Fast Facts for Patient Safety in Nursing

"This unique Fast Fact serves as a quick resource for foundational, relevant data, knowledge, and vital information, not only about the nature of medical errors, but why they occur. More importantly, Hunt shows us how to comprehensively address problems: highlighting the need for both academic and clinical professional development, emphasizing approaches, as theory-informed practices; acknowledging importance of human caring, power, relationship, and such practices as mindful presence"

—Jean Watson, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, FAAN, LL(AAN)

Founder, Watson Caring Science Institute

Distinguished Professor/Dean Emerita, University of Colorado Denver

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 Fast Facts 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, Fast Facts boxes, suggested assignments, and resources for further study.

Key Features:

• Helps nurse managers to prioritize and address specific safety and medical errors immediately
• Delivers practical tips on improving patient care and outcomes
• Provides step-by-step guidance on preventing medication errors—the leading cause of adverse events
• Presents multiple strategies to develop critical thinking and judgment
• Offers interviews with patient safety experts for context and application
• Includes case studies, tips from the field, Fast Facts boxes, tables, discussion questions, suggested assignments, and more

Deborah Dolan Hunt, PhD, RN, is a Professor and Associate Dean of Nursing. She is also a Professor Emerita from The College of New Rochelle, and a Fellow in the New York Academy of Medicine. She is thrilled to be publishing this book and has published three prior books with Springer Publishers; The New Nurse Educator: Mastering Academe, The Nurse Professional: Leveraging Your Education for Transition into Practice, and Fast Facts About Nursing Practice: Historical Facts in a Nutshell. She is on the editorial board of DailyNurse.com. and serves on the Personalized Medicine Coalition Advisory Panel and a guest editor for Frontiers. She is an Ambassador and Reviewer with PCORI (Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute) and serves as Co-Chair of the Health and Human Services Committee at Community Board #10 where she spearheaded a healthy lifestyle initiative. She is currently serving as Co-Chair of the Talent Acquisition Committee at the Westchester County Association. She was the PI of the HRSA grant at CNR and facilitated its transfer to Mercy College and is currently serving as one of the Activity Directors for the Title V Access grants. Her research interests are in leadership, patient outcomes, new nurse transition, and mentoring.

Deborah was the Interim Dean at The College of New Rochelle and led the transition of the nursing program to Mercy College. She is an alum of both The College of New Rochelle and Mercy College which shared a similar mission. Mercy College has welcomed her and the former students, faculty, staff, and administrators with welcoming arms and she appreciates the collegiality and commitment to service and excellence at all levels.

In addition to academic writing, Deborah also publishes children's books, and the 2nd edition of her self-care book "Essential Oils, Teas, and Self-Care" will be released in 2022.