NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 3: Improvement Plan In-Service Presentation

Capella University NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 3: Improvement Plan In-Service Presentation-Step-By-Step Guide

This guide will demonstrate how to complete the Capella University NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 3: Improvement Plan In-Service Presentation assignment based on general principles of academic writing. Here, we will show you the A, B, Cs of completing an academic paper, irrespective of the instructions. After guiding you through what to do, the guide will leave one or two sample essays at the end to highlight the various sections discussed below.

How to Research and Prepare for NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 3: Improvement Plan In-Service Presentation                       

Whether one passes or fails an academic assignment such as the Capella University NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 3: Improvement Plan In-Service Presentation depends on the preparation done beforehand. The first thing to do once you receive an assignment is to quickly skim through the requirements. Once that is done, start going through the instructions one by one to clearly understand what the instructor wants. The most important thing here is to understand the required format—whether it is APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.

After understanding the requirements of the paper, the next phase is to gather relevant materials. The first place to start the research process is the weekly resources. Go through the resources provided in the instructions to determine which ones fit the assignment. After reviewing the provided resources, use the university library to search for additional resources. After gathering sufficient and necessary resources, you are now ready to start drafting your paper.

How to Write the Introduction for NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 3: Improvement Plan In-Service Presentation                       

The introduction for the Capella University NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 3: Improvement Plan In-Service Presentation is where you tell the instructor what your paper will encompass. In three to four statements, highlight the important points that will form the basis of your paper. Here, you can include statistics to show the importance of the topic you will be discussing. At the end of the introduction, write a clear purpose statement outlining what exactly will be contained in the paper. This statement will start with “The purpose of this paper…” and then proceed to outline the various sections of the instructions.

How to Write the Body for NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 3: Improvement Plan In-Service Presentation                       

After the introduction, move into the main part of the NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 3: Improvement Plan In-Service Presentation  assignment, which is the body. Given that the paper you will be writing is not experimental, the way you organize the headings and subheadings of your paper is critically important. In some cases, you might have to use more subheadings to properly organize the assignment. The organization will depend on the rubric provided. Carefully examine the rubric, as it will contain all the detailed requirements of the assignment. Sometimes, the rubric will have information that the normal instructions lack.

Another important factor to consider at this point is how to do citations. In-text citations are fundamental as they support the arguments and points you make in the paper. At this point, the resources gathered at the beginning will come in handy. Integrating the ideas of the authors with your own will ensure that you produce a comprehensive paper. Also, follow the given citation format. In most cases, APA 7 is the preferred format for nursing assignments.

How to Write the Conclusion for NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 3: Improvement Plan In-Service Presentation                       

After completing the main sections, write the conclusion of your paper. The conclusion is a summary of the main points you made in your paper. However, you need to rewrite the points and not simply copy and paste them. By restating the points from each subheading, you will provide a nuanced overview of the assignment to the reader.

How to Format the References List for NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 3: Improvement Plan In-Service Presentation                       

The very last part of your paper involves listing the sources used in your paper. These sources should be listed in alphabetical order and double-spaced. Additionally, use a hanging indent for each source that appears in this list. Lastly, only the sources cited within the body of the paper should appear here.

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Nurses should always work in nonthreatening environments. One way of promoting safe practices is to enhance nurses’ knowledge of how to identify and deal with problems occurring at points of care. In-service training imparts knowledge and help to increase staff nurses’ confidence to handle clinical matters. The current program aims to enlighten nurses on medication errors’ prevention. They will understand how they occur, particularly during prescription, dispensing, and administration of medication, as Kapaki (2018) suggested. The audience will better understand the adverse impacts of medication errors. They include irreversible injuries, extended hospital stays, and death (Dedefo et al., 2016). It is a program for quality improvement.

The audience will be actively involved in the training program in several ways. To better grasp the concepts, they should reflect on personal accounts of medication errors. They should have an idea of what these adverse outcomes represent before learning more about their dynamics in healthcare settings. They should actively participate in the session too. Doing so will ensure that they will understand concepts as explained as they take notes on what is taught. They should also make suggestions, discuss concepts and role play as different parts of the training program prompts. The other part of active engagement will be asking and answering questions as they surface.

Overall, the presentation is expected to improve nurses’ knowledge by helping them to reflect on what medication errors represent, effects, and their manifestation through data. Concerning data, Elden and Ismail (2016) observed that about 1.5 million people yearly are harmed by medication errors. The presentation will be a way of ensuring that staff nurses are more familiar with evidence-based strategies used in medication errors’ prevention. They will be guided by the idea that medication errors are a source of undesirable consequences, including increased morbidity, decreased self-reliance, and even death (Linkens et al., 2020). The program will also teach nurses how to collaborate with colleagues to enhance safety in work environments.

A case study has been selected as the reflection point for this presentation. The case involves a scenario where an organization stores unrelated vials in the same refrigerator. Considering that the refrigerator is not well segregated and the labeling of drugs is inadequate, a nurse ends up administering insulin instead of influenza vaccine. The outcomes are profound considering that the patients’ health gets complicated to the extent of deserving further hospitalization. Through this case study, staff nurses can see how medication errors emerge at care facilities and their damaging effects.  The issue of readmissions as one of the adverse impacts of medication error becomes vivid as well.

The proposed plan is a combination of strategies aiming at reducing the rates of medication errors as much as possible. One of the key proposals of the plan is storing drugs in segregated refrigerators. As this happens, they should be labeled as much as possible and those with similar colors stored in containers with different colors. Medication should be confirmed and reconfirmed electronically, particularly using barcode scanners. Generally, the improvement plan aims at addressing issues to do with medication confusion, inaccuracies, and location. Reduction of errors ensures that the probability of nurses engaging in unethical practices reduces by significant margins.

The organization will benefit a lot from the in-service training due to increased knowledge on medication administration and prevention of errors. Overall, it is a way of enhancing patient safety. Gorgich et al. (2016) claimed that medication errors threaten patients’ safety since they can cause death and permanent injuries. Reducing the rates of medication errors in health care facility increases patients’ confidence in seeking care. They trust health care providers since the care providers do not engage in practices that harm patients’ health. The knowledge gained from the presentation is also essential in reducing the rates of readmission. The rates reduce when patients are treated correctly. Medication errors also impose substantial costs between US$ 6 billion and US$ 29 billion annually in the United States (Elden & Ismail, 2016). Reducing them is a cost-saving procedure.

The staff nurses will play a fundamental role in driving the implementation plan. They will be more ready to report errors and avoid assuming any if identified. Since they know the importance of labeling, staff nurses will be committed to helping in labeling medication correctly and separating them as much as possible. The reviewed case study also shows the need for health care facilities to segregate drug storage refrigerators. Staff nurses are expected to help in the same too. Where possible, nurses can provide technical knowledge regarding counterchecking of drugs before administration as they partner with their colleagues to double-check the identity of drugs before administration. The staff audience is critical to success since every quality process is nurses-centered.

If they embrace their role in the plan, the staff audience is expected to enjoy several work benefits. One of them is improved practice outcomes since they will learn new skills and processes for preventing medication errors. These new skills will be applied to enhance patient safety in the workplace. When patient safety is high, comfort in practice also improves since nurses are free from ethical and legal issues that may put them in danger. Reduced rates of medication errors increase patient trust, which improves the nurse-patient relationship. Understanding how to deal with practice problems also improves efficiency in health care facilities as well.

 The processes that will emerge through this presentation include drug re-confirmation before administration. Indeed, this is a skill that the in-service training will emphasize in making nurses better and more informed health practitioners. The other new process is tracking the drugs’ administration process. Their flow from refrigerators to the dispensation points and up to patient homes should be known. Use of technology to identify errors and confirm medications will be another set of skills.  Role-playing will allow the staff audience to practice and ask questions about these new processes and skills. The best way is to simulate the flow of the medication process.

In-service training is an education process. It is important to evaluate whether it is achieving the intended objectives through feedback. Several methods can be used to solicit feedback. Firstly, the staff audience can be asked questions to evaluate their understanding levels. A case study would trigger them to think more about how and why medication errors happen, making nurses ask relevant questions. Group discussions and pairing participants can provide summaries of the staff’s understanding of the taught material. Overall, they are expected to be ready to participate and respond as long as there is a way to engage them.  The feedback can be integrated into practice as the basis for policymaking, among other ways, as described above.

Dedefo, M. G., Mitike, A. H., & Angamo, M. T. (2016). Incidence and determinants  of medication errors and adverse drug events among hospitalized   children in West Ethiopia. BMC pediatrics, 16(1), 1-10.   https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-016-0619  -5

Elden, N. M., & Ismail, A. (2016). The importance of medication errors reporting   in improving the quality of clinical care services. Global journal of health   science, 8(8), 54510. https://doi.org/10.5539/gjhs.v8n8p243

Gorgich, E. A., Barfroshan, S., Ghoreishi, G., & Yaghoobi, M. (2016). Investigating   the Causes of Medication Errors and Strategies to Prevention of Them  from Nurses and Nursing Student Viewpoint. Global journal of health   science, 8(8), 54448. https://doi.org/10.5539/gjhs.v8n8p220

Kapaki, V. (2018). The anatomy of medication errors. In Vignettes in Patient   Safety-Volume 4. IntechOpen. doi: 10.5772/intechopen.79778

Linkens, A. E. M. J. H., Milosevic, V., van der Kuy, P. H. M., Damen-Hendriks, V.   H., Mestres Gonzalvo, C., & Hurkens, K. P. G. M. (2020). Medication-  related hospital admissions and readmissions in older patients: an   overview of literature. International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy, 42,   1243-1251. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11096-020-01040-1

Application of Evidence-Based Strategies

HAIs are a multidimensional patient safety issue with varying causes. One of the factors leading to HAIs in ICUs and other areas is the lack of a hand hygiene policy. According to Mouajou et al. (2022), health care professionals’ hands are a leading source of HAIs transmission. As a result, transmission through hands could be prevented by complying with the established hand hygiene guidelines. Dependence on antibiotics is another cause of HAIs since excessive use leads to antibiotic resistance (Haque et al., 2020; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2023). Like hands, surfaces increase the risk of HAIs transmission. Haque et al. (2020) found that infected and polluted hospital surfaces are a leading source of transmission of microbes that spread HAIs. These diverse factors underline the need for a multimodal intervention to achieve the desired outcomes.

HAIs prevention evidence-based strategies and best practices vary with the cause of infection, available resources, and the timeline needed for achieving the targeted results. An outcome-driven response should guide care providers when implementing a particular strategy. For instance, infection prevention and control policy and planning incorporate different interventions for reducing the risk of HAIs in care facilities (Haque et al., 2020). Such interventions include, hand hygiene policies, environmental hygiene, and patient education. Antimicrobial stewardship is also recommended to combat antibiotic resistance and promote the proper use of antibiotics in health care facilities (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2023). Since the effectiveness of an intervention varies with the situation, care providers should implement the strategy with the potential to produce the most effective results.

Improvement Plan with Evidence-Based and Best-Practice Strategies

Safety improvement should be focused on addressing issues hampering outcomes. Due to the multifaceted nature of HAIs, the most realistic intervention is infection prevention and control (ICP) policy and planning. Vital in ICUs and similar high-risk areas, the ICP policy and planning primary objective is ensuring HAIs risks are identified and addressed effectively (Haque et al., 2020). Its first component is a risk assessment to identify at-risk patients and cohort them into a contact precautions group. The second component is environmental hygiene to reduce the risk of transmission significantly. In this case, porous and non-porous surfaces that increase the risk of infection should be routinely cleaned and disinfected. The third component is sustainability through policy adoption and health education. The facility should ensure that the infection policy is adopted and that care providers and patients get adequate education to facilitate implementation as situations necessitate.

Programs for preventing HAIs enable health facilities to provide care that meets the desired outcomes. For instance, risk reduction through a clean, hygienic hospital environment is critical in reducing hospitalizations, morbidity, and high costs associated with HAIs (Peters et al., 2022). Similar outcomes would be achieved by implementing the plan in ICUs and other areas where HAIs are reported. The infection control and prevention program is also vital for improving compliance with government regulations. Through the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) mandates care providers to coordinate care and adopt other interventions to reduce avoidable readmissions (CMS.gov, 2023). Infection control reduces readmissions by preventing HAIs. Importantly, the program is critical in improving patient-provider relationships that are usually ruined when care quality fails to meet patients’ expectations.

A clear implementation timeline is vital for effective goal-driven safety improvement plans. The proposed program can be designed in a month to ensure the resources, amount of work needed, and people responsible for each task are specified. Haque et al. (2020) advised care providers to collaborate with stakeholders when implementing intensive projects involving HAIs prevention. A similar approach is vital where the management, nursing professionals, program analysts, and departmental leaders collaborate to design and implement the program. Policy implementation can take approximately three months to ensure that all health professionals have the knowledge and resources needed for the routine cleaning and disinfection of hospital surfaces. Outcomes can be evaluated in six months to assess areas of improvement to make the plan sustainable.