberation rate of sound within buildings. Quieter heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems make a difference, as do using floor coverings such as carpet and rubber which ensure quieter footfalls. It also helps to:

·       Get rid of overhead paging

·       Use more absorbent ceiling tiles

·       Purchase less noisy equipment and other pieces of technology

·       Put in proper insulation between rooms

·       Give more patients their own private rooms

Proximity of healthcare workers to patients

Another design element that can help facilities to increase safety is taking note of how close by workers are to patients. It is important for staff to be able to see patients easily at all times so that they can identify if anyone is having issues. Making patients visible to staff also helps for tasks to be delivered more efficiently and effectively.

Facility managers should, as a result, consider layouts that put small nursing stations throughout buildings, whether in corridors, alcoves, or even in patient rooms. Giving workers access to wall desks in multiple areas, where they can look at or complete charts, do some dictation or otherwise attend to tasks leads to increased visibility.

Setting up these areas enables medical information to be located nearby to patients, which means there is less need for patients to be disrupted at all hours. It also reduces the risk of errors in diagnoses and treatments because physicians have better access to complete and real-time information about suspected illnesses, treatment options, patient allergies, and the like.

Other design options to increase visibility include designing patient rooms in a mirrored-image layout with adjoining alcoves for nurses and other practitioners, ensuring the convenient location of supplies throughout buildings, and adding cameras to large rooms.

Minimizing patient transfers and handoffs

Lastly, facility managers should be aware that patient transfers, and the resulting common handoffs between staff members which occur, can often put patients in a vulnerable position and cause more disruptions. This is due to the fact that most transfers (such as from patient rooms to surgery or to testing wards like radiology) involve multiple movements.

For example, transfers may involve the handoff of a patient from their current nurse to a transporter who takes the patient to another area, and then from that transporter to a technician, physician, or new nurse. The patient is then likely to be handed off to other parties on their return to their room or when leaving the facility. With all of these handoffs, comes a large increase in potential errors.

To minimize these risks, facility managers should look at ways to bring services to patients, rather than have patients be moved. It also pays to utilize electronic medical records, so that all caregivers, at each point of transfer, can have access to a patient’s complete and up-to-date information. Bar-coding for patient identification is also helpful, as is structuring handoffs by categorizing them according to things like illness severity and medical actions.

Jackie Roberson is a content coordinator with Seek Visibility.