ICORP GROUP · INSIGHTS
IPSGs Under JCI 8: 5 Patient Safety Goals Hospital Teams Should Review
International Patient Safety Goals or IPSGs are one of the topics that hospital staff are most familiar with, but familiarity may make organizations think it’s just a topic to remember before Survey. The fact is that IPSGs should be used as “Safety Lens” for high-risk system examination in daily work.
Goal 1: Identify patients correctly
The correct identification of the patient is the basis of all activities. From drug delivery, checking, transportation, to information transmission. The key thing is that the team needs to use the methods of identification that the organization regularly defines and the system needs to reduce the chances of shortcuts during an urgent period of work.
Goal 2: Improve effective communication
Moving communication is a common cause of many events. Specifically, urgent information, transmitted data, critical results reports and risk orders. The hospital should design clear communication methods, re-check and reduce memory deprivation.
Goal 3: Improve the safety of medications
Medication Safety is not only in the pharmacy, but starts from ordering, storage, preparation, drug administration to the tracking of results. The system should help the team see high-risk drugs, similarities of the drug name and the possible points that can cause Human Error.
Goal 4: Ensure safe surgery
Safe Surgery requires the validation of important information between the team and the patient systematically. The hospital should assess that the Pre-procedure Verification, Site/Procedure Confirmation and Team Communication processes occur in all situations. Not only large surgical rooms.
Goal 5: Reduce the risk of health care-associated infections
Reducing Healthcare-Associated Infections must weld Hand Hygiene, Standard Precautions, Device-Related Risk, Environment and Surveillance together. The sole compliance tracking may not be sufficient. If infection data is not used to analyze the risk points and design Improvement.
IPSG should be tested through Tracer.
Instead of asking staff “Do you remember the goal?” it should follow the Patient Journey or real processes such as blood clot, medication or surgery preparation. Then check whether each point has a security barrier that works really. This way makes the gap between Policy and Practice clearer.
What the administrator should see
- Reflective Reliability Indicators of each IPSG
- Recurring Risk and Near Miss
- Units or periods when compliance decreases
- Action Solution Not Just Warning People
- The results of Improvement After Operation
JCI identifies the current IPSGs 5 main goals: correct patient identification, effective communication, medication safety, safe surgery and reduction of health care-associated infections. Details may vary according to setting/accreditation program.
Note: This article is summarized from JCI's Public IPSG page for learning. Not used to replace the specifications in the official guide.