Healthcare worker fatigue: current strategies for prevention
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Pennsylvania patient safety advisory
- Author(s):
- Dubeck, Deborah, author
- Contributor(s):
- Pennsylvania. Patient Safety Authority, issuing body. ECRI (Organization), issuing body. Institute for Safe Medication Practices, issuing body.
- Publication:
- [Harrisburg, Pa.] : Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, [2014]
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Fatigue -- prevention & control Health Personnel Medical Errors -- prevention & control Medication Errors -- prevention & control Medical Errors -- statistics & numerical data Medication Errors -- statistics & numerical data Risk Management Humans Pennsylvania United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Since 2004, Pennsylvania healthcare facilities have reported to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority 1,601 events in which healthcare worker fatigue has been cited as a contributing factor. Medication errors (62.1%, n = 995) and errors related to a procedure, treatment, or test (26.4%, n = 422) comprised 88.5% of all events reported with healthcare worker fatigue as a contributing factor. In addition, 37 events (2.3%) were reported as Serious Events in which patient injury occurred, and 4 of the Serious Events resulted in patient death. The current literature shows that primary efforts to implement regulations and guidelines addressing healthcare worker fatigue has targeted limiting hours worked, but further scientific study suggests a more comprehensive approach is needed, as simply reducing hours does not address fatigue that is caused by disruption in circadian sleep and extended work hours. Healthcare organizations are employing some mitigating practices. Much can be learned from other industries and countries that are using more developed fatigue risk management systems (FRMSs) as a method of reducing this risk. The emergence of FRMSs may point to the solution of reducing the incidence of patient injury due to healthcare worker fatigue through both proactive and reactive assessments and interventions at the staff and administrative levels.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-ND license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (9 pages)).
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101634438 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101634438