aft task 1

Nightingale Hospital’s mission is to strive for healthcare excellence. As such, it is imperative for us to work to address any deficiencies found on our state audits. As always, our goal is for 100% compliance in all survey areas as even a 1% deficiency brings the potential for patient injury or death and for increased hospital operating costs. On our last Joint Commission survey, four priority focus areas were identified: information management, medication management, communication and infection control. In order to address any deficiencies in each of these areas and in preparation for our next Joint Commission audit in a year’s time, each of these focus areas will be discussed in an individual brief and a corrective action plan will be implemented for each deficiency. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, adverse drug events account for over 770,000 patient injuries or deaths each year. ADEs account for an increase of 8-12 hospital days per patient at a cost increase of $16,000 to $24,000 over other admissions/ diagnoses. This leads to an average national cost to hospitals of between 1.56- 5.96 billion per year. Furthermore, as much as 30% of adverse drug reactions are due to preventable medication errors such as missed dose, wrong technique, duplicate dosing, and preparation errors. Going further, the AHRQ states that between 42-60 % of medication errors are due to excessive dosing for patient weight, age, renal function, and underlying medical condition (AHRQ 2001). In light of these statistics, it is easy to see the importance of immediately addressing any medication management deficiencies. The Joint Commission identified three medication management priority focus areas: planning the medication management processes, reducing the likelihood of patient harm associated with the use of anticoagulant therapy, and proper labeling of all medications, medication containers, or other solutions. Further monitoring identified that,