The Need For Patient Education Upon Discharge

Identification of Capstone Paper Topic

Objective: Throughout this program, you have examined a variety of leadership and change theories used in nursing practice, discovered ways to utilize research to provide safe, evidence-based patient care, and learned about the differences between an associate degree and a baccalaureate degree.

The purpose of this final Capstone project is to demonstrate your ability to apply the concepts learned throughout this degree program.

Identify a health problem, need, or opportunity for growth in your current practice environment, community, or another clinical area that you feel may be improved.

Topics may include but are not limited to falls reduction, new policy or procedure, best practice initiative, communication protocol, new equipment/tool, development of a new process improvement strategy, hand washing, bedside rounding, prevention initiative, etc..

Provide an overview of the issue or problem and why you feel it is important.

Identify the stakeholders.

Briefly discuss the economic, social and ethical concerns and implications associated with the practice change.

This paper must be 3-4 pages long.

APA format is required – including title page, introduction, conclusion, and reference page.

Must include at least 2 peer-reviewed, scholarly sources.

The topic is the need for patient education upon discharge, discussing the socioeconomic state of Gary Indiana, and the populations functionally illiterate.

Introduce the topic--state that you will discuss a problem in your workplace and your plan to address it.

Briefly describe the problem, that the patients go home without specific discharge orders and thus have no directions for when to call the doctor, when to be concerned, what to do--wound care, etc.

Discuss your idea of a database with preprinted instructions, and talk about who would be involved--nurses, administration, patients.

Talk about some pros and cons (4th bullet point), like it would cost an initial outlay of money, that the instructions would still ]=need to be individualized for each patient, but it would help patients understand what to do when they go home.

Close by recapping: Here is the problem, here is my solution, here's who would benefit and why,

Keep it simple. With only 3-4 pages, there is no need to go into long explanations of anything.