Improvement Critical Care Patient Safety: Using Nursing Staff Development Strategies, At Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Intensive care units (ICUs) provide lifesaving care for the critically ill patients and are associated with significant risks. Moreover complexity of care within ICUs requires that the health care professionals exhibit a trans-disciplinary level of competency to improve patient safety. This study aimed at using staff development strategies through implementing patient safety educational program that may minimize the medical errors and improve patient outcome in hospital. The study was carried out using a quasi experimental design. The settings included the intensive care units at General Mohail Hospital and National Mohail Hospital, King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia. The study was conducted from March to June 2012. A convenience sample of all prevalent nurses at three shifts in the aforementioned settings during the study period was recruited. The program was implemented on 50 staff nurses in different ICUs. Their age ranged between 25-40 years. Statistically significant relation was revealed between safety climate and job satisfaction among nurses in the study sample (p=0.001). The years of experiences in ICU ranged between one year 11 (16.4) to 10 years 20 (29.8), most of them (68%) were working in variable shift, while 32% were day shift only. Improvements were observed in safety climate, teamwork climate, and nurse turnover rates on ICUs after implementing a safety program. On the heels of this improvement; nurses’ total knowledge, skills and attitude were enhanced regarding patient safety dimensions. Continuous educational program for ICUs nursing staff through organized in-service training is needed to increase their knowledge and skills about the importance of improving patient safety measure. Emphasizing on effective collaborative system also will improve patient safety measures in ICUS.

Ambiente das práticas de enfermagem e satisfação profissional em unidades críticas

“…Although "professional qualification" did not show differences in either the NWI-R or IWS between the technical and higher education levels in the present study, other studies have identified an association between work satisfaction, level of education and environment of practices (2,10,(14)(15) . A Brazilian study performed in several units of a university hospital, which also included the ICU, aiming to investigate work satisfaction, indicated that such satisfaction was associated with the technical level of qualification and workplace.…”

“…The characteristics of professionals themselves, who are aged 40 years on average and have a length of work in the ICU of approximately eight years, thus being more experienced, can explain the better performance in the organization and management of ICU resources and, consequently, the better perception of the environment and greater work satisfaction (6,(13)(14) . Despite the vulnerabilities of material/technological and human resources identified by the majority of nursing professionals and low work satisfaction identified with the IWS score measure, 90.08% of these professionals reported being satisfied working in the ICU and they also assessed the environment positively.…”

“…The work dynamics also caused the expectations of higher education professionals not to be met and their level of satisfaction to be low (10) . Thus, the development of one's level of professional qualification allows one to achieve higher hierarchical positions, and promotes work satisfaction through the encouragement of autonomy and capacity-building for decision-making, especially when reflecting better results achieved and patient safety (2,(14)(15) . Regarding "material/technological resources" and "human resources", the proportion of professionals for each of these variables, 41.84% and 21.64% respectively, who considered them to be sufficient, assessed the environment more positively and showed greater work satisfaction.…”

Nurse Manager Perceptions of Patient Safety Strategy Implementation

“…19 This fact is also directly related to the quality of care and, consequently, the development of safe practices. [34][35] The satisfaction in providing patient and professional safety can be seen in the H3E11 testimony, which converges with the affirmation that the professional when adhering to the safe practices will see benefits because, once the errors are diagnosed and the failures in the processes are corrected, the employee will have better working conditions and satisfaction with the profession. 36 In addition, it means that the patient will have the benefit of receiving safe and quality assistance and the organization, in turn, will have credibility and reduction in costs.…”

Avaliação do conhecimento da equipe de enfermagem sobre as metas internacionais de segurança do paciente em uma unidade de terapia intensiva

“…1,8,9 A Unidade de Terapia Intensiva (UTI) acolhe pacientes em estado crítico de saúde que necessitam de inúmeros procedimentos complexos com alto risco para infecções e EAs. 10 Alguns fatores presentes na rotina de trabalho da equipe de enfermagem em UTI podem aumentar o risco para ocorrência de EAs, como o excesso de carga horária na jornada de trabalho, stress, rotina monótona, cobrança elevada por atenção e zelo durante os procedimentos de enfermagem, poucas horas de descanso e sobrecarga de trabalho. Estas condições somadas à deficiência de conhecimento da equipe sobre o uso das metas internacionais para promoção da segurança do paciente podem interferir no aumento da vulnerabilidade do paciente aos riscos de EAs.…”