As of late, you will realize that human factors are an inseparable part of nursing as a profession. Whether you’re already a nurse and pursuing an advanced course, or you’re a nursing student who wants to become a global nurse, ‘human factors’ will always be a part of your curriculum.
Maybe, in its most basic form, nursing has been seen as a duty. However, if you consider the activities a nurse goes through, there is an additional factor of grace that lies within the foundation of a nurse’s daily work. For instance, helping people can only be considered as a noble calling and nothing less than that. Nurses find it as a privilege to serve the fellow human beings.
Anyhow, looking if the patients’ environment promotes safety or not, is another perspective, this concerns human factors. For a fact, there are certain factors that nurses should consider while assessing the environment.
Here’s how a nurse should assess the safety in the environment for the patients-
- Make sure you learn and memorize the operating instructions to work different equipment and machines with different brands because all devices operate in a different way. Not remembering the instructions as per the difference of the machine type or the manufacturing of it will prove to be risky for both the patients and the healthcare professional.
- Lack of consistency fetches a lot of chaos and risk. For instance, if you have to simultaneously open and close multiple tabs and screens to acquire information and details, then the system is supposed to have a well-designed software to increase the uniformity. If not, the chances of errors do automatically increase.
- You need to be warned whenever something wrong happens. The care you provide to the patient as a nurse is supposed to be a continuous process with proper detailing of the minutest happening. So, make sure there is a smart computer system, equipment or other machines, which flag inaccuracies. This way any error can be detected ‘in’ time and can be rectified in the best possible manner, with no further damage.
- How about being interrupted while taking care of a patient? Or having to do multitasking? A big NO. This may lead into great confusion. As a nurse, you cannot turn the healthcare establishment into an unsafe place because of the unwanted interruptions. Avoid multitasking and interruptions in between.
Now and again, Simulation Based Learning has been proved to be the most promising way to make nursing students learn to tackle real life situations and ensure patient safety. INSCOL Centre of Continuing Education provides you with such workshops. For more information, you can visit http://www.inscol.com/india/cce.
