3205Med Healthcare Systems | Safety Assessment Answers

Identify human factors that impact on work performance and then critically analyse the relationship between these and quality and safety in health care provision.

The paper outlines various concepts of human factors and key issues related to patient health and safety in the workplace. It depicts that how these factors further affect the work performance and productivity of the healthcare. At the end, conclusion has been drawn to discuss the various individual elements and its effects on the patient health and safety. The relationship between human factors and patient wellbeing and security also has been explained in the task.

Major concepts and issues related to human factors and work performance

It is stated that there are ample of concepts related to human factors and work performance, some of the concepts and issues and have been discussed below.

Work environment and issue: It is one of the vital and unique concepts of the human factors that focus on the risks and challenges. Work environment helps to identify challenges and hazards embedded in their procedures and system. Healthcare delivery entails complex series of interaction between the healthcare employee and the patient. Those interactions could be systematically and effectively investigated using analysis tools and techniques adapted from the industry after or before a negative event or failure occurred (Group of Who patient safety, 2009). It is a responsibility of healthcare sectors to focuses on the working environment to encourage and improve the performance and productivity in the marketplace. Various tools and techniques such as hazard analysis, omission assessment and simulation method are used to overcome the various issues and to enhance the productivity of the workers.

A literature review shows the impacts of labor environment factors on the patient safety and medical errors. Working environment can be influenced by many factors at the workplace that can put direct impact on the profitability of the firm. Lack of potential staff and training are significant issues that can affect the working environment of healthcare sector to a large extent. Poor and ineffective culture and lack of innovative opportunities are another issues or challenges that could also influence the efficiency and effectiveness of the followers. It is noted from the various studies that approx 40% of healthcare employee are entertained issues to provide work at their employment. Equipment design is further significant part of issue for patient wellbeing, for instance readability of medication labeling and packaging, usability of mixture pumps and laparoscopic methods.

Team leadership and issue: Team leaders are also known as front line managers or supervisors are dynamically accountable for working together with various employees to attain a ordinary goal and objective. In healthcare, the managers or leaders of recognized groups like ward change nurses and managers of temporary groups such as operating theatre team. These managers or leaders commonly are accountable for executing the work and achieving the objectives (Leggat, Bartram & Stanton, 2011). The literature on safety and supervisors emphasizes the significance of strong and open communication, the requirement to develop trust and to care about the team members and need to set the various safety standards and principles where there is unique and effective production or cost reduction goals. The leaders will have to concentrate on the social requirements and tasks of the employees within the organization. It is stated that leaders further need to assess the commitment, task competence and skills of the workers for aiming to enhance profitability and returns (Group of Who patient safety, 2009).

It is elucidated that work performance in healthcare sector can be affected by poor leadership. Due to poor and ineffective leadership, the leaders could fail to make decision effectively in health care sector. Leadership could further be affected by fatigue, stress and dissatisfaction. Leaders need to focus on the qualities to make unique decisions in regards to patient safety and security. Lack of alignment and accountability are major issues in leadership that may impact on the decision making process of leaders. Due to poor leadership, the leaders further fail to communicate and collaborate with workers in health care sector ((Dul et al, 2012).

Individual and issue: At this level, there are various physiological and emotional elements which may affect employee’s actions and behaviors that contribute to safety outputs in the organization. The individual plays a fundamental role in providing services to the patients in healthcare sector (Carayon et al, 2014). The working environment, culture and values can affect the productivity of the individuals in this sector.

The individuals face ample of issues while performing tasks and duties at the workplace. The concept of non-technical skills and capabilities came from the airline industry, where it is treasured that accidents are not only due to failures in technical proficiency or equipment. Many mistakes are caused by various issues relating to the management, decision making, teamwork and exhaustion. All these issues may influence the individual capacity and productivity to a large extent. There are several example of bad decision making that affect the progress and success in the international market. One of the significant and remarkable examples is aircraft accidents which occurred in USA. From this accident, it is noted that approx 47% cases are uncovered due to poor leadership, team judgment and decision making (Group of Who patient safety, 2009).

Workgroup and issue: It is stated that the teams are exploring and flourishing aspects and attributes of the company, as the managers or leaders need to perform roles and responsibilities effectively and efficiently. The people who are enough to handle roles and responsibilities, the sector needs to assign tasks and duties those people in order to minimize risks and challenges. All the type of work generally is performed by the group of people including clinics, operating room team and nurses. A communication team is also hired to communicate and collaborate with internal executives at the workplace. The behavior and action of group can put direct impact on the performance and behavior of the individuals. Workgroup behavior affects the individual roles and responsibilities negatively in healthcare sector (Thenationalacademies, 2018).

Communication, collaboration, decision making and conflict management issues are being entertained by the group members while functioning. Decision making is one of the vital skills of group members that help in serving the patients in a hassle free manner. Decision making and judgment are methods for healthcare experts and decision mistakes could occur in various types of patient care situations. There are various functions which could be performed by human. These functions or incidents are divided into healthcare infection, medication and blood products (Proctor & Van Zandt, 2018).

Relationship to quality and safety in healthcare

The relationship of major human factors with quality and safety in healthcare has been discussed below.

Relationship of work environment with quality and safety in healthcare: It is stated that there is a great and high relationship of labor environment with quality and safety in the healthcare (Carayon, Alyousef & Xie, 2012). Without effective and cordial environment, the healthcare sector cannot provide unique services to the patients across the globe. A research is conducted which explains the relationship between excellence of nurse work environment and turnover and nurse contentment. Potential and dynamic improvements in health care working situations that helps in increasing and improving the patient safety and security. Positive and favorable working environment have also been interconnected to better nurse outputs and profitability. It also provides nurse job satisfaction, opportunities for promotion and personal development (Vicente, 2013). Based on the various studies and research on Magnet hospital and hospital reformation, Aiken and her colleagues built and enhanced a conceptual structure for supportive culture and work environment to maximize returns and revenue (NCBI, 2013). Strong working environment further reduces high employee turnover and absenteeism issues in the healthcare sector. In order to handle and tackle the environment issues, quantitative risk assessment tools and techniques were built and improved that begins with modeling the undesirable and unexpected output instead of the development. PRA methods are a combination of procedure analysis tools, methods and decision making process (Barton, 2009).

Relationship of an individual with quality and safety in healthcare: The nature and behavior of individual may put direct impact on the quality and safety in healthcare globally. There is ample of elements including fatigue, stress and dissatisfaction (Weaver, Dy & Rosen, 2014). Decision making tool is also influenced by behavior and action of individual in the healthcare sector. Wrong decision taken by the individual also are affected the working environment and culture of healthcare. Individual behavior also has direct impacted on the productivity, effectiveness and work of the group and nurses. The individual needs to make strong culture at the workplace and they live happily while serving the services to patient in the healthcare. It will help in managing stress, dissatisfaction and fatigue issues in healthcare sector. If an individual possess positive behavior and nature then it will help to make unique decisions within the organization (McFadden, Henagan & Gowen III, 2009).

Relationship of team leadership with quality and safety in healthcare: The significance of strong and good relationship is becoming increasingly apparent and unique in healthcare. Effective and unique medical leadership have been interconnected to a wide range of operations and functions. Leadership is an ability to improve and enhance the capabilities and effectiveness of the subordinates and nurses in healthcare sector (Leggat, Bartram & Stanton, 2011). Leadership is a prerequisite of hospital care including timely care delivery, organization performance, and accomplishment of health reform, efficiency and system integrity (Richardson & Storr, 2010). Leadership helps in deciding and identifying the roles and responsibilities of the workers in this sector. The significance of effective and unique clinical leadership is ensuring a high excellence health care scheme at the workplace (Carayon, 2010).

Relationship of workgroup with quality and safety in healthcare: The success and performance of healthcare sector is dependent on the workgroup. Without workgroup, the organization is unable to fulfill the expectations, needs and wants of the patients and employees as well (Kaufman & McCaughan, 2013). If top management and supervisors are good enough to handle the problems and issues of the workers then they can easily perform roles and responsibilities in a hassle free manner in health care sector. Further, it also motivates the nurses and other technicians to perform tasks and duties successfully. Group leaders maintain reciprocal relationship with subordinates to overcome the rivals internationally (Holden et al, 2011).

Conclusion

To conclude, human factors play a major role in healthcare sector for serving maximum patients globally. Human factors are further needed in improving and boosting the performance and effectiveness of the employees at the workplace. The analysis shows that how human factors create various issues in the healthcare due to lack of poor leadership and management. It is stated from above mentioned study that there is a close relationship between human factors and patient health and safety. Leadership and working environment also play a major role in identifying and analyzing the human factors issues and challenges in the global market. Personnel’s perceptions and needs of better safety climate predicted lower risk of experiencing at the workplace.

References

Barton, A. (2009). Patient safety and quality: An evidence?based handbook for nurses. Aorn Journal, 90(4), 601-602.

Carayon, P. (2010). Human factors in patient safety as an innovation. Applied ergonomics, 41(5), 657-665.

Carayon, P., Alyousef, B., & Xie, A. (2012). Human factors and ergonomics in health care. Handbook of human factors and ergonomics, 1574-1595.

Carayon, P., Wetterneck, T. B., Rivera-Rodriguez, A. J., Hundt, A. S., Hoonakker, P., Holden, R., & Gurses, A. P. (2014). Human factors systems approach to healthcare quality and patient safety. Applied ergonomics, 45(1), 14-25.

Dul, J., Bruder, R., Buckle, P., Carayon, P., Falzon, P., Marras, W. S., & van der Doelen, B. (2012). A strategy for human factors/ergonomics: developing the discipline and profession. Ergonomics, 55(4), 377-395.

Group of Who patient safety.,(2009). Human factors in patient safety review of topics and tools [Online], Retrieved from https://www.who.int/patientsafety/research/methods_measures/human_factors/human_factors_review.pdf

Holden, R. J., Scanlon, M. C., Patel, N. R., Kaushal, R., Escoto, K. H., Brown, R. L., ... & Karsh, B. T. (2011). A human factors framework and study of the effect of nursing workload on patient safety and employee quality of working life. BMJ quality & safety, 20(1), 15-24.

Kaufman, G., & McCaughan, D. (2013). The effect of organisational culture on patient safety. Nursing Standard (through 2013), 27(43), 50.

Leggat, S. G., Bartram, T., & Stanton, P. (2011). High performance work systems: the gap between policy and practice in health care reform. Journal of health organization and management, 25(3), 281-297.

McFadden, K. L., Henagan, S. C., & Gowen III, C. R. (2009). The patient safety chain: Transformational leadership's effect on patient safety culture, initiatives, and outcomes. Journal of Operations Management, 27(5), 390-404.

NCBI., (2013). The relationship between hospital work environment and nurse outcomes in Guangdong, China: nurse questionnaire survey [Online], Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3392025/

Proctor, R. W., & Van Zandt, T. (2018). Human factors in simple and complex systems. CRC press.

Richardson, A., & Storr, J. (2010). Patient safety: a literative review on the impact of nursing empowerment, leadership and collaboration. International nursing review, 57(1), 12-21.

Thenationalacademies.,(2018). Work environment for nurses and patient safety [Retrieved from https://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Activities/Quality/nurseandpatientsafety.aspx

Vicente, K. J. (2013). The human factor: Revolutionizing the way people live with technology. Routledge.

Weaver, S. J., Dy, S. M., & Rosen, M. A. (2014). Team-training in healthcare: a narrative synthesis of the literature. BMJ Qual Saf, 23(5), 359-372.