Patient Safety and Transition to Practice

Patient Safety and Transition to Practice
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Patient Safety and Transition to Practice
Patient safety is a crucial concept in nursing that involves creating an environment where patients are safe from preventable harm caused by medical errors, accidents, or other forms of harm. Nurses play a significant role in ensuring patient safety by identifying potential risks, implementing safety protocols, and taking appropriate action when safety issues arise (Mortell, 2019). One of the core principles of patient safety in nursing is the application of evidence-based practices. In line with this, the current paper seeks to understand how nurses can translate theory on patient safety into practice. To achieve this, the paper reviews “New Graduate Nurses’ Understanding and Attitudes about Patient Safety upon Transition to Practice” to facilitate an understanding of the concept of patient safety. In the article, Murray, Sundin, and Cope (2019) explore the experience of transitioning registered nurses with a specific emphasis on patient safety. Notably, the findings of Murray, Sundin, and Cope's (2019) article provide valuable insights into how nurses can effectively translate the theory of patient safety into practice during the transition to professional nursing and can be used to inform strategies to support and improve patient safety in this critical phase of nurses' development.
Insights from the Article
When transitioning to practice, most new nurses experience a certain level of shock stemming from the existence of a theory-practice gap. To this end, newly graduating nurses are at risk of being exposed to clinical settings and experiences that increase the likelihood that their actions will compromise patient safety (Mortell, 2019). Consequently, Murray, Sundin, and Cope (2019) conducted a qualitative descriptive approach study intended to explore the transition experience of recently graduated nurses as it pertains to their conceptualization of patient safety in practice. The interview of 11 recently graduated nurses transitioning to care revealed insights into how they approach patient care (Murray, Sundin, & Cope, 2019). Notably, the respondents indicate that role confusion was one of the significant challenges they experience following their transition to practice. In addition to role confusion, the respondents indicate that they struggled to find the work/life balance given that the job was their first full-time job for them. Notably, the safety concern as they relate to medication administration was one of the significant concerns related to patient safety that the nurses had to confront. The patient safety concern also emerged among nurses transitioning to care as most of the respondents felt that they lacked sufficient experience to recognize patient deterioration or recognize when they skip a vital element of care.
On the other hand, nurses transitioning to practice reported benefiting from the theory on patient safety. Murray, Sundin, and Cope (2019) noted tha...