Risk Factors for Patient Safety (Nursing)

00:01 So there are several risk factors for patient safety and we need to consider this when we're taking care of our patient.

00:08 So one of them could be age and developmental stage.

00:11 This could be a certain patient diagnosis.

00:14 So for example, certain diagnosis can definitely put a patient at risk.

00:19 An example of this may be a heart failure patient, a diabetic patient.

00:23 There's lots of complications that come along with that.

00:26 The other thing is mental status.

00:29 Man, if you've ever taken care of a confused patient, it's really troublesome and really risky for that patient to fall, for them to harm themselves.

00:37 So these are all things we need to consider.

00:40 The other thing is sometimes as healthcare providers, we administer meds that really can do a number on our patients.

00:47 Think about when you come out of anesthesia and you're trying to walk around, you can imagine you're definitely gonna be a risk of falls and risk for injury.

00:56 So now let's look at some safety risks by developmental stage.

01:00 The reason why these are gonna be important to us as a nurse, some of these are the cause of why they come see us in the hospital.

01:07 So for example, toddlers, they could fall with an injury to their head.

01:12 It could be a biking accident, they could have fallen off the couch or fallen off something higher.

01:16 The other thing is accidental poisoning.

01:19 Sometimes kids tend to get underneath cabinets in kitchens and get ahold of poisons or other chemicals that are definitely undesirable.

01:27 Next, unfortunately, drowning is something that we see in the hospital under toddlers, something that's really sad to see but this is also a risk at their age.

01:38 So let's look at the school-age patient.

01:41 Now a lot of times they come to us with maybe football injuries, broken arm, something like that, maybe even burns because they like to play with fire sometimes.

01:50 So just keep in mind, these are some of the potential causes of safety risk to these clients.

01:56 So when we think about adolescence, a lot of the times we're gonna see them in the hospital due to a vehicle accident.

02:02 It's a scary time for parents, I can only imagine.

02:05 But not only that, substance abuse, and also threats of suicide.

02:09 So they come to us in the hospital a lot, we may see marks on their arms, we may see signs of drug abuse, these are all potential things that we would treat in the hospital.

02:22 Now when we get to more of adult, a lot of the times we see safety risks because of their lifestyle habits, and again, those vehicle accidents also could be another issue.

02:34 Also with adults, a lot of the older population we're really worried about falls, so most of the time they come to us because also confusion, maybe they fell and hit their head or broke a hip.

02:46 The other thing we see really commonly in the older adult is urinary tract infections, and they can cause a lot of confusion on our patients.

02:55 So anytime an older adult is admitted to the ER and they seem to be confused or disoriented, one of the first things we actually do is do a urinary screen to see if they have a urinary tract infection.