Patient Care and Behaviors that Undermine it

The article, Behaviors that undermine a culture of safety

The article, Behaviors that undermine a culture of safety, provides important knowledge for providing patients with high-quality, secure care. The numerous health stakeholders must exercise discipline and commitment when providing for patients if they want to reduce or limit medical errors, increase patient happiness, and lower healthcare costs, among other advantages.

The Importance of the Article

The article is important since it identifies the various frightening and disruptive actions that could adversely impact the standard of patient care. The article also lists different root causes or contributing elements for these behaviors and even makes pertinent suggestions for how to stop them. Cases of intimidating and disruptive behaviors are rampant in health care organizations, leading to poor patient satisfaction, high costs of care, and medical errors, among other adverse impacts (The Joint Commission, 2008).

Types of Intimidating and Disruptive Behaviors

Nurses, support staff, therapists, pharmacists, physicians, and other health care professionals engage in physical threats, verbal outbursts, deliberately avoiding assigned tasks, or exhibiting uncooperative attitudes. Such behaviors intimidate other colleagues or disrupt the patient care activities. The senior health care professionals are not left out either and a majority uses their positions to threaten patient safety – the senior officials use power to refuse to return calls, answer questions, and use condescending language. It is important for health care organizations to recognize that the behaviors mentioned above are unprofessional and proper measures should be taken against such professionals (intimidators) regardless of their gender or their positions. Failure to recognize intimidating behaviors puts health care organizations at great risk of erosion of professional behavior and a hostile or unhealthy work environment.

Lack of Surveillance Systems and Fear of Reporting

According to the article, a problem arises where most health institutions lack proper surveillance systems to monitor the behavior of health workers and even get immediate feedback (The Joint Commission, 2008). Some of the personal work experiences such as the fear of reporting or exposing the senior professionals are a key contributor to lack of safety and poor quality patient care. Also, in our department majority of the physicians, nurses and support staff do not have the courage to speak up and are always reluctant to confront intimidators. As a result, many cases of behavior intimidation are not reported and, therefore unaddressed. The work experiences mentioned above are largely attributed to poor communication and lack of proper skills in conflict management, hence, a keen interest in such areas is likely to improve patient care. Moreover, the article identifies systemic and individual factors that cause the lack of safety and poor quality patient care. The individual factors include inherent stresses due to high emotion, high stakes, and fatigue, which occasionally result in intimidation. On the other hand, systemic factors result from pressures caused by embedded hierarchies, requirements of cost containment, and high productivity demands.

Suggested Measures to Address the Challenges

Health care organizations must analyze the root causes discussed in the paragraph above, among other contributing factors, in order to address the challenges facing patient care. The article suggests different measures including the need to educate both health care professionals and support staff, ensuring accountability for desirable behaviors, inter-professional dialogues, and skill-based training for managers and leaders in health care, among others (The Joint Commission, 2008). Such measures should take into consideration the interests of all the health care stakeholders to avoid clashes and improve cooperation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the major problems facing patient care are due to rampant cases of intimidating and disruptive behaviors such as verbal outburst and physical threats among health care professionals. The key contributors of such behaviors include systemic and individual behaviors, reluctance and fear among health care professionals, and improper surveillance of health workers. Therefore, health institutions should adopt strategic measures to resolve the issues discussed in order to ensure a favorable work environment and even reduce or eliminate the erosion of professional culture.

Reference

The Joint Commission. (2008). Behaviors that undermine a culture of safety. Sentinel Event Alert, Issue 40.