Safety: Safety is an important practice that involves preventing harm not only for the patients but for hospital staff as well. Some examples of how I have increased safety during both clinical and working as a patient care assistant are participating in hourly rounding and every 30 minute patient safety checks, initiating and maintaining falls and seizure precautions, and conducting 1:1 patient safety observations.
Evidence-Based Practice: Evidence-based practice is the most up-to-date, best practice that is used to create safe and efficient patient centered care. Throughout nursing school, I have studied, researched and utilized evidence based practice. Examples of basic evidence-based practice that I have learned and utilized daily include proper ways to don and doff PPE and proper hand hygiene techniques. These may seem like trivial and easy tasks; however, when conducted improperly they can severely hinder patient safety by increasing the risk of spreading infection. I have also participated in several research and projects pertaining to evidence-based practice. The link below is an example of a article review on an evidence-based practice journal article.
Katelyn Swanger EBP Article Review
Patient Centered Care: During my employment at Pinnacle Health as a patient care assistant and as a nursing student with the Pennsylvania State University, I have been able to utilize patient centered care techniques such as involving family and friends in the care of my patients, using effective communication for diverse patient populations and respecting all of my patients values, preferences and needs. An example of how I use patient centered care every shift at the hospital is by participating in bedside shift report in the beginning and end of every shift. During bedside shift report I am able to introduce myself and involve the patient in the plan of care for the day while assessing the patients comfort and safety.
Informatics: I have had the opportunity to use several electronic medical recording systems including Sunrise at Holy Spirit Hospital, Soarian at Pinnacle Health Systems and Cerner at Hershey Medical Center. These electronic medical record systems give hospital staff ways to communicate and report knowledge and a means to recognize, report and prevent errors. Examples of ways that I have used Informatics to improve patient care and safety include communicating with doctors via online communication systems and utilizing patient barcode scanning systems during medication administration.
Quality Improvement: Quality improvement involves researching ways to improve patient outcomes, using that research to initiate and implement change in care and measuring effectiveness of the change. During my clinical experience in my senior semester I conducted a quality improvement project at the Holy Spirit Birthplace. During this Capstone Project I was able to research and educate the nursing staff at the Birthplace on the use of Skin to Skin Contact in the operating room. After education was conducted there was an overall increase in the nursing staff knowledge of this practice. The attachments below contain a written paper and a poster presentation pertaining to this project.