Critical Decision Making: Work Safety and Hazards for Healthcare

The Scenario Involving Mike
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Decision making and critical thinking are important aspects of professional nursing vital to offer high quality and safe care for patients. Making critical decisions require the use of critical thinking to create decisions that fit a particular situation. Critical thinking entails self-monitored self-directed, self-corrective and self-disciplined thinking, and it is focused on creating excellent values and reflecting on careful thought prior creating decisions. Based on this consideration, the scenario facing Mike, the lab technician, is examined and addressed. It is identified that Mike was going to be late at work again. The previously time he talked with his supervisor and pledged to be on time. Mike left his house 20 minutes earlier than ordinary times, but, unfortunately, he had an accident on his way to work. His supervisor warned him that if he continued to be late, then his work would be terminated. On arrival, Mike observed a spill on the floor. He had to create a decision either to clean up the spill or to ignore it. But cleaning up the spill would cause him late for his work and thus risk losing his work.
There are impacts of failure to report this problem (the spill). It is known that little problems normally become big issues if nobody takes the initiative of correcting them. If an employee does not bother to report a hazard, serious problems might occur; however, such little hazard could have been prevented (Legare, 2010). Though, the severity of effect for failing to reports a problem differs, ignoring any little risk can be detrimental to the safety of workers and clients and the entire business of the hospital. Upon seeing the spill, Mike did well by reporting the issue to the supervisor. This was also an important way of informing the supervisor that he was within the building and, therefore, he was not late. As an employee and a registered nurse working for the hospital, Mike has both professional and personal responsibilities while executing his duties. Although, his job description does not specify that he is expected to clean the floor at the workplace, it is his personal responsibility to report the issue of the spill to the authority. He did well by calling and reporting this issue to the supervisor. Therefore this shows the Mike was a responsible person.
His decision to report the problem has the impact on patient safety, on the risk of a lawsuit, on the hospital’s quality metrics, and the workload of other departments. Regardless of how a risk can be small, it is important to report the matter as the way Mike did. Even if the risk occurs in...