Question

For the following question provide your opinion, but back it up with your research as well as references used....
Why is there such an emphasis on patient safety in today's healthcare environment?
Thanks a million in advance!

Answer 1

First of all let's understand what exactly patient safety is,

Patient safety can broadly bedefined as the measures or precautions that any hospital or medicare clinic takes to avoid its patients from being exposed to errors of doctors/nurses, or accident/infections/injuries in the hospital premises. I think in my view following reasons can be the ones that make patient safety so important:

1) First and the foremost would be the abundance of information in today's world, and the speed at which it spreads. If anything happens because of a small error/negligence of the hospital, or if a mishap like a serious injury takes place in hospital's premises because of not so good infrastructure, word of the event can spread very quickly. This can then lead reputation loss for the hospital, and might even lead to closure of hospital. As many as 440,000 people die every year from preventable errors in hospitals, which not only leads to a loss of lives of many people but also bring bad name to the institution. To avoid such a scenario from happening, hospitals tend to take extra precautions these days.

2) Medical organizations not only serve as the place to treat diseases, but for some people it is a symbol of hope. According to current rates, 1 out of every 25 patients gets infected beacuse of unhygienic conditions of the hospital. Now, such an unhealthy place can never convey a message that reflects hope to the general public. To make sure that the hospitals remain the harbinger of good things for people, it is important that they don't end up aggravating the matters. And for this reason it is important for the hospitals to focus on patient safety as much as possible.

3) Third is the marketing reasons. A person would always tend to visit a hospital which is clean and hygienic and doesn't pose any sort of risk to the patient. Hospital management these days make sure that the hospital safety, if is good, is marketed properly. A lot of hospitals even differentiate themselves on the basis of patient safety and not on doctors themselves, suggesting that customers always want the right environment to get themselves treated instead of ending up in an environment where they might get treated for one disease and contract another one simultaneously.

4) Issues or errors in things like diagnostics can have serious repurcussions and may even lead to death. Most of the medications of chronic or serious acute diseases have their sideeffects. If such medications are taken unnecessarily despite not really having the disease, it might lead to serious complications. To prevent such a situation from happening, hospitals focus a lot on correct dignosis of diseases these days.