Essential Safety Measures for Healthcare Facilities

By Your Health Magazine

Given the nature of what they do, it doesn’t matter if they are a large public hospital or a small private clinic. All medical centres have a responsibility to ensure the health, well-being and safety of all their patients, staff and visitors.

From preventing infections and protecting people from the physical threat of violence to safely storing medicines and ensuring that emergencies are swiftly managed, there are many essential safety measures they need to put in place. Both on a legal and moral level.

In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the most pressing of them. If you work in a healthcare facility or need the services of one soon, hopefully, the place will have these arrangements firmly established.

1. Emergency Call Systems

Every medical facility should have emergency call systems that allow patients to quickly alert staff when they need help.

In spaces like patient rooms, treatment areas and bathrooms, that is particularly important because the person who needs assistance is not always being monitored.

There are several types of systems a healthcare facility should have in place, including nurse call buttons, doctor paging, and both patient and room monitoring.

By implementing them, you can ensure emergency response times are as quick as possible and enable staff to help patients who are in urgent need of assistance.

2. Hand Hygiene Stations

If the COVID-19 pandemic taught us anything, it is the importance of washing your hands properly.

Unfortunately, many infectious diseases can be spread through contact, including respiratory conditions like influenza, measles, colds and tuberculosis.

In addition, there is a greater risk of contracting gastrointestinal infections, such as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, and hepatitis A, and direct contact infections like conjunctivitis, impetigo, and fungal infections.

Then of course, there is chickenpox, among other multimodal infections, which can be passed on through touch.

For this reason, it is important to have several sinks and hand sanitising stations dotted around your premises to minimise the risk of germs spreading to patients and staff.

3. Eyewash Station and Safety Shower

There are usually plenty of hazardous chemicals in medical facilities, including everything from sterilants, pesticides and cleaning and disinfecting agents to mercury, laboratory chemicals, and toxic drugs.

While they are pretty much all essential to treating patients, operating or cleaning medical instruments, cleaning or disinfecting surfaces and fixing tissue specimens, they can be potentially hazardous.

For instance, cleaning disinfectants and agents have been linked with a 67% increased risk of nurses suffering from asthma for the first time.

Therefore, it is important to have safety showers and eyewash stations from Australia readily available to quickly wash off any dangerous chemicals your body or face may have come into contact with.

4. Fire Alarms

Fire hazards are always a significant concern in any medical facility. But, especially in hospitals which house numerous electronic devices or appliances that run on gas.

Devices like fire alarms, sprinklers, extinguishers and emergency warning systems for the fire brigade should be put in place throughout the facility. Additionally, signs should be clearly marked to advise of the nearest exit, and staff must be trained and undergo regular fire drills to handle this type of extremity.

5. Backup Power Supply

Power outages can happen at any time. But they can be catastrophic in a medical centre or hospital environment, particularly when life-supporting medical equipment must continue to operate.

Without a backup generator or other type of uninterrupted power supplies (UPS) people can die if the main source of power goes while emergency medical care is required.

So, it is important to have these systems in place ready to kick in at a moment’s notice to ensure vital equipment like ventilators and monitors continue to run without interruption.

6. Security Systems

Everyone has a right to work and receive treatment in a hospital, clinic and healthcare centre that is a safe environment.

To help create this, it is important to hire trained security personnel that can protect patients and staff from physical harm.

Additionally, it is vital to have a good, clearly signed, CCTV system installed which is constantly monitored by a staff member. This will go a long way towards deterring intruders and criminals, but also spotting patients, particularly elderly ones, who might have had a fall or be suffering from a medical episode.

Along with security cameras, it is prudent to restrict access to certain areas, especially those with expensive machinery or medications, and a security alarm to advise if any part of the hospital’s security measures have been compromised. Implementing healthcare security systems ensures that all aspects of security—physical, technological, and procedural—are integrated effectively, enhancing the overall safety of the facility.

7. Safe Medication Storage

All healthcare facilities have a range of medications that are vital to treating patients. However, some can be incredibly dangerous if accidentally ingested or otherwise misused. They can also be at risk of being stolen if they are not stored properly or spoiling.

Subsequently, it is important for any medical centre or hospital to have secure and robust medication storage systems in place to prevent them from being accessed by the wrong people.

Here is some more information about how to do this most effectively to reduce the risk of them being not tampered with or otherwise causing harm.