The Joint Commission launched the National Patient Safety Goals in 2003 and most recently updated the goals again for 2020. Many years have now passed since the inception of these goals. How has the overall focus of the goals changed in the intervening years? What conditions in the health care marketplace have driven the need for change?
You are required to use and cite a minimum of two references to support your response.
Solution
Beginning in 2003, the Joint Commission decided to implement certain criteria for patient safety and they called them National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG). These goals were designed with patients in mind to prevent medical errors from occurring and also to reduce the complications that come with performing health care. Their goals focused on improving the accuracy of patient identification which included eliminating wrong-patient, wrong procedure and wrong-site procedures. It also focused on improving the effectiveness of communication among caregivers, improving safety of using infusion pumps and high-alert medications, and reducing the risk of health-care associate infections. The new revision of 2020 shifted its attention towards more specific areas of concern and more focus on patient safety risks, including suicide prevention and alarm safety. Although the initial NPSG reduced and eliminated most of the medical errors that were being seen, the need for adding suicide and alarms to it became of greater importance as more and more patients were being flagging for them.
Kristina Peregudov
References
2003 JCAHO National Patient Safety Goals. (2003, January 1). KANSAS NURSE, 78(6), 7–8.
National Patient Safety Goals 2020. (2018, January 1). Medcom Inc. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.4135/9781529727838
