The Safe Staffing for Nurse and Patient Safety Act of 2018 may serve as an example of the regulation that can successfully lead to improving patient safety and care. This regulation is currently implemented in several states in the United States. The Act was initially oriented toward improving the nurse-to-patient ratio in healthcare facilities, with a particular focus on Medicare-participating institutions (Pearce et al., 2018). This initiative was important to implement in the healthcare system in order to organize committees in hospitals and guarantee that staff plans and schedules allow for avoiding nurse turnover and burnout. Instead, it is important to note that the implemented plans should benefit nurses, contribute to improving their performance and provide positive outcomes for patients (Austin & Wetle, 2017). The key focus is on improving patient safety because of eliminating risks for patients associated with inappropriate staff decisions and errors.
In this context, it is important to focus on the associated technology that is used to change the process of nurses’ work with patients to promote their safety and experience. Thus, the application of particular health information technology (HIT) contributes significantly to patient safety because of decreasing possibilities for making errors in filling in patient-related data (Austin & Wetle, 2017). Still, it is possible to observe some ethical issues and dilemmas because patient data need to be effectively protected to avoid security issues and the use of personal information by unauthorized users. The problem may be observed when some nurses ask their colleagues to access hospital portals and patients’ electronic records because they experience some problems with using their own login details. Any suspicious tries to access patient data should be monitored and detected to protect patients’ interests.
References
Austin, A., & Wetle, V. (2017). The United States health care system: Combining business, health, and delivery (3rd ed.). Pearson Education.
Pearce, P. F., Morgan, S., Matthews, J. H., Martin, D. M., Ross, S. O., Rochin, E., & Welton, J. M. (2018). The value of nurse staffing: ANA principles redevelopment and direction for the future. Nursing Economics, 36(4), 169-176.