Section 5.2 · Pillar 1 · Clinical Excellence, Patient Safety & Quality of Care
Inpatient Safety
A dedicated national standard for ward-level safety, escalation, medication reconciliation and safe discharge.
The issue
Inpatient safety should be a dedicated section of the national guideline. Standards should cover daily clinical review, nursing observation and escalation protocols, handoff tools for both nursing and physician teams, medication reconciliation, fall-risk assessment, pressure injury prevention, sepsis recognition, documentation, discharge planning, and follow-up instructions.
Priority components
What good looks like in this domain, expressed as the components an institution should be able to show.
- 01Daily clinical review
- 02Nursing observation and escalation protocols
- 03Handoff tools for nursing and physician teams
- 04Medication reconciliation
- 05Fall-risk assessment
- 06Pressure injury prevention
- 07Sepsis recognition
- 08Documentation
- 09Discharge planning
- 10Follow-up instructions
Implementation
What this domain requires in practice: the standard, the pack, the measurement, the tools and the evidence.
Standards
No approved ASQAT standards have been published for this domain yet. The standards layer is in place so that approved statements can be released without restructuring the platform.
Measurement
Measurement specifications for this domain are being developed. Indicator definitions are published only once the numerator, denominator and data source are agreed.
Measurement frameworkResources
Implementation resources for this domain are currently in development. Approved policies, procedures, checklists and tools will be released through the resource library.
Open the libraryAwaiting approved content
Evidence in practice
No approved implementation evidence has been published for this domain yet. Case studies are published only after review of what was measured and how.