PARKERSBURG - To commemorate national Patient Safety Awareness Week, St. Joseph's Hospital set up stations to educate staff about safety concerns facing hospitals across the country.
Patient Safety Awareness Week is a national education and awareness-building campaign for improving patient safety at the local level. Hospitals and health care organizations across the country have been encouraged to plan events to promote patient safety within their own organizations.
St. Joseph's Hospital has set up stations where employees are educated about safety concerns. Stations included a video of a mother discussing how errors led to the death of her child at Johns Hopkins, poster displays covering safety issues at the hospital and a mock-up of a patient's room where employees have to identify 38 safety violations that could affect a patient's well-being.
''They go in and spend time looking around the room and jotting down what they see,'' said Janice Midcap, vice president of quality and patient safety. ''A few people have even picked up on a few things that were not on the list.''
Brenda Thompson, RN, risk manager at St. Joseph's, said there are steps that allow the parents of small children to voice concerns about a child's care as well as family members being able to voice concerns about things going on in the care of a family member.
As a result, someone who can qualified can come and listen and make an assessment on what is being done and intervene if something is needed to be done. Cards are placed in patient rooms with a number people can call if they have concerns.
''It improves communication across the board,'' Thompson said.
Other issues covered included being able to easily identify patients with a risk for falls; MRI safety; issues involving patients with specific needs, like those who have had heart attacks, heart failure and other ailments; the needs of senior patients; the needs of certain surgical patients; and making sure patients know what they need to do once they are discharged.
''We looked at a lot of the 'what ifs' and how we would handle in what can we do to prevent these things from happening,'' Thompson said. ''It gives us the opportunity to share this information.''
Information for the public has been placed in the hospital's lobby discussing issues covered at the stations.
The entire week has been a good opportunity to raise awareness, Midcap said.
More than 300 employees are expected to have gone through the stations.
