Workarounds are alternative methods through which providers bypass standard healthcare procedures and rules in order to achieve a goal(Seaman &Erlen, 2015). An example of a workaround is when doctors use pen and paper to write their orders and have the nurses enter them into the Computerized Patient Record System and then sign the orders later. The standard practice involves doctors gathering and entering patient information in the computerized system. A few factors made this workaround exist. First, some doctors felt that the process was tedious and would rather delegate it to the nurses. Others might have low confidence in the system or are unfamiliar with the system. Sometimes the system delay prompted the doctors to result to the paper-based workaround. The risks of this workaround include medication errors from nurses misreading the orders, introducing potential patient documentation gaps and wastage of time as nurses will have to do the process later. However, in terms of benefits, this workaround allowed Doctors to see more patients and save time in case of system delays. This workaround although risky could be beneficial in times where the system freezes or has massive downtime or delays.
Patient safety is an important aspect of healthcare provision. Quality safety culture has been linked to better health outcomes(Kumbi et al., 2020). The current patient safety measures in my workplace are based on teamwork, continuous learning and adequate staffing. Interdisciplinary teams work together, communicate and share resources to improve patient safety. Continuous staff training and adequate staffing ensures enough manpower and expertise to provide quality care to patients. Some aspects that need to be changed include, handoff and transitions which when done poorly can lead to loss of critical patient information and cause risk to patient safety and outcomes. Another aspect is the blame culture which discourages reporting of safety incidents thus preventing mistake identification which only puts patient safety at risk. Patient confidentiality is abused when patient information is written down and shared on paper. Strategies for change include establishing efficient handover and shift change procedures, sticking to best practices such as using CPRS and adapting a ‘just culture’ method which counters the blame culture and instead focuses on identifying system failures(Reis et al., 2018).

References

Kumbi, M., Hussen, A., Lette, A., Nuriye, S., &Morka, G. (2020). <p>Patient Safety Culture and Associated Factors Among Health Care Providers in Bale Zone Hospitals, Southeast Ethiopia: An Institutional Based Cross-Sectional Study</p>. Drug, Healthcare And Patient Safety, Volume 12, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.2147/dhps.s198146

Reis, C., Paiva, S., & Sousa, P. (2018). The patient safety culture: a systematic review by characteristics of Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture dimensions. International Journal For Quality In Health Care, 32(7), 487-487. https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzy171

Seaman, J., &Erlen, J. (2015). Workarounds in the Workplace. Orthopaedic Nursing, 34(4), 235-240. https://doi.org/10.1097/nor.0000000000000161