National Patient Safety Goals

In our efforts to maintain a safe environment, the hospital has developed the following Patient Safety Goals:

Goal: Improve the accuracy of patient identification.
  • Use at least two patient identifiers whenever administering medications, blood products or taking blood samples or specimens for clinical testing. At CPMC, we use the patient’s name and date of birth.
  • Prior to the start of a surgery/procedure, staff must verify the correct patient, procedure, and site.
Goal: Improve the effectiveness of communication among caregivers.
  • All verbal orders are read back and verified. If a value or test is “critical”, the nurse will immediately notify the physician. If it is specific to an x-ray or lab test, the technician will notify the physician. The care provider will document this process in the medical record.
  • When your health care team writes in your medical record, they will use a standardized list of abbreviations, acronyms and symbols.
Goal: Improve the safety of using medications.
  • The pharmacist will review a list of look-alike/sound-alike drugs used in the facility and take the necessary steps to assure medications errors do not occur.
  • Electrolytes are only available in the pharmacy.
Goal: Eliminate wrong-site, wrong-patient, wrong-procedure surgery.
  • All procedures require a time out prior to the start of the procedure. Surgical sites are marked by the physician doing the procedure.
Goal: Improve the safety of using infusion pumps.
  • All infusion pumps have an anti-free flow safety device. PCA pumps use anti-siphon tubing.
Goal: Improve the effectiveness of clinical alarm systems.
  • When the patient is placed on the equipment, the alarms are tested. This is done on every shift.
Goal: Reduce the risk of health care-associated infections.
  • All staff is trained on hand washing, alcohol based gels, nosocomial urinary tract infections and aspiration pneumonia precautions.
Goal: Accurately and completely record medications.
  • A list of the patient’s medications is communicated to the next provider of service when it refers or transfers a patient to another setting, service, practitioner or level of care within or outside the organization. This includes a comparison list of medications brought from home or formulated by another institution.
Goal: Reduce the risk of patient harm resulting from falls.
  • CPMC assesses each patient for risk of falls. If a patient is at risk for a fall, the nurse will begin the fall precautions program.
Goal: Reduce the risk of influenza and pneumococcal disease.
  • CPMC assesses each patient for a flu shot. If a flu shot is needed, the nurse will administer the shot. If a case of the flu is identified, the health care team will take the necessary precautions to manage an outbreak.
Goal: Reduce the risk of surgical fires.
  • CPMC conducts fire drills to ensure our safety.

For more information, visit the Joint Commission website or contact the Standards Interpretation Group at (630) 792-5900, or complete the Standards Outline Question Submission Form.