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Managing Conflict is Essential to Safe and Effective Correctional Nursing
I live in a neighborhood of 36 houses that are built very close to one another. The neighborhood is surrounded by a beautiful landscape. The peacefulness and beauty of the setting was the reason I...
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Scope of practice, assignment and delegation of patient care in the...
It is a weeknight shift at a 2000 bed male medium custody correctional facility. The health care staff on duty consists of a registered nurse (RN) who is “in charge” of the shift, three licensed...
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Patient Safety and Nursing Care Delivery
According to the Wall Street Journal, enough Americans are kills by medical errors each week to fill four jumbo jets. Patients are rarely told of errors made during their care and the same errors...
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Applying National Patient Safety Goals-Patient Identification
Recently I reviewed the medication administration practices at a small city jail. The nurse had been there many years and was able to complete the delivery of medication on 3 floors of inmate cells...
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Proposed Standards for Patient Safety in Prisons
Some patient safety standards from traditional healthcare settings are applicable in corrections; most notably patient identification, medication administration, and hand hygiene. Many, however, are...
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Creating a Culture of Patient Safety in Corrections
Work culture is created by the values, attitudes, perceptions and behaviors of the work team. It is most simply defined as ‘the way we do things here’ and grows over time to be a stable presence in...
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Patient Safety and Correctional Nursing Fatigue
Janet was at the end of her third 12-hour night shift when it happened. She was giving the morning insulin at 4 am, as she had done so many times in her 3 years at the prison. This time, however, she...
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Silence Kills: Communicating for Patient Safety
What do you do if you see a fellow nurse not washing her hands after a dressing change or not checking the MAR (Medication Administration Record) before administering routine medication to a patient?...
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Improving Patient Safety with a Hand-Written Medical Record
The medical record is a primary source of communication among health care staff and serves as a permanent record of care and treatment delivered to a patient. Lack of adequate communication and...
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Hand Hygiene: A simple habit embedded in the complex process of care.
Last month the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) sponsored a discussion about what it takes to improve healthcare workers compliance with recommended hand hygiene practices. Less than 50 % of...
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What is Your Hand Hygiene IQ?
Last week we shared information about health care organizations that had improved compliance with best practices for hand hygiene into the 90% range. If patient safety (i.e. reduction in healthcare...
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Best Practices to Promote Hand Hygiene
“Hand hygiene seems so simple but is complex in health professionals minds otherwise it would be done all the time. Having hand washing ‘handy or in close proximity’ to the work seems to be one key. We...
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Drug Diversion or Bad Habits?
You have been asked by the CQI (continuous quality improvement) committee to initiate a weekly review of accountability for administration of controlled substances. Your facility recently installed an...
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Healthy Workplace = Quality + Patient Safety
A few weeks ago we summarized features in the new edition of the Correctional Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice (ANA, 2013). The scope and standards are described first, as the foundation for...
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Caring for Women in Prison: Sexually Transmitted Infections
Sexually transmitted infections (STI) are higher among the incarcerated population than the general public and female inmates have higher rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea than their male counterparts....
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Best wishes for a safe and error-free holiday season
In correctional settings the Christmas and New Year holidays bring special challenges. Prisons, jails and detention facilities operate 24/7 every day of the year and holidays can be stressful and busy....
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Preventing diversion of prescription drugs in prison and jail
Last week’s post described the epidemic of prescription drug abuse in the United States and the impact on the nation’s jails and prisons. This week we return to the same subject but focus on the...
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Correctional Nursing: How to Improve the Practice Environment
The first examination of the qualities of professional practice in correctional nursing was done recently in Ontario, Canada. Conclusions from the surveys and interviews of 297 nurses and nurse...
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Patient Safety – What’s Holding You Back?
Patient safety is a core concept to professional nursing practice. Indeed, we have an ethical responsibility to keep our patients from harm and to always seek their good. I discuss this in an earlier...
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Medication Reconciliation
An inmate approaches you at morning med line and asks for his medication. When he gives you his name and identification number you are unable to find a corresponding Medication Administration Record...
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