Indicators of Patient Safety and Service Quality

Running head: INDICATORS OF PATIENT SAFETY AND SERVICE QUALITY
INDICATORS OF PATIENT SAFETY AND SERVICE QUALITY
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INDICATORS OF PATIENT SAFETY AND SERVICE QUALITY
Introduction:
Patient safety indicators can be defined as the set of measures that help in screening for
the different adverse events that the service users experience as a result of the exposure to the
healthcare systems. Researchers are of the opinion that these events are likely to be amenable to
prevention by altering and changing working procedures at the provider or the system level. Two
different types of indicators are used by organizations to analyze the levels of patient safety and
patient quality maintained in the healthcare organizations (Zubkoff et al., 2016). The first one is
the provider level indicators and the other one is the area-level indicators. The assignment will be
mainly based on one of the examples of provider level indicators called the decubitus ulcers.
Occurrence of the hospital acquired decubitus ulcers can help in reflecting the kind and quality
of the care that the professionals are proving to the patient (Goudie et al., 2015). The assignment
will show how occurrence of such ulcers not only cause suffering to the patient and affect their
satisfaction but will show how they can act as indicators that evidence based high quality care is
missing in the healthcare organization.
Brief overview of the indicator:
Provider level indicators are seen to provide a measure of the various types of potentially
preventable complications for the patients who have received their initial care as well as facing
the complications of the care within the same hospitalization. Researchers are of the opinion that
these forms of indicators include only those cases where the secondary diagnosis code flags
potentially preventable complication (Stalpers et al., 2015). The Australian Commission on
Safety and Quality in Healthcare have given a list of about 16 hospital acquired complications

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INDICATORS OF PATIENT SAFETY AND SERVICE QUALITY
which act as indicators for patient safety maintained in the healthcare organizations. Pressure
injury had been identified in the list of 16 complications as one of the indicators of patient safety.
A pressure injury has can be defined as the localized injury to the skin as well as in the
tissue that underlie the skin usually in the regions that remain on the bony prominence. It mainly
occurs because of the pressure or that remains in association with friction as well as shear. This
indicator of the hospital acquired complication is seen to include stage III ulcer, as well as in
stage IV ulcer as well as unspecified presence of pressure ulcer and other such areas (Van et al.,
2016).
It might raise a concern as to how it can indicate that the patients were not taken good
care or that the care which was taken was not of adequate quality ensuring safety of the patients.
It might also raise a concern as to how much prevalent this issue is, so that it gets the title of an
indicator or poor quality care. Each year, the patients in the nation of Australia are seen to
experience incidences of various pressure injuries. Data of about 4313 cases of pressure injuries
have been found in the Australian public healthcare centers. This data had been reported in 2015-
2016. The rate of the healthcare associated pressure injuries in the Australian healthcare centers
was seen to be 9.7 injuries per 10000 hospitalizations in 2015-2016 (Bredesen et al., 2015).
Pressure injuries are seen to take long time in healing and this has negative consequences
on the quality of life of the patients. The injuries are known to cause severe pain and can also
include severe pain and even different types of disturbances in mood as well as vulnerability to
different forms of infection. Researchers are of the opinion that this issue also adversely affects
the rehabilitation, mobility and even long term quality of care (Fabruzzo et al., 2016). Pressure
injury prevention is therefore seen to present an important challenge mainly in the acute care

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INDICATORS OF PATIENT SAFETY AND SERVICE QUALITY
settings. Data collected had revealed that different strategies are present for reduction of the
occurrences of this disorder. However, the practices are not used in a systematic manner in the
hospitals.
Hospital acquired pressure injuries have many negative effects on the lives of the patients
as well as results in wasting of healthcare resources which could have been saved and used for
other needy patients. It extends the length of hospitalization of the patients which impact the
patient physically and mentally and the families emotionally (Moore et al., 2017). These pressure
injuries can result in increased cost of the admission that is in turn incurred by the healthcare
services. This additional expenditure can be the attributed to the increase in the length of the stay
as well as many other complex necessities and needs. Although there is increased economic cost,
the most important cost is mainly the different degrees of pain as well as the discomfort
experienced by the patients.
Literature review:
Decubitus ulcers are one of the indicators of patient safety and service quality provided
by the nursing professionals. This is form of injury which occurs to the skin and the tissues that
underlines the skin. Studies suggest that this form of cancer mainly occurs by the application of
pressures specifically to certain bony parts of the bodies of patients (Chabboyer et al., 2018).
This form of ulcers can occur due to weight of the body, medical devices as well as lack of
movement of the body. Researchers are of the opinion that bony areas that do not have fat or
muscles under the skin are more likely to develop Decubitus ulcers than those areas that have
fats and muscles (Cox et al., 2015).