Healthcare facilities are responsible for dozens of lives, and these spaces can’t afford mishaps. Every individual involved in a healthcare department, including nurses, doctors, and management, has a role in ensuring that the place provides the best patient care possible.
However, things don’t always turn out as planned. At times, a slight miscalculation or neglect can cause a hospital to lose its license.
If you’re unaware of the regulations involving hospitals and healthcare facilities, here is a short guide to help you. These tips will assist you in avoiding catastrophes while increasing patient satisfaction levels.
Contents
Cleanliness Issues
Cleanliness is a crucial aspect often overlooked in many hospitals. Hundreds of patients visit a hospital daily, and under no circumstances can you let an infection break out in your building.
From the entry points of your building to the operation theatres and visiting lounge, every area must be free of germs. Your medical facility’s cleaning services must be able to handle all kinds of health hazards.
After all, when your staff isn’t careful about cleanliness, they might expose healthy patients to germs and diseases. That’s why preventing infections is essential—failing to do so can cost you both your reputation and your patients.
To avoid this, hire a professional cleaning staff to meticulously clean and disinfect every corner of the building. The more experienced the cleaners, the better the results.
Incorrect Amputations
Another incident that must be avoided in your healthcare department is an incorrect amputation or patient procedure. Even though it is highly criticized, there have been numerous cases involving incorrect amputations.
In such circumstances, where doctors perform surgery on the wrong body part of an individual, the hospital and the practitioner are both held liable. Your hospital loses millions of dollars in compensation and could even lose its license.
Similarly, wrong patient procedures are another evidence of hospital mismanagement. Someone might have been admitted for a gallbladder stone removal but ended up getting brain surgery due to a nurse’s incompetence or a technical glitch in the system.
Therefore, be extra careful when handling patient surgeries. Make sure your staff double-checks everything to avoid committing a mistake in the first place.
Slip and Fall Accidents
Hospital environments must protect patients from slip-and-fall accidents at all costs. Keep in mind, that patients choose to get treated in hospitals because they feel that this place can protect them and help them recover.
However, when these patients get hurt within a healthcare facility, it negatively impacts their mindsets and the reputation of the place. You can prevent falls and accidents by putting in a little effort.
Start by assigning nurses to patients who have had serious surgeries or have a high risk of losing their balance, and don’t let them move without support or wheelchairs. Nursing homes catering to senior citizens or bedridden patients should also be extra careful about the environment.
If a patient falls or experiences an accident within your supervision, they have the right to pursue you for damages based on negligence. Once that happens, all your hard work goes to waste, and your hospital loses patients.
Patients Suffering from Bedsores
Some healthcare facilities fail to protect their bedridden patients from bedsores, which is becoming widely common. Despite some experts arguing it to be an unavoidable issue, nursing homes and hospitals can prevent it with extra care.
Through better staffing and a little additional personal attention, you can create a safe healthcare environment for every patient. When management focuses on patient care and high-quality facilities, they hardly face such complaints.
The best part, these extra facilities don’t cause your hospital to lose money. Places that value injured individuals earn plenty of money and appreciation.
Improper Spaces and Paths
Lastly, the construction and dimensions of your hospital rooms should not be a problem for patients. You won’t be catering to just one kind of patient; you need to look after a diverse range of individuals with different health issues.
Thus, the distribution of beds, dimensions of rooms, and other physical aspects of the building must be proper. If you are creating an orthopedic ward, it should have enough space to accommodate the necessary equipment.
Similarly, the hospital rooms must allow swift transfer of patients, and the maternity wards must have enough cradles. In general, the building should be created with careful consideration and with the aid of an expert to prevent patients from facing problems.
Conclusion
Healthcare facilities need to provide a perfect environment for their patients. That includes giving them the right kind of medical attention, high-quality post-op care, and friendly staff. If you or someone close to you manages a healthcare center, they must keep these tips in mind.
Being in charge of a hospice makes you responsible for patient’s lives, which is why you can’t show ignorance in any matter, or else you end up with a lot of complications.
