The urge to improve patient safety and promote patient-centered care has drastically changed nursing capabilities. One of the most prominent and essential existing policies that has helped improve care across the six domains of healthcare quality is the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act, n.d.). The act introduced a new system for recording and analyzing medical errors to improve the quality and safety of care.
The initiative was voluntary; therefore, confidentiality protection was ensured for patient records. The law introduced significant changes to efforts to recognize and address errors in healthcare constructively. Rather than being hidden as they were in the past, medical errors are now leveraged as vital learning tools to foster patient-centered care and enhance the overall standard of clinical services. Nurses can acquire more meaningful knowledge through medical error analysis and implement the skills to prevent their occurrence, thereby improving patient safety.
There are more recent legislations that strengthen nurses’ capabilities to improve upon the six domains of healthcare quality. For example, the Patient Safety Improvement Act of 2020 was introduced to improve the quality of medical care (Patient Safety Improvement Act, 2020). In terms of effectiveness, it can be said that this act motivated the staff to provide more careful care for patients.
The proposed legislation is a continuation of the 2005 Act, which addresses new challenges that may arise in medicine over the next few years. The law turned out to be neither completely timely nor equitable, as many people had already suffered from a lack of attention. For this reason, it is impossible to call this act completely efficient, as the beneficial effect did not apply to all patient groups. The act aims to strengthen infection control efforts, ensure adherence to better transitional care principles, and enhance reporting systems. The legislation can develop the processing of medical errors and prevention strategies. It will have a profound impact on the promotion of patient-centered care and the improvement of patient safety.
References
Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005: Statute and rule, Publ. L. No. 109-41. (n.d.).
Patient Safety Improvement Act of 2020. Publ. L. No. S.3380. (2020).