CRITICAL APPRAISAL ON LEADERSHIP FOR QUALITY AND SAFETY IN HEALTH CARE

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Introduction

Leadership quality is defined as the role of a particular individual while monitoring the activities of a group of people sharing a similar goal. In this critical appraisal we will critically analyze that whether such leadership qualities are related to the enhancements in patients’ safety or administrative end products when in relation to the healthcare department (Strömgren 2017).

Most of the healthcare concerned organizations are still trying to aim for high dependability i.e., the ability to avoid and minimize unfavorable circumstances while constantly providing best quality care with the background of the environment which is quickly changing.

The position of the people working at the point edge are the best as they can recognize risky situations and warn and address to the flaws of the system of the organization. The concept of the word leadership, though have been always dedicated to the top ranks of the organization, the workers at the frontline and the supervisors immediate to them play key roles to be change agents and encouraging patient-centered care.

With the evolution in the safety fields, the main roles that the organizational leaders play in placing the security and care of the patients first are being highly recognized. In this context we will see how human factors such as environmental, job and organizational factors as well as the characteristics of human and individual might affect the work behavior and in turn affects the health and safety of a patient (Asif 2019).

Human Factors that affect the work performance

The human factors that affect the work performance include the three basic factors which are interconnected:

The job
The organization and
The Individual

The job:

It includes the sectors such as the workload, the working environment, the nature of the job, the role of the strategy and the outline of the control and display. The job should be mapped in correspondence to the ergonomic principles, i.e., the in accordance with the comfort and efficiency of the work environment and taking into account both the strengths and limitation of human.

This means that the given task should match with the capacity of the human including the mental and physical heath of the people and their limitations. The mental health would indicate to the decision making, perceptual and attention capability of the person doing the job (Czaja 2019).

The Organization:

The influencing factors include the work place, its culture, and pattern of the work, resources, communication and leadership in the workplace. These factors are sometimes excluded while designing the jobs but are of immense importance as it influences the group behavior or individual behavior during the work.

The individual:

An individual’s competence skills, attitude, risk perception and personality are all very influential to the way an organization works and in turn to health and safety. Some of the characteristics of an individual are never changing such as his/her personality while others like attitude or skills are prone to alterations and enhancements (SakthiNagaraj 2020).

In all we can say that human factors are interested in what the people are being asked to do, who is doing the job, and where is the individual’s workplace. All these factors together are influenced by other social factors both locally and nationally.

Human factors, as the word says is everything related to human or the particular individual at work. Thus, we should not forget that Humans are faulty and they can make mistakes. So, actions leading to accidents may be categorized under the following points:

Unintended mistakes and errors
Poor sense of perception and regretful decision making
Not following the correct procedures

While some workplaces are experts in identifying the hazardous situation and training their employees about basic safety just after it hires them, some are still behind in understanding the human factors from the perspective of safety and health care. A Human factor outlook is the key point for safer healthcare. Some measures for a better and safer healthcare are:

All the systems combined together should work to attain a common goal.
All the systems should include a physical workspace where there are devices, medications, information systems and equipment used etc.
The people working should believe each other, have values, should have good habits and assumptions.
The people who become a group should provide care; they should form good relations, share similar attitudes and have the potential to respond to adverse situations.
A change in the work style of the place where the people work could affect the way a person works a lot.
A successful safer working system is achieved when the different teams work together in harmony following the instructions. This greatly influences the way the organizational culture and structure is affected (Mannion 2017).

In case of patient’s safety, the healthcare workers should be well aware of the situations that would increase the possibility of any errors for human in any circumstances. The most influential human factors in the case of patient’s safety are: Stress and fatigue (Carayon 2020).

Prolonged shifts of work have shown deterioration in the performance of the individual worker. There has been a considerable relation between stress and fatigue of individual. While fatigue might decrease the rate of work, low levels of stress might also result in the same. A required amount of stress is necessary to be imposed on the working employee to get the task done with necessary caution (Streimelweger 2020).

Thus to conclude, human factors are very important for a better work performance in any organizational sectors be it business oriented or medical sectors related to patient’s safety. The Human factor experts believe that it is very important to examine the incident and also to be ready for a close call.

So, training the staff for facing any thick and thin situation becomes very essential so that there is no chance remaining for any close call and the situation is pre detected and analyzed and the errors are eliminated much before the hazardous incident could occur.

Critically identify the relationship between the safety and quality in health care and human factors

Based on the above human factors related to the industry of healthcare, the performance of work is being duly affected at many industrial sectors especially in the healthcare segment. The most common identification of the human factors that generates a core relationship in an industry comprises of various intellectual functions and perception like attention, judgment, memory and detection Kocaballi et al., (2019).

Based on the quality and the safety of the healthcare industry the latest technological devices help many doctors, nurses, staffs and the patients to be equipped and dealt with. However, the human factor also plays an important role in shaping the relationship between safety and quality in the healthcare industry.

The most common human factors error causes in a health care segment includes lack of communication, distraction, lack of knowledge, lack of working criterion, lack of hospital resources, high priorities of stress and complacency results health care industry to compromise with its safety and quality standards. In addition to this, the factors of human in a safety priority concern influence doctors and patients behaviour.

However, in the broader terms, the three necessary factors of human that has affected the safety of the health care workplace include humidity, ventilation and cleanliness of the hospital area respectively Marshall &Touzell, (2020).

Based on some accurate sources the factors of human would assist in designing the process which enables nurses and doctors to perform their responsibilities efficiently. Along with, the application of human factors is considered as high priority disciplinary relevance in the safety of patients respectively.

According to the report of WHO the presence of human factors in an industry like healthcare is very crucial for the safety of patients. The organization has stated that being totally implemented with the latest technological devices in a hospital; the safety of patients cannot be compromised or sacrificed respectively.

The performance of human being presents physically specifies the perfect outcome of the patient safety at a glance. The term ergonomics and factors of human in a health care organization depicts the aspects of human; that has coincided with its interrelated works, individual work and the physical task at the hospital workplace. These also include patient safety standard and management of hospital operations Barr & Dowding, (2019).

It is very essential for the employees of health care industries to be aware of a situation that raises the probability of human being mistake in any critical situation. The two relevant factors with the most effect are stress and fatigue.

There is a presence of very strong evidence of scientific linking decrement of performance and fatigue in making and initializing a recognized risk issue in the safety of patient’s standards. The protracted work and relieving stress are totally related to the error of human factors; however, it is very tough to remove human as safety for patients.

This could be understood with a perfect example. In aviation industry, the role of the human in driving a plane (being a pilot) is considered to be the most trustworthy element however it cannot be replaced in an advanced technological module Smith & Plunkett, (2019). In the same terms, the role of the human is also very important in a patient standard of safety respectively.

It cannot be removed by stress issues or any types of human error. However, in the hospital terms, there is also a need for emergence for the patients to understand the human work performance to reduce the forthcoming events. Based on the opinion of the researcher, the relationship between the safety and quality in health care and human factors results in totally imperative and deliver the optimum care of the safety of patients respectively;

Based on the perfect example of the various sources; it does not have any negative impact on any patient safety; thus results in a positive outcome of the health care quality services. Although, it is true that the major implications of the human factors result in several modes like stress and ambiguity; it cannot be compared to any advanced technological system respectively Bleich (2020).

In addition to this, the list of human factors that might affect any industrial workplace (especially health care segment) is duly coincided by the researcher itself by giving an aviation industry example mentioned above. Furthermore, based on this topic several intellectual clinical articles have been performed and finally, the researcher has come to the conclusion that the presence of a human is quite very necessary in maintaining the standard of patient safety and culture respectively.

Conclusion

This is to conclude with the main points that the above discussion is about the factors of human that coincide with patient safety in the healthcare industry. The researcher has presented the topic in a deep manner by giving an instance of an aviation industry.

However, it has been found from the above paragraph that the role of humans cannot be compromised with the safety of the patients and the quality of the hospitals respectively.

However, as mentioned above that the most common human factors in a health care segment comprise of lack of communication skills, disturbance, lack of information and knowledge, lack of official administration working criterion, lack of hospital resources, high priorities of stress and complacency which results from the health care industry

compromise with its safety and quality standards of patients respectively. Being adhered by the latest technological disorders in the hospital sector, it is not important to in-built these adoptions in patient safety rather than to trust blindly in human factors.

Last but not the least; it is important for every health care industry to implement the coincides functional requirements of the human factors rather than to implement or remain dependable on advance technological disorders for patient safety.

References

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