Week 6: Determining Organizational Priorities for Quality Improvement
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
—Winston Churchill
Understanding the need and importance of change is the first step in accepting the need for continual change. Healthcare will never be a stagnant industry. Change is a part of the framework, and with change comes the need to assess and evaluate what type of change should occur. Whether it is in the manner in which patients are treated or the protocol for shift change, plans and processes are integral in enacting change to serve the healthcare community.
As you have explored, the goal of many healthcare organizations is to strive to improve quality of care and patient safety. Throughout the past 5 weeks of the course, you have examined how healthcare utilizes theories and philosophies in the implementation of quality improvement.
This week, you will build on that foundational awareness with a focus on quality improvement models, as well as the strategies and tools used with these models. You will explore how organizational culture and readiness may impact the promotion of quality improvement initiatives. You will also submit your DNP Project Faculty Advisor and Site Identification form.
Learning Objectives
Students will:
- Analyze quality improvement initiatives for healthcare organizations and nursing practice
- Analyze approaches for handling adverse events in healthcare organizations and nursing practice
- Analyze impact of adverse events on public and internal perspectives on healthcare quality
- Analyze error rates in relation to healthcare organizations and nursing practice
- Analyze cultural/organizational readiness for quality improvement
- Assess organizational culture for quality improvement
- Assess leadership strategies to support quality improvement initiatives in organizations
- Identify DNP project Faculty advisor and site
Learning Resources
Required Readings (click to expand/reduce)
Discussion: Quality Improvement Initiative
- Your organization has recently discovered there have been too frequent errors in medication distribution. After launching an investigation in the matter, and discovering the reasons for the errors, your organization is ready to launch a quality improvement initiative. What might this initiative entail? What is included, and how will it assist in eliminating these errors?
- Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
The purpose of the Quality Improvement (QI) Plan is to provide a formal ongoing process by which the organization and stakeholders utilize objective measures to monitor and evaluate the quality of services—both clinical and operational—provided to the patients. The QI Plan, which often addresses general medical behavioral health and oral healthcare and services, defines and facilitates a systematic approach to identify and pursue opportunities to improve services and resolve identified problems (Health Resources and Services Administration, 2011).
For this Discussion, review the Learning Resources. Then, reflect on how adverse events impact your organization and/or nursing practice. Consider the use of quality improvement initiative in the error rate, using scholarly articles to analyze.
Reference:
U. S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration. (2011). Developing and implementing a QI plan. https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/quality/toolbox/508pdfs/developingqiplan.pdf
To Prepare:
- Review the Learning Resources for this week, and reflect on the types of quality improvement (QI) initiatives that might be most relevant to your healthcare organization or nursing practice.
- Select a QI initiative, you are most familiar with, that has received support from your senior leaders in your healthcare organization or nursing practice.
- Consider how adverse events are handled in your healthcare organization or nursing practice. Reflect on how this may impact the public—as well as the internal—perspective on healthcare quality.
- Find a scholarly article or one from the public press, published within the last 5 years, that recounts a serious error. Reflect on this error, and consider how it may relate to your healthcare organization or nursing practice.
By Day 3 of Week 6
Post a brief explanation of the QI initiative you selected, and why. Be specific. Explain how adverse events are handled in your healthcare organization or nursing practice, including an explanation of how this may impact both public and internal perspectives on healthcare quality. Then, briefly describe the error rate from the article you selected, and explain how this may relate to your healthcare organization or nursing practice. Be specific and provide examples.
By Day 6 of Week 6
Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses and respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days by expanding upon your colleague’s post or offering an alternative interpretation of the error rate described by your colleague.
