National patient safety goals and quality indicators on suicide - Essay Example

National Patient Safety Goals and Quality Indicators on Suicide The National Patient Safety Goals have a purpose to improve thesafety of a patient. The goals of this body are focused on healthcare safety problems and how to solve them. Among its core mandates is to prevent suicide among the Emergency Departments’ patients. Physicians in these departments are hurried to respond to challenges of helping and saving patients who arrive to the departments with urgent or life threatening conditions (Joint Commission Resources, 2007).

The goals are aimed at preventing controllable deaths like suicides from occurring. The suicide patients are immediately recognized and protective interventions are out in place. Patients are transitioned to perfect treatment in a successful manner. Suicide may occur as a result of a failure to recognize the patient as suicidal and ensuring that the patient does not have an access to any means for suicide. Upon their recognition, the physician is expected to make a transition to another physician (Longnecker, 2012).

The National Patient Safety Goals requires all hospitals to conduct a risk evaluation to sort out any individual characteristics or environmental features that decrease or increase the risk for suicide. The evaluation is also aimed at addressing patients’ immediate safety requirements as well as making assured transitions to appropriate care after the patient leaves the emergency department (Sharfstein et al., 2009). Suicide prevention information is provided to the patient or his/her family upon leaving the emergency department.

The hospital organization also identifies safety risks inherent in its patient population. It identifies any patient who could be in risk for suicide. The National Patient Safety Goals provide safety measures to be observed in successful prevention of suicide in hospitals (Herz, 1997). ReferencesHerz, M. I. (1997). Practice guideline for the treatment of patients with schizophrenia. Washington, DC.Joint Commission Resources, Inc. (2007). Suicide prevention: Toolkit for implementing national patient safety goal 15A.

Oakbrook Terrace, Ill: Joint Commission Resources.Longnecker, D. E. (2012). Anesthesiology. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional.Sharfstein, S. S., Dickerson, F. B., & Oldham, J. M. (2009). Textbook of hospital psychiatry. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Pub.