Qlicksmart's Message to End-Users: “We invest in staff safety – so should you”
Qlicksmart has always been focused on making sure that healthcare staff and patients are safe. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is becoming clearer to clinicians, hospital administrators, and the public that keeping healthcare workers safe is of the utmost importance. At the moment, hospitals are focused on supply of PPE to protect workers in the Intensive Care Unit and Emergency Department, however we believe that hospitals will be looking for staff safety solutions throughout the hospital in the coming months. Qlicksmart has been undertaking a four-step communication platform to increase awareness of investing in healthcare worker safety, and invites all distributors to join us using the materials provided on this page.
Step One: Confirming and assuring supply
After COVID-19 was confirmed as a national/international crisis, emailing customers to reassure them of commitment to supply. This type of communication should be confirmed periodically to customers, and updated depending on changes to supply chain.
Step Two: Acknowledge that hospitals are seeing the consequences of not investing in safety
In media reports around the globe, it is recognised that there have been significant consequences to staff and patient safety due to hospitals and governments' lack of PPE. This stage includes facts around the current events, quotes from healthcare workers, and an acknowledgement that investing in staff safety needs to be a priority.
Step Three: How to implement staff safety programs
Information for how to practically implement staff safety programs in hospitals backed by literature and evidence-based processes. Qlicksmart has developed a guide for how to implement a sharps safety program in hospitals, which has been presented at conferences includign the 2019 WHO World Patient Safety Day event in Malaysia.
Step Four: Supporting the need for a dedicated budget for safety equipment (Long term solution)
In Qlicksmart's experience working with distributors in hospitals, it has been made clear that hospital budgets are a major challenge to implementing Qlicksmart sharp safety solutions. It is often thought that safety equipment is a luxury- however, the COVID-19 situation has shown that there are significant costs when there is no dedicated budget for safety equipment. In the long term, helping hospitals to implement a budget within their safety programs will ensure a place for staff safety solutions such as Qlicksmart's devices.
