Answer for NURS 8310 Discussion 1 Quality and Safety in Healthcare and Nursing Practice 

In order to transition with the changing health care system and meet its demands as well as that of the patient and their families, it is of the utmost importance to acclimate to the demands for quality and cost containment to achieve improved outcomes, higher quality care delivery, patient safety and patient satisfaction. To address these areas necessitating improvement, it is imperative to identify and understand knowledge and practice gaps, integrating health information technology for the purpose of quality improvement and safety, developing a culture of quality care and service excellence and safety, reliability and value within the health care organization, focusing on population health, and engaging with the key players such as stakeholders, accrediting bodies, policy makers, health care providers, and patients/consumers (Nash et al., 2019). Improving patient safety continues to be of importance in the realm of public health issues (Lark et al., 2018). The ultimate health care goal is improved health care delivery and optimal patient outcomes.

Previous Experience with Quality and Safety

The patient safety is evident in every realm of medical practice without exception. Despite the fact that it is often times concentrated within the hospital setting, it is also pertinent in primary care. It has been reported that unsafe primary and ambulatory care incidents account for greater morbidity and higher health care use and expenditure due to unsafe medication practices and incorrect and/or delayed diagnosis which are the most common causes of patient harm (Kuriakose et al., 2020). As of yet, there seems to be a decreased understanding of how this situation can be remedied in the primary care setting since the bulk of the investigative work has been carried out to focus on hospital care (Kuriakose et al., 2020). Lawati et al. (2018) carried out a systematic review which identified primary care as an emerging field in research with a growing evidence base in western countries, and the results of the review identified that the most crucial first step in addressing this problem within the primary care setting was to establish and assess a culture of safety in order to create a basic and fundamental understanding to safety related perceptions of health care providers.

In terms of quality and safety in the primary care setting, the electronic medical record (EMR) system utilized in the primary care settings I am familiar with have proved to be a major factor in the increased safety and quality of care. There are safeguards with medication order entry as it pertains to patient medication allergies and careful attention is paid to dosages and look alike/sound alike medications. The EMR also has the capability to allow for electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) of medication(s) and this goes directly to the patient’s pharmacy at a much quicker rate, thus allowing for extra time for the pharmacy to ask questions and/or address concerns prior to the patient arriving at the pharmacy to retrieve their medication(s). The primary care setting is an area of medicine which serves as a health care systems entry point, and can have a great impact of a patient’s well-being and their need/willingness to utilize other health care resources (Kuriakose et al., 2020), and so this should encourage health care providers to support this setting as well as its accompanying challenges  in order to research and grow the knowledge base necessary for disseminating relevant and pertinent information for improved quality of care and patient safety in order to decrease health care cost and achieve improved patient health care outcomes.