expert judgment. Encouragingly, the continuous and passionate work of nurse leaders to improve patient safety and quality is clearly interfaced with decreasing liability and risk of harm. They are causing harm—often serious harm—to real people. The AHRQ funded a special program of research on working conditions, with the majority of the projects focusing on nursing. It is widely accepted that workload is an important influence on patient outcomes ( Aiken et al., 2011 ; Kutney-Lee, Lake, & Aiken, 2009 ). The purpose of this article is to discuss the ethical issues impacting the phenomenon of patient safety and to present implications for nursing management. 10 Best Practices for Patient Safety. Learn about medication safety in relation to nursing xi. Improving safety in long-term care facilities will require research into the safety problems faced by patients, education and training of health care providers in long-term care settings, system-level interventions to enhance care coordination, and greater incentives for long-term care facilities to prioritize patient safety. Medication Errors. Safety issues need to be addressed in nursing curricula in order to • Develop and maintain a culture of patient safety which continues throughout professional life. In honor of Patient Safety Awareness Week, let’s bring attention to the top five patient safety concerns for nurses.. 1. The watchdog group is based in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. By Susan Kreimer, MS, contributor. Competencies which are necessary for appropriate contributions Previous knowledge of this perspective is fragmented. The FDA estimates that approximately one person dies every day from a medication error, and approximately 1.3 million people are harmed by these errors annually. Top. The transfer of essential information and the responsibility for care of the patient from one health care provider to another is an integral component of communication in health care. Handoffs. The catalyst: a 1999 landmark Institute of Medicine report that highlighted safety problems and … Given the accelerated knowledge base required of nurses today, care models leveraging nursing expertise and facilitating transfer of knowledge should be explored to improve patient safety. With the lack of interprofessional communication between physicians and nurses, shortage of patient-staff interaction, and deficiency of effective nurse handovers, it is a major risk point leading to poor patient experience and having an effect on both patient safety and clinical outcomes. Ineffective handoffs can lead to adverse events and patient safety risks. • Enable HC environments to become learning organizations encouraging openness and transparency around adverse events. Missed and delayed diagnoses lead patient safety list developed by the ECRI Institute. Since 2009, when our patient safety organization (PSO), ECRI Institute PSO, began collecting patient safety events, we and our partner PSOs have received more than 2 million event reports. Hospital-based nursing faces difficult challenges from the vantage point of risk management. Just before the new millennium, health care began building a foundation to advance patient safety. That means that the 10 patient safety concerns on this list are very real. According to The Effect of Health Care Working Conditions on Patient Safety, a systematic review,5 strong evidence exists that workforce staffing and workflow design affect medical errors and patients' safety outcomes. Figure. by Jessica Dzubak, RN.