Healthcare Risk Management Assignment: New Zealand Standard Vs. Australian Standard

Question

Task: Your healthcare risk management assignment consists of four sections:
a) Critically examine one New Zealand Standard and one international standard that underpin infection risk management. Discuss the relevance of these standards to infection risk management.
b) Compare and contrast how the two standards are implemented and monitored.
c) Analyze the role of leadership in the co-ordination, implementation and monitoring of infection risk management programs to make sure they align with the standards.
d) Analyze management strategies that positively support evidence based best practice and influence an organizational culture of safety.

Answer

Introduction
The six-letter word "safety" it quite a small word, but it consists of much broader meaning and aspects related to it. The meaning reflects several numbers of perspectives under it, which impacts at every level of life. Notably, when the word safety is added to the healthcare industry or practices, the word carries much more important and crucial importance. The healthcare professional faces several difficulties related to the infection (World Health Organization, 2017). Every individual risks their safety of life regularly, as their work lets them come in contact with various diseased individuals. This has increased the probability of getting infected to the number of healthcare professionals (Sano, Amarasiri, Hata, Watanabe & Katayama, 2016). The main purpose of the report is to critically examine the New Zealand standard with one international standard of infection risk management. Hence the report on healthcare risk management assignment is highlighting a critical examination of one of the New Zealand standard that is NZS 8134.3 with standard 3 of the National safety and quality health service (NSQHS) of Australia. These two standards have been underpinned infection risk management. A comparison of the two standards has also been discussed below within this healthcare risk management assignment. Besides that, an analysis of the factors required to coordinate, develop, implement, and monitor the infection risk management programs have been done.

A critical examination of the two standards
New Zealand standards for infection risk management
New Zealand standard for infection risk management NZS 8143.3 health and disability services (Infection prevention and control standard) main goal is to control the quality and consistent safety of health and disability services. Its purpose is to identify practices designed to minimize the rate of infection in the health and social care industry (Standards New Zealand, 2020). It is only applicable to the health and disability services sectors (Hopkin, 2018). The ministry of health of the New Zealand standard NSW 8143.3 health and disability services (Infection prevention and control standard)made it compulsory for the services that are subjected to the health and disability services (safety) Act 2001.The core element of the standard defined herein healthcare risk management assignment is to improve the safety for consumers, staff, and visitors; it also includes the attention to the basic principle of the infection control.Along with this, the standard core element consists of the consistent identification of the control major that can help the staff as well as the visitor to avoid the infection. The ministry of New Zealand is trying to motivate other health and social care organizations to adopt the standards and promote good practices to others who are still not wakening up. Infection control management has been constructed with the intention to reduce the transmission of blood-borne infections. Other than that, it also aims to prevent and control the hospital-acquired infectious and improve the antibody resistances (Burnett, 2018)

The authority of New Zealand has undertaken several numbers of actions to implement the corrective usage of the standards under the health and disability services (safety). It has produced and disseminates several protocols for healthcare workers. Along with that the standard also ensures that the preventive treatments that are required for infection control are also therein caseof exposures to the infection which has a high level ofoccurred in the healthcare industry. According to the ministry of New Zealand as well as under the act of 2001, the hospital must provide a safe environment and limit the spread of communicable diseases through proper use of the pieces of tools and careful clinical practices. The ministry of health inspects licensing holders and closes down the hospital or healthcare center in case anything has been observed that is hampering safety (Alam, 2016).

Implementation and monitoring of the standards
The standards are made to provide precautions, and that is being incorporated into the work practices of the healthcare industry. The standards are produced to bring the change in the basic level of the people related to the healthcare industry. It would minimize the probability of the infection across the entire industry(Standards New Zealand, 2020). It intends to minimize and eliminate the risk of transmission of communicable diseases and also aims to improve the present condition by improvising the different areas of relatable to it (Hughes et al., 2018). The standards that are being made in New Zealand have been implemented over every sector, which has the probability of getting the infection or spread of communicable disease. Those health and safety sectors, who voluntarily wanted to incorporate the good standard, communicate with the ministry of the Heath and ask for the development of the certification under the health and disability services act 2000. This is the way the hospital gets the certificate to implement the quality standard (National Ethics Advisory Committee, 2019). It is given in the healthcare risk management assignmentthat the hospital or clinics are required to match the condition of the ministry to health to implement the standard. Once the standard has been implemented along with the strategy, the next level appears to monitor the implemented standard in the hospital. These strategies are made reflecting the areas that need to look after to ensure safety.The safety has been made considering the consumers, staffs as well as the visitors. They have endeavored to provide the safety to all the healthcare-related industry and have made it mandatory to get permission before initiating any of the healthcare services in New Zealand. Strategies that can be applied by the organizations in improving infection management are like providing workforce awareness training and the use of reminders systems (Chester et al., 2018).

In New Zealand, the monitoring of the implemented standard in the healthcare industry has been engaged directly by the government. The license holding centers are inspected by government infection control departments or individuals on an interval of every 3 years. Other than that, the hospitals under the certification are also required to audit the maintenance of the infection control. The ministry of health has made its assessment form to ensure the level of infection control in the organization (Dowse et al., 2016).

Analyzing the role of leadership in coordination and monitoring in New Zealand
As per the investigation carried on this healthcare risk management assignment, one of the most important roles of the leader in the infection risk management programs is that they need to provide proper training to their employees or the people attached to the programs. A program can only be achieved if the coordination among every individual is quite high and are individually willing to achieve the goals of the programs (Deagon, 2019). The leader needs to build up relations between the employees so that they can work together to achieve the guidelines of the standards(Standards New Zealand, 2020). As they imply the workforce training and use of reminder systems, hence the coordinator needs to ensure that every employee is able to get proper guidance related to the programs that are included or are going to be included. The supervisor should keep a reminder for regularly inspecting the organization for follow up the practices of standards and should pin the higher management to conduct the meeting and audits to assess the present situation of the infection control (National Ethics Advisory Committee, 2019).

Can you discuss about the Australian standard for infection risk management within the healthcare risk management assignment?
In contrast to the infection prevention and control standard in New Zealand, the Australian governments also have the standard to control the infection over the health care industry. Thesafety and quality in the healthcare of the Australian Commission have developed the National safety and quality health service standards, considering the organizational and individual safety which including the health professionals as well as the patients (Havers, Hall, Page& Wilson, 2016). The main objective of the National safety and quality health service standards is to provide quality assurance and quality improvement(Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare, 2020).

One such standard under the National safety and quality health service standards is the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infection is 3 standard.The purpose of the standard 3 noted in this section of healthcare risk management assignmentis to minimize the risk for the patient as well as a health care provider but it does not hold the visitor safety likewise New Zealand standard, in acquiring preventable infections and help them avail effective management of infections when they occur by using evidence-based strategies (Oatley& Fry, 2020).Several participants are involved in providing the safety and effective delivery of the services in the healthcare industry(Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare, 2020). The role played by them leads them as well as by the others related to the industry to be ensured about the level of the safety they are having and providing to others to avoid infection. The management of controlling the infection is widely dependent on the way one's is willing to take it. The more he or she is taking care to follow the standards of safety, the more they will be safer (Ritchie, Gaca, Siemensma, Taylor & Gilbert, 2018). This would protect the people from infection and will also lead to advance the quality of the services in the healthcare industry. In diversity to the New Zealand standards,these standards of Australia provides the assurance mechanisms that test whether the frameworks are in a proper place to reduce the standards of safety and quality can meet the guidelines. (Hamilton, 2019).

Implementation and monitoring
In relation to the New Zealand standard, Australian standards 3 of National safety and quality health service standards aim mainly at implementing the standards only in the hospital, not to any other health care industry (Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare, 2020).The implementation is required to follow up on the Australian guidelines for the prevention and control of infection in health care. According to the guidelines considered while developing this healthcare risk management assignment, the organization necessitates identifying the areas that required having an application of these standards. This includes a team that will only be looking after the infection control of the organization. In comparison to the standard of New Zealand, the Australian standards have considered only patients and healthcare professionals as part of getting infection control management(Chen, 2018). The guidelines that have been provided by the government have mentioned the role and responsibility of the patient and the healthcare professionals. (Flanigan, 2016).

The risk management in Australia has been determined by the hospitals, by regularly maintaining the audit, and assessment of the services that are being provided to control the infection. Like the government of New Zealand, the Australian government has not formed any assessment framework to ensure the level of the standard maintained.They organization monitor the level of risk of infection by inspecting the effectiveness of the infection prevention and control on an annual basis. In this way, the organization of the country is maintaining the varying levels of standards of infection control and management according to the government framework (Havers, Russo, Page, Wilson& Hall, 2019).

Analyzing the role of leadership in coordination and monitoring in Australia
The organization of Australia preferred to adopt the strategy of having regular inspections as well as the incorporation of the technological changes of products and pieces of equipment that are available in the organization. As a leader, they need to ensure that the regular audit or assessment of the infection control is being considered within the organization. The leader should ensure that the proper documentation of the audits is being prepared (Bielby et al., 2016). A clear image that will be portrayed from the audits will give the scope to improve the existing systems. It is the responsibility of the leader to act according to the points that have been considered as the result of the audit. The incorporation of the new technology into the systems will have the requirement to provide proper training to those who are using it (Seaton et al., 2019). Hence, it is the responsibility of the coordinator to ensure that every individual is getting proper training and are excellently maintaining the standard.

Conclusion
From the above discussion on healthcare risk management assignment, it can be concluded that the infection risk management of both the country is built to minimize the risk of the infection. But there is little more necessary to cover a significantly broader area or individualsunder the standards of the infection risk management in Australia. Though, there is always a scope to improvise the existing systems to ensure that no challengeswill be faced in present as well as in the future related to the infection. Hence, bothcountries should conduct regular audit and implement strategies to improve the safety condition in the healthcare industry.

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