Question

You are a nurse leader on a very busy Medical-Surgical Unit. Your goal is to maintain continual "survey readiness" so the staff is always prepared for an unannounced survey. You have decided that your best tactic would be to design an educational handout to assist your staff in preparing for the survey. Design a one-to-two page educational tool to best prepare your staff for an accreditation survey.

Answer 1

Surveillance is a process in which a through examination or observation of the functionality of an organization ,it can of a particular material also . In this there is collection of data regarding a particular thing ,from different sources and then analysis done and it's results are used for the improvement of the drawbacks .

In a survey of hospital ,the surveyor will conduct a through examination and observation of the duties and tasks of the health care sector people from doctor's,nurses,health technicians , physical therapist, pharmacist to orderlies.They observe that whether the health care personals are working accordingly to the policies of the hospital or not ,are the equipments are of good quality ,are they maintaining them well ,how the nurses are working ,are they following the ethics and principal ,6 rules of medicine administration ,how are they following the codes of emergency, how are they maintaining the stocks , emergency trolley,lock and key medicines for over the counter drugs ,how the physicians are conducting the procedures ,the usage of personal protective equipments, does all the health care personals are following the hand washing steps or not ,are they disposing the waste according to the biomedical waste management protocols etc.

All the health care members should be ready for the survey at any time ,any day,for this they have to be perfect in there duties. As a nurse leader ,to make all the staffs survey ready , there must be quality improvement classes and training program, everyday evaluation of care given by the nurse,without bias,monthly test should be conducted for the revision of knowledge,hospitals must have a internal surveyor to conduct the monthly uninformed surveys.

The staffs must be motivated to improve there practical performance by providing incentives, increments and other benefits.Staffs should be asked to rationalise there actions ,it will help them to be accountable .Incident reports must made made following an incident for the record purpose so,that in future it is not repeated.Nurse educators should be posted in clinical areas for everyday evaluation and teaching purpose.The nurse patient ratio must be 1:2 so,that quality and patient centered care can be provided and to avoid errors and increased workload on the staff.

These measures will help the staff to provide a patient centered quality care which is boosted with revision of knowledge and new techniques and make them instant ready for any surveillance.