Patient Safety – The Johns Hopkins’ Way

One aspect of patient safety is to involve the patients and their family members in the care delivery process. When they are involved in their care delivery, they tend to recover faster and remain safer. This is what Dr. Peter Pronovost of Johns Hopkins Hospital shares with us through a Patient Safety video created by the hospital. The video below fantastically points out ways and means by which patients can be engaged in their care delivery process and how this can help in better clinical outcomes. As you watch this video, you will come across some common, yet powerful, ways of patient safety.

Dr. Peter discusses 4 ways by which the patients can get involved. These are:

• Ask Questions: The patients should ask their care givers questions about their health, treatment plans, day-to-day treatment activities and anything else they need to know.
• Provide Accurate Information: By providing accurate information about their medical history and any kind of medications they have been taking, patients help the care givers ensure that the current medications patient is taking do not interfere with the medicines they are going to prescribe.
• Speak Up: The patients are encouraged to speak up and inform the care givers if they think they are being given the wrong medications or something about their treatment is wrong. They can even ask care givers about whether they are following hand hygiene.
• Follow the Plan: The patients are advised to follow the treatment plan prepared by their care givers and take their help whenever required.

I believe this has a lot of relevance for Patient education in our healthcare facilities. Even from NABH standards perspective, these practices can be usefully implemented for compliance to chapter 4 – Patient Rights and Education. If you find this useful, please share your thoughts.