Nursing Research Paper 2022

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Part 1
Introduction
Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (2017) second edition
helps in maintaining proper safety and quality in the Australian healthcare system with the
help of the eight different standards. The main standard of focus in this paper is “Preventing
and Controlling Healthcare-Associated Infection Standard” (standard 3). Under this standard
effective prevention of the hospital acquired infection or nosocomial infection is taken under
the prime focus in order to improve the quality of the healthcare system. The paper will
initiate by stating the importance of the health and safety under the Australian healthcare
settings and this will be followed by a detailed discussion of the overall effectiveness of the
hand hygiene regime under the hospital settings for improving the overall quality in
healthcare while improving the level of patients’ safety. At the end, the paper will focus on
how proper application of the Donabedian framework for healthcare can be applied in order
to access the overall process of the implementation of the health and safety improvement
program under the healthcare settings followed by the evaluation of the outcome of care
under the healthcare settings. The main quality and safety improvement program in this case
would be proper observance of the hand hygiene regime in order to improve the chances of
HAIs.
Quality and Safety in the Australian Health Care System
Quality and Safety hold prime importance in the Australian healthcare system.
Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in the Healthcare system, a government
agency leads and co-ordinates the national improvements in the overall safety and quality in
healthcare across different part of Australia. The main aim of this organisation is to provide

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healthcare that helps in improving the overall experience of the patient and their consumers,
promoting better health-related outcomes for the overall population, increased level of the
healthcare productivity and promoting greater sustainability. Mjadu and Jarvis (2018) stated
that many view quality of healthcare as an over-arching umbrella under which there resides
patients’ safety. Mjadu and Jarvis (2018) stated that quality is important in order to maintain
optimal balance between cost of care and the process of recovery. Maharani et al. (2019)
stated that increase in the quality in the healthcare service helps in improving the overall level
of patients’ safety. The practice of patients’ safety is defined as the process that helps in
reducing the risk of adverse health-related outcomes that is associated to exposure to medical
care across different range of condition and diagnosis. Abedi ett al. (2019) conducted a cross-
sectional study in order to understand the level of patients’ safety and the medication errors in
the healthcare system. The findings showed that it is the right of the patient to enjoy optimal
level of patients’ safety. Proper improvement in the level of quality of the healthcare system
helps in the reduction of the medication errors and thereby helping to improve the patients’
health-related outcomes and at the same time decreases the overall cost of care. Prime duty of
a healthcare organisation is to provide best possible care to the patient and this can only be
done by maintaining proper safety and quality of the healthcare service delivery. For
example, the installation of the electronic health records (EHRs) under the hospital settings
by the hospital administrative board helped to improve the overall process of patients’
documentation and thereby helping to chances of medication errors and increase the level of
patients’ safety. The use of the EHRs also helps in improving the quality of care as EHRs
help to decrease the work-load over the nurses by eliminating the need to manual
documentation. Reduction in the workload of the nurses helps to reduce job stress and
thereby helping to improve the overall quality of care (Aldosari, 2017). Installation of the
wearable devices or monitoring systems proved to be helpful for improving the care of the

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mental health patients or the patients in the geriatric care. The wearable devices help in
monitoring these patients and thus helping to avoid chances of unwanted accidents like
accidental falls. Prevention of the fall among the mental health patients and older adults help
in improving the overall patients’ safety and at the same time helps in improving the quality
of care by reducing their length of stay in the hospital (Agboola, Bates & Kvedar, 2016).
Clinical care activity
Selected standard for this assignment is “Preventing and Controlling Healthcare-
Associated Infection Standard” (standard 3). The aim of this standard is to reduce the risks of
the patients towards acquiring preventable healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). It also
attempts to limit the development of anti-microbial resistance by the use of antimicrobial
agents and through the implementation of antimicrobial stewardship promotion (Australian
Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2017). Bolton and McCulloch (2018)
stated that during the recent years, world wide effort has been directed towards the
development of the proper hand hygiene regime under the hospital settings. The hospital
administrative authorities and the healthcare professionals are making significant claims
towards the importance of the hand hygiene regime for the prevention of the HAIs. They
have also highlighted the priority of significant public investments in pursuit of this objective.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has been pro-active in promoting the hand hygiene
regime with the help of educational and awareness campaign like ”Save Lives: Clean Your
Hands”. Stahmeyer et al. (2017) stated that hand hygiene (HH) can be regarded as the single-
most effective intervention for the reduction of the HAIs and this further goes in favour of
practicing WHO’s 5 moments of HH. Furthermore, there is a good amount of evidences that
suggest that the micro-organisms that are responsible for HAI can colonize in the hands of
the health-workers and proper yet diligent practice of HH helps to reduce colonisation. The