Fatigue in Healthcare

Fatigue in Healthcare
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Fatigue in Healthcare
Introduction
All hospital departments, nursing homes, and emergency rooms are heavily reliant on round-the-clock support from the nursing team and physicians. Consequently, workers in health care are affected by fatigue and sleep deprivation which translate to needle-stick injuries, medical errors, and adverse patient aftermaths. Worker fatigue is one of the leading management issues in healthcare sector due to its close association with medical errors, employee turnover, and absenteeism. Its adverse magnitudes have attracted concern from the Joint Commission to give directives to healthcare facilities to carry out a fatigue risk evaluation. The organization, as an imperative accreditation body, has urged healthcare organizations to device fatigue safety and risk management strategies.
Nurses and Physicians Fatigue
Frequency of occurrence
A Joint Commission survey in 2014 revealed that 70% of medical professionals experienced fatigue on their daily basis. An overwhelming 80% of the respondents reported the feeling of sleep while on duty. It was discovered that fatigue was highest among nurses who have close and direct contact with patients as indicated by the high level of fatigue-induced (Williams & Wilkins, 2014). The issue is a daily routine for nurses as indicated by Courtney, Francis and Paxton (2014) findings that 60 % of nurses sleep for six hours and below daily due to work overload. It can be backed by the Nursing Center research in Philadelphia hospitals, which indicated that when nurses do not have enough sleep for more than six hours, there is are 3.4% chances that a medical error in a span of 24 hours of their HOS. In the polysomnographic recorders reports, nurses working during night shift hours have the same levels of fatigue with truck drivers and air traffic operators (Courtney, Francis, & Paxton, 2014). Therefore, fatigue in healthcare is an issue whose occurrence frequency is on a daily basis. Although its occurrence is not documented, it manifests itself through medical errors, worker turnover, and absenteeism.
Negative consequences
The adverse consequence of fatigue to individuals in nursing fraternity include limited energy and attention span to execute duties efficiently. Fatigue causes micro-sleeping, slow reaction time and reflexes, euphoria, restlessness, forgetfulness, mental sluggishness and general body weakness. As a result of fatigue, nurses and physicians record poor performance more so in medical situations where high-risk and irregular performance are followed. Fatigue triggers medical errors and accidents. It follows the Joint Commission survey that discovered that 20% of medical errors in the form of negative patient outcome and serious accidents are triggered by fatigue (Williams & Wilkins, 2014). Furthermore, RNAO (2011) indicate that fatigue causes loss of situational awareness and concentration which are the key aspects that determine nurses’ capacity to reconnoiter things that are happening in their immediate envi...