Essentials for Patient Safety in Nursing

This practical resource helps nurses develop the skills they need to avoid medical errors and promote patient safety. Based on the most current research and guidance from principal scientific/academic boards, the text identifies the most significant errors and their causes and describes how nurses can develop and improve critical thinking, logic, and clinical judgement to improve patient outcomes. This book presents an overview of common preventable issues and their causes, including medication errors, patient falls, pressure ulcers, infections, and surgical errors. It focuses on strategies for becoming a safe practitioner through education and competency development, while highlighting major national safety initiatives with improved outcomes. This Essentials discusses several theories that promote quality of care and concrete methods for fostering critical thinking and reasoning. It examines prioritization and delegation as a way to develop skills in addition to scope of practice, intuition, ethics, leadership, and emotional intelligence. The final chapter addresses patient safety using a holistic approach encompassing cultural humility and artificial intelligence. Each chapter includes an introduction, learning objectives, an illustrative case vignette, discussion questions, concise "Tips from the Field" special topics, Essential Facts boxes, suggested assignments, and resources for further study.