Safety and Quality Corner – safe and quality care every day.
STARS’s first full accreditation against the NSQHS Standards is in eight days from 8 – 11 February 2022.
There will be three assessors on site for four days, and they will spend most of their time in the hospital talking to you and your colleagues in the clinical and non clinical areas. They will want to see how you provide the excellent patient focused care you to do provide.
When they talk to you, you should simply tell them about the great work you do everyday helping to care for patients. That is all they will want to know.
They will not ask you to explain how you use Standard 3. They will watch you use the five moments of hand hygiene, ask how you apply standard precautions, how you don and doff your PPE, and where to find the latest COVID directions.
They will not ask you to show how Standard 4 is applied in your ward. They will ask questions about how you know a patient has an allergy, how you prescribe or administer patient medications safely, how you involve patients in medication decisions about them, how you apply antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) in your practice.
Here is a reminder of Standard 3 and 4.
Standard 3
Preventing and Controlling Infections: This standard makes sure the risk of patient infection is minimised and any infection is treated promptly
We show we do this by:
- having excellent hand hygiene (the five moments)
- being bare below the elbow
- wearing PPE correctly and as per transmission based and standard precautions
- correctly using reusable equipment
- cleaning the WOW between patients
- using antibiotics wisely and as per protocol.
Standard 4
Medication Safety: This standard makes sure clinicians safely prescribe, dispense, and administer the right medicines. It ensures patients know about their medicines.
We show this by:
- asking patients about their medication history
- correctly using the ieMR and scanner for medicine administration
- ensuring allergies are documented and reviewed.
Ella van Raders
Director, Safety and Quality
Surgical Treatment and Rehabilitation Services (STARS)