How Student Engagement Contributes to Patient Safety in Healthcare

Advertisements

Keeping patients safe from harm is a top priority in healthcare. It means making sure every step of their medical journey is as secure as possible. 

Yet, medical errors happen, leading to harm or increased costs. This is why patient safety is gaining increasing attention, especially in developing countries. 

Advertisements

In Ghana, for instance, there are frequent medication errors, which threaten patient safety. According to Dr. Amin, the Minister of Finance of Ghana, these errors may lead to adverse effects, including death. 

Ensuring patient safety isn’t something that begins when someone becomes a doctor or nurse, however. It starts in medical school, right when students first step into the classroom. 

When students are truly engaged, they become active participants in making care safer. This means they are not just learning facts, but building a mindset that will define the future of healthcare.

Advertisements

Here, we’ll explore how student engagement contributes to patient safety in healthcare. 

1. Hands-On Learning Reinforces Safe Practices

Learning by doing is incredibly effective, especially in healthcare. This approach is often called hands-on learning or experiential learning. 

Students gain crucial experience in safe, controlled environments. These include places like simulation labs equipped with advanced mannequins or supervised clinical placements. In these settings, students can practice procedures, make decisions, and even make mistakes without any risk to real patients.  

These practical experiences close the ‘theory-practice gap,’ ensuring students can apply their knowledge effectively when it matters most.

Advertisements

Importantly, real-world exposure also teaches students to recognize safety red flags. 

For instance, consider the growing concern around the Bard PowerPort. This small implantable port catheter is used to administer medications and fluids and draw blood in patients needing frequent or long-term intravenous access. 

According to TorHoerman Law, patients reported experiencing complications, such as blood clots, heart attacks, and arterial puncture. 

Not surprisingly, thousands of people have filed the Bard PowerPort lawsuit against Bard Access Systems Inc. and Becton Dickinson, the manufacturers. 

Without enough real-world exposure, students may miss the warning signs of such complications. But with it, they are better prepared to keep patients safe, right from the start.

Advertisements

2. Team-Based Learning Prepares Students for Real Collaboration

No single person can guarantee patient safety. Healthcare is a complex system, which is why effective teamwork and communication are absolutely essential. 

However, about 70% of adverse events are linked to poor communication and collaboration.

Team-based learning (TBL) helps students work together and think critically. They receive materials to prepare before class and then apply their knowledge to solve clinical problems with high-fidelity mannequins or standardized patients. This helps build essential skills, such as teamwork and critical thinking. 

TBL also strongly promotes interprofessional education (IPE). IPE means that students from different health professions learn with, from, and about each other. This prepares everyone to work together in the real world.

Programs like AHRQ’s TeamSTEPPS are widely used to improve communication and teamwork among healthcare professionals. It’s an evidence-based system that teaches skills like leadership, situation monitoring, and mutual support. 

Advertisements

TBL also helps understand how healthcare systems can lead to errors. Students learn to identify and address issues, which prepares them for the complexities of real healthcare. This collaborative mindset, fostered early, builds strong connections among students from different fields. So, when they enter the workforce, they are better prepared to function as a cohesive unit.  

3. Engagement Creates a Culture of Accountability

Healthcare has sometimes held individuals responsible for systemic mistakes. A true culture of safety, however, focuses on learning from errors and improving systems, not just pointing fingers.

Engaged students are taught to recognize and report errors or near misses (when an error almost happened but was caught). This is important because many errors are due to system issues, not just individual failings. 

It can be scary to report errors, especially for new students. Education helps them feel more comfortable, knowing that reporting leads to learning and improvement, not punishment.  This highlights a shift from individual blame to organizational learning. 

Student engagement in error reporting, especially within a just culture framework, transforms individual incidents into systemic learning opportunities. So, rather than punishing people for mistakes, the focus is on understanding the underlying system flaws that allowed the error to occur.

Advertisements

By being trained to identify and report, students become active contributors to a feedback loop that continuously improves the entire healthcare system. Thus, they help make it more resilient and safer for everyone. This proactive identification of system weaknesses by future professionals is a powerful preventative measure, building a truly adaptive and safe system.

Investing in Engaged Learning for a Safer Tomorrow

Engaged students are truly the future of safe healthcare. They are not just learning, but also building a better, safer world for patients. Through hands-on experiences, working in teams, and embracing a culture of accountability, they learn vital skills. These skills help them prevent errors, communicate clearly, and improve healthcare systems.

So, supporting student engagement is a wise investment in patient safety. It helps build a healthcare system where harm is minimized for everyone. This ensures that future healthcare professionals are well-prepared and ready to deliver the safest, highest-quality care possible.