National Patient Safety Goals

Goal 1: Correct Identification of Patients This safety goal is so critical because incorrect identification of the patient in a healthcare setting can result in a series of other detrimental issues, not only with that particular patient but also with other patients (Joint commission, 2014). In the healthcare settings identification of patients and matching of patients to their intended treatment is carried out routinely. Therefore, there are risks to safety of patient where a mismatch between the patient and their care components occurs, whether those components are supportive, diagnostic or therapeutic. In the course of healthcare delivery, failure to accurately identify the patients and to correctly match the patient’s details with the intended clinical intervention is still resulting in medication errors, unnecessary tests, wrong patient, transfusion errors, duplicated histories, wrong site procedures and diagnostic testing errors (Finkelman & Kenner, 2014).

There is therefore a very long list of medication problems which result from lack of accurate identification of patients. When another patient with the name John is admitted, and they are expected to go through a certain procedure, the surgeons are at risk of incorrectly carrying that procedure on the wrong patient. Although both records show the name John, there is insufficient information from the biodata to ascertain as to which specific John is to be treated in a certain way. Another reason for incorrect identification is poor documentation (Finkelman & Kenner, 2014). Although the details might be sufficient and correct, but how they are filed and stored can result in misidentification. One document from one patient can be mistakenly put in a wrong patient’s file, and this will result in an error while giving the patient treatment.

g. bar coding. Goal 7: Reduction of Risks of Healthcare Related Infections This goal is very important because within a healthcare setting, there are so many varieties of infections in the same place, and so chances of contacting infections in healthcare settings is high (Joint commission, 2014). For example, resistance to drugs is very likely to occur in a healthcare setting due to long-term care. In the recent past, there are so many patients who develop complications and multiple infections while hospitalized. Because these factors are hard to deal with, it is somehow difficult to achieve this patient safety goal. However, there are some actions that can be taken to reduce healthcare related infections. One of the action is to have in place infection control personnel.