Patient Safety

2011 Hospital National Patient Safety Goals

Your safety is of the utmost importance to us at Capital Health. The purpose of the National Patient Safety Goals is to improve patient safety by focusing on problems in health care safety and how to solve them. Capital Health abides by these goals as a Joint Commission-accredited healthcare organization.

Identify patients correctly  
• Use at least two ways to identify patients. For example, use the patient’s name and date of birth. This is done to make sure that each patient gets the medicine and treatment meant for them.
• Make sure that the correct patient gets the correct blood type when they get a blood transfusion.

Improve staff communication
• Quickly get the important test results to the right staff person. Use medicines safely
• Take extra care with patients who take medications to thin their blood.

Prevent Infection
• Use the hand cleaning guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the World Health Organization.
• Use proven guidelines to prevent infections that are difficult to treat.
• Use proven guidelines to prevent infection of the blood from central lines.
• Use safe practices to treat the part of the body where surgery was done.

 Check Patient Medications
• Find out what medicines each patient is taking. Make sure that it is OK for the patient to take any new medicines with their current medications.
• Give a list of the patient’s medications to their next caregiver or to their regular doctor before the patient goes home.
• Give a list of the patient’s medicines to the patient and their family before they go home. Explain list.
• Some patients may get medicine in small amounts or for a short time. Make sure that it is okay for those patients to take those medicines with their current medicines.

Identify patient safety risks
• Find out which patients are most likely to try to commit suicide.

Prevent mistakes in surgery
• Make sure that the correct surgery is done on the correct patient and at the correct place on the patient’s body.
• Mark the correct place on the patient’s body where the surgery is to be done.
• Pause before the surgery to make sure that a mistake is not being made.