NUR-630 Topic 8 Overview of Quality in Health Care

Sample Answer for NUR-630 Topic 8 Overview of Quality in Health Care Included After Question

Assessment Description

The purpose of this assignment is to apply the concepts you have learned in this course to a situation you have encountered. Choose one quality or patient safety concern with which you are familiar and that you have not yet discussed in this course. In a 1,250-1,500-word essay, reflect on what you have learned in this course by applying the concepts to the quality or patient safety concern you have selected. Include the following in your essay:

1. Briefly describe the issue and associated challenges.
2. Explain how EBP, research, and PI would be utilized to address the issue.
3. Explain the PI or QI process you would apply and discuss why you chose it.
4. Describe your data sources, including outcome and process data.
5. Explain how the data will be captured and disseminated.
6. Discuss which organizational culture considerations will be essential to the success of your work. This assignment uses a rubric.

Use a minimum of four peer-reviewed, scholarly sources as evidence.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Class Resources if you need assistance.

A Sample Answer For the Assignment: NUR-630 Topic 8 Overview of Quality in Health Care

Title:  NUR-630 Topic 8 Overview of Quality in Health Care

A health care organization’s core mandate is to provide the necessary environment and resources for quality care. Patient safety should also be a primary consideration. As health care organizations strive to achieve such goals, process and outcome challenges dominate routine care. As a result, care quality and safety concerns are typical and require health care professionals to devise innovative solutions to address them appropriately.

Quality improvement is also crucial as processes become inefficient over time. The purpose of this paper is to describe a familiar patient safety concern and how evidence-based practice, research, and performance improvement (PI) would be utilized to address the issue. Other discussion areas include data sources, dissemination, and organizational culture considerations.

The Issue and Associated Challenges

Patients visit health care organizations looking forward to accurate diagnosis and treatment. They also hope to get appropriate support and treatment with the dignity and respect they deserve. Unfortunately, patient neglect has been a genuine patient safety concern due to nurse burnout stemming from the influx of COVID-19 patients. The COVID-19 pandemic has altered many practice dynamics, including workplace routines and roles designated to nurses.

Rose et al. (2021) found that dealing with the pandemic has adversely affected nurses’ mental, emotional, and physical health due to increased workload and uncertainty about the end of the pandemic. Besides, many nurses worry about getting infected and infecting their families and friends. As a result, most of them lack the motivation to engage in pandemic management in health care settings (Rose et al., 2021). Nurse burnout and lack of motivation are the leading causes of patient neglect.

Patient neglect is associated with many challenges. It results in untreated medical conditions, leading to readmissions and extended hospital stays. Health costs increase proportionately with an increase in readmissions and hospital stays. Admitted patients are also likely to suffer from bedsores and atrophy. Patient neglect also leads to second victim syndrome. Ozeke et al. (2019) defined second victim syndrome as the shame, guilt, and compassion dissatisfaction characterizing nurses after committing errors. In this case, nurses feel guilty about their actions, disturbing them mentally and emotionally. This further intensifies nurse burnout and reduces motivation to engage in patient care.

Application of EBP, Research, and PI to Address Patient Neglect

Addressing patient neglect requires developing innovative solutions for nurse burnout. EBP would be utilized to find scientific evidence to integrate with clinical evidence and patient preferences to enhance patient outcomes (Chien, 2019). Utilizing EBP would first require developing a clinical question to address through the PICOT (problem, intervention, comparison, outcome, and time) approach.

The problem is nurse burnout, and possible interventions include opportunities for self-care, resilience building, and increasing nursing staff. The expected outcome is preventing patient neglect. Time varies depending on resources and the scope of the EBP project. Utilizing self-care or resilience-building should achieve the desired results within six months.

Research implies generating new knowledge. Unlike EBP, which relies on the available evidence, research is intensive and time-consuming. The quest for new knowledge is crucial in discovering new advancements for promoting health and understanding issues in more detail (Chien, 2019). Unlike EBP and PI, research is not primarily about clinical issues, albeit the same objective- improving population health. Regarding patient neglect, research would focus on examining the factors reducing nurses’ motivation to engage in COVID-19 management. The knowledge gained can guide practice change through EBP projects, policymaking, or PI interventions.

Health care organizations should continually assess their performance and address current and emerging gaps. PI is the quest for better methods, processes, and outcomes. It is a framework for improving care by standardizing processes, reducing variations, and improving patient outcomes (Comfere et al., 2020). The primary focus areas include how care is delivered and the achieved results compared to the desired results. In addressing patient neglect, PI would be the foundation for improving patient experiences. Health care professionals would assess the current methods used in nurses’ motivation to participate in pandemic management and improve them to reduce nurse burnout as much as possible. Reducing nurse burnout would lead to better performance overall.

PI Process

PI is primarily about assessing performance gaps and utilizing proven strategies to achieve better results. For nurses experiencing burnout due to stress in managing the COVID-19 pandemic, resilience-building would perfectly apply to their situation. From a performance dimension, resilience helps health care professionals to adapt successfully in the face of adversity (The Joint Commission, 2019). It entails developing support systems to combat workplace stressors and a culture that promotes mutual openness and knowledge to prevent burnout. To a significant extent, coping with the COVID-19 pandemic requires adaptation to new workplace policies, roles, and workload. Resilience is crucial to enabling nurses to have a positive mindset and adapt to changes as situations prompt.

The main reason for selecting resilience building is its suitability, ease of implementation, and targeted outcomes. Resilient nurses can effectively cope with physical, mental, and emotional stress. Resilience also improves positivity and the ability to mount a robust response to unforeseen and unexpected demands (The Joint Commission, 2019). Implementation requires resilience training for adaptation tips such as self-care, exercises, and meditation. Nurses can also be trained on how to work in groups in the face of adversity. Resilience building also teaches nurses to perceive changes as manageable while strengthening their emotional and mental ability to cope with change.

Data Sources

Data guides decision-making. It enables change proponents and health care professionals to make informed decisions when choosing performance improvement strategies. Clinical records would be a suitable outcome data source for patient negligence reported cases. A comparative analysis of reported cases before and after the pandemic outbreak will be the basis for supporting resilience training. Process data can be obtained from observations or interviews with nurses.

For instance, nurses can be interviewed about their experiences with patient care during the pandemic and how the changes have affected their attitude, well-being, and interprofessional engagement. The identified problems will guide whether resilience training can achieve the desired results or should be supplemented with other strategies.

Data Capturing and Dissemination

Data will primarily be captured through questionnaires. Phillips et al. (2021) found questionnaires very effective in data capturing due to their scalability and respondent anonymity. Respondents who are guaranteed anonymity are encouraged to respond truthfully on sensitive matters such as the effects of nurse burnout on their well-being. More data will be captured through reports during and after resilience training.

Such data will analyze the importance of resilience training and its application in addressing patient negligence. Dissemination implies sharing information and intervention resources with the appropriate clinical audience. Effective dissemination strategies include data presentation to the facility’s management, publishing a policy brief, and a system-wide presentation about the current problem and intervention strategies.

Organizational Culture Considerations

Performance improvement implies changing the current practices and approaches to work for better outcomes. Like EBP, performance improvement is change-oriented. As a result, the type of organizational culture will be essential to the success of resilience training. For instance, flexibility, collaboration, and valuing every individual contribution to organizational growth are defining principles of a clan culture (Alsaqqa & Akyürek, 2021).

Adhocracy emphasizes risk-taking, innovation, and flexibility. The type of culture determines whether the organization will support change. The other organizational culture consideration is the readiness to change. Organizations with rigid structures are not adaptive and flexible to change. Such structures hamper change, and performance improvement may not get the necessary support.

Conclusion

Health care professionals encounter many issues hampering care quality or patient safety. Using their clinical expertise or scientific evidence, nurses should help organizations improve performance by recommending appropriate solutions for patient safety issues. As discussed in this paper, patient negligence due to nurses’ lack of motivation to engage in COVID-19 management stems from nurse burnout. Nurses are more emotionally, mentally, and physically drained than before the pandemic. The uncertainty of when the pandemic will end and the fear of infection worry them. Since the situation requires an attitude shift to adapt effectively, resilience training is crucial for performance improvement.

References

Alsaqqa, H. H., & Akyürek, Ç. E. (2021). Assessment of organizational culture types, leadership styles and their relationships within governmental and non-governmental hospitals in Gaza Strip of Palestine. BMC Health Services Research, 21(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06351-1

Chien, L. Y. (2019). Evidence-based practice and nursing research. The Journal of Nursing Research: JNR, 27(4), e29. https://doi.org/10.1097/jnr.0000000000000346

Comfere, N. I., Matulis, J. C., 3rd, & O’Horo, J. C. (2020). Quality improvement and healthcare: The Mayo Clinic quality Academy experience. Journal of Clinical Tuberculosis and other Mycobacterial Diseases, 20, 100170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jctube.2020.100170

Ozeke, O., Ozeke, V., Coskun, O., & Budakoglu, I. I. (2019). Second victims in health care: Current perspectives. Advances in Medical Education and Practice, 10, 593-603. https://dx.doi.org/10.2147%2FAMEP.S185912

Phillips, A. W., Durning, S. J., & Artino, A. R. (2021). Survey methods for medical and health professions education: A six-step approach. Elsevier.

Rose, S., Hartnett, J., & Pillai, S. (2021). Healthcare worker’s emotions, perceived stressors and coping mechanisms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Plos One, 16(7), e0254252. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254252

The Joint Commission. (2019). Quick safety. https://www.jointcommission.org/-/media/tjc/newsletters/quick_safety_nurse_resilience_final_7_19_19pdf.pdf