Discussion on Patient Safety

One patient safety problem is burnout among nursing staff and other healthcare providers, as nurse burnout directly correlates with increased medical errors (Garcia et al., 2019). Burnout also contributes to negligent or non-empathic care, such as nurses who fail to provide adequate patient education or nurses who fail to consider the patient’s needs and/or preferences (Rehder et al., 2020). The consequences of nurse burnout on the patient can be catastrophic, especially if it involves a medication or treatment error that adversely impacts outcomes (Garcia et al., 2019). For example, a nurse experiencing burnout may fail to accurately review the patient’s list of allergies before administering medication, resulting in a catastrophic medication error. Alternatively, nurses experiencing burnout may provide hasty patient education, neglecting to inform patients of certain foods or activities that may need to be avoided. Nurses experiencing burnout may also offer a low quality of care that treats the patient as a burden. A nurse experiencing burnout may cause the patient’s willingness to receive future care at that facility, further hindering their overall outcomes (Rehder et al., 2020). 

Burnout is often associated with overworked nurses, such as nurses who are expected to work multiple overtime shifts or nurses who work in understaffed units (Rehder et al., 2020). However, some nurses may experience burnout simply from performing their expected work duties, so nurse burnout should not be simply considered a staffing issue (Rehder et al., 2020). The specific changes in practice that can help improve patient outcomes in this regard would be the introduction of burnout intervention strategies to help nurses cope with work stressors, which in turn can reduce the problem of burnout. This would have an impact on patients because they would receive more attentive care overall (Garcia et al., 2019).    

One research question that can test the effectiveness of practice change via the inclusion of burnout reduction interventions is “Which burnout reduction techniques within a healthcare organization can best resolve the problem of burnout among staff?” This quantitative study with a correlational design would aim to identify specific statistical correlations between burnout reduction techniques and feelings of burnout among the team. A quantitative approach is preferred over a qualitative approach because a quantitative approach provides exact measurements that can be used to justify the inclusion of specific burnout reduction techniques (Bloomfield & Fisher, 2019). A descriptive design would be ineffective because the sample would include multiple groups, as the research would evaluate burnout reduction strategies across numerous institutions. In addition, the study’s primary purpose would be to examine the relationship between burnout and burnout reduction techniques, which is why it is preferred over an experimental or quasi-experimental design. The ideal results of the study list different burnout reduction strategies with a quantitative score evaluating their impact. For example, theoretical research might reveal that including mindfulness meditation training among staff lowered medication errors by 15% while counseling nurses experiencing burnout lowered errors by 20%. By quantifying the results, the research question can be answered by examining which techniques had the most significant impact on reducing burnout among staff. 

References

Bloomfield, J., & Fisher, M. J. (2019). Quantitative research design. Journal of the Australasian Rehabilitation Nurses Association, 22(2), 27-30. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.738299924514584 

Garcia, C. D. L., Abreu, L. D., Ramos, J. L. S., Castro, C. D. D., Smiderle, F. R. N., Santos, J. A. D., & Bezerra, I. M. P. (2019). Influence of burnout on patient safety: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Medicina, 55(9), 553. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6780563/ 

Rehder, K. J., Adair, K. C., Hadley, A., McKittrick, K., Frankel, A., Leonard, M., … & Sexton, J. B. (2020). Associations between a new disruptive behaviors scale and teamwork, patient safety, work-life balance, burnout, and depression. The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 46(1), 18-26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcjq.2019.09.004