[Usefulness of failure mode and effects analysis to improve patient safety during the process of incorporating new nurses in an intensive care unit]

Efficacy of a theoretical and practical programme to newly hired nursing personnel in a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit: A pilot study

AIMS

(1) to design a training programme for newly hired nursing personnel and (2) to determine self-perception and perceived stress before and after the theoretical and practical parts of the programme with high fidelity simulation activities.

METHODS

A pilot quasi-experimental pretest-posttest study without control group conducted in a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit from October 2018 to April 2019 was conducted. A newly hired nursing personnel training programme was first designed and delivered. Later, the participants' self-perception was assessed, as well as their perceived stress and grade of satisfaction using two different Likert scales.

RESULTS

A total of 20 newly hired nurses participated in the study, 90% (n = 18) were female with a median age of 25.5 ± 4.53 years. Higher scores were obtained in participants' self-perception before and after the theoretical training. Lower significant median scores of the participants' stress perception were found (6.9 ± 1.57 versus 5.6 ± 1.794). In the practical part of the programme, we obtained higher scores in all items, as well as lower median scores in stress perception (6.4 ± 1.73 versus 5.6 ± 1.93).

CONCLUSIONS

A theoretical and practical programme for newly hired nursing personnel in a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit improved participants' self-perception and reduced their perceived median scores in stress levels.

Integrating Research Techniques to Improve Quality and Safety in the Preanalytical Phase

Background

Reducing errors in the preanalytical phase is difficult, which suggests the issue may be multidimensional. As such, qualitative research may be truly innovative in this context.

Method

We carried out a descriptive study using a qualitative method incorporating 4 focus groups. Data analysis followed the principles of Grounded Theory.

Results

We queried in each of the 4 focus groups collectively to identify weaknesses in the system. Those weaknesses that were most cited were logistics, coupled with uneven compliance with regulations.

Conclusion

All 4 focus groups mapped out directives for future work, so that regulatory aspects, process management, communication and resources could be identified as key areas where error reduction is critical.

Evaluation of the Care Safety of Patients with Surgical Interventions from a High-Complexity Institution in Medellín, Colombia

OBJECTIVES

This work sought to evaluate care safety of patients with surgical interventions in the area of general surgery in terms of administrative problems in caring, incidents, and adverse events.

METHODS

This was an observational-type prospective descriptive study that followed up patients intervened surgically by the general surgery group of a tier IV hospital unit in the city of Medellín.

RESULTS

The study evaluated 182 patients who received complete follow up during the care process in the institution; of these, 59 (32.4%) received unsafe care (10 incidents, 9 problems with quality, and 40 adverse events); the remaining 123 (67.6%) had safe care of which, 28 developed complications in spite of not having had flaws in the care process. Regarding the health professionals responsible for patient care, we found that 57.4% of the adverse events was the responsibility of the treating physician and the remaining 42.6% was the responsibility of the nursing staff.

CONCLUSIONS

The prevalence of adverse surgical events in this study was above that found in literature. Management of nursing care focused on improving the healthcare system in the area of surgery could reduce substantially not only the occurrence of flaw in caring, but also the economic burden upon the healthcare system.

A Case Study on Improving Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Services Reliability: By Using Process Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (PFMEA)

Introduction:

In any complex human system, human error is inevitable and shows that can’t be eliminated by blaming wrong doers. So with the aim of improving Intensive Care Units (ICU) reliability in hospitals, this research tries to identify and analyze ICU’s process failure modes at the point of systematic approach to errors.

Methods:

In this descriptive research, data was gathered qualitatively by observations, document reviews, and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with the process owners in two selected ICUs in Tehran in 2014. But, data analysis was quantitative, based on failures’ Risk Priority Number (RPN) at the base of Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) method used. Besides, some causes of failures were analyzed by qualitative Eindhoven Classification Model (ECM).

Results:

Through FMEA methodology, 378 potential failure modes from 180 ICU activities in hospital A and 184 potential failures from 99 ICU activities in hospital B were identified and evaluated. Then with 90% reliability (RPN≥100), totally 18 failures in hospital A and 42 ones in hospital B were identified as non-acceptable risks and then their causes were analyzed by ECM.

Conclusions:

Applying of modified PFMEA for improving two selected ICUs’ processes reliability in two different kinds of hospitals shows that this method empowers staff to identify, evaluate, prioritize and analyze all potential failure modes and also make them eager to identify their causes, recommend corrective actions and even participate in improving process without feeling blamed by top management. Moreover, by combining FMEA and ECM, team members can easily identify failure causes at the point of health care perspectives.

RISKS IN THE IMPLEMENTATION AND USE OF SMART PUMPS IN A PEDIATRIC INTENSIVE CARE UNIT: APPLICATION OF THE FAILURE MODE AND EFFECTS ANALYSIS

Objectives: The aim of this study was to identify risk points in the different stages of the smart infusion pump implementation process to prioritize improvement measures.

Methods: Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) of a General and Teaching Hospital. A multidisciplinary team was comprised of two intensive care pediatricians, two clinical pharmacists and the PICU nurse manager. FMEA was carried out before implementing CareFusion infusion smart pumps and eighteen months after to identify risk points during three different stages of the implementation process: creating a drug library; using the technology during clinical practice and analyzing the data stored using Guardrails® CQI v4.1 Event Reporter software.

Results: Several actions for improvement were taken. These included carrying out periodical reviews of the drug library, developing support documents, and including a training profile in the system so that alarms set off by real programming errors could be distinguished from those caused by incorrect use of the system. Eighteen months after the implementation, these measures had helped to reduce the likelihood of each risk point occurring and increase the likelihood of their detection.

Conclusions: Carrying out an FMEA made it possible to detect risk points in the use of smart pumps, take action to improve the tool, and adapt it to the PICU. Providing user training and support tools and continuously monitoring results helped to improve the usefulness of the drug library, increased users’ compliance with the drug library, and decreased the number of unnecessary alarms.