Quality Improvement Proposal (Health, Medicine, Nursing Essay)
Identify a quality improvement opportunity in your organization or practice. In a 1,250-1,500 word paper, describe the problem or issue and propose a quality improvement initiative based on evidence-based practice. Apply "The Road to Evidence-Based Practice" process, illustrated in Chapter 4 of your textbook, to create your proposal.
Include the following:
Provide an overview of the problem and the setting in which the problem or issue occurs.
Explain why a quality improvement initiative is needed in this area and the expected outcome.
Discuss how the results of previous research demonstrate support for the quality improvement initiative and its projected outcomes. Include a minimum of three peer-reviewed sources published within the last 5 years, not included in the course materials or textbook, that establish evidence in support of the quality improvement proposed.
Discuss steps necessary to implement the quality improvement initiative. Provide evidence and rationale to support your answer.
Explain how the quality improvement initiative will be evaluated to determine whether there was improvement.
Support your explanation by identifying the variables, hypothesis test, and statistical test that you would need to prove that the quality improvement initiative succeeded.
While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and documentation of sources should be presented using APA formatting guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
Quality Improvement Proposal
Name
Institution
Introduction
The quality improvement initiative's main aim is to enhance patient outcomes within any given healthcare facility. Quality improvement initiatives play a major role in preventing medical errors, which has become a major quality concern for several healthcare facilities over the past few years. Large hospitals apply the evidence-based practice, which helps in the reduction of medical errors to their patients. Safety policies formulated and implemented in various healthcare facilities ensure adherence to all medical practitioners' rules and regulations to avoid medical errors. Implementing change initiatives and proper collection and storage of patient data may prevent the frequent occurrence of medical errors. UC San Diego health Jacobs medical facility has experienced substantial growth over the last several years. The facility has also faced many patient safety concerns, including the rise in hospital-acquired infections and a steady increase in medical errors. This proposal sheds light on the medical error at the UC San Diego medical facility and recommends a quality improvement initiative in this regard.
Overview of the Problem
The health care organization undertakes several operations, and the topic addresses issues of quality improvement within the institution. Moreover, the topic also relates to the management of patient medical records to ensure proper use of data to ensure patient safety and promote quality healthcare. The organization relies on medical information and patient's personal information to deliver treatment. It is the hospitals' responsibility to ensure improvement in the quality of care and decrease instances of unnecessary readmissions. Medical errors are a significant issue in health care institutions attributing to high mortality rates.
Moreover, these errors cost approximately $20 billion a year, resulting in approximately 100,000 deaths annually (Rodziewicz & Hipskind, 2018). These statistics reflect the case of increased medical errors in UC San Diego Health Jacobs Medical Center. UC San Diego primarily experiences errors related to surgery. Increased mortality within the facility is a result of minor surgical errors and errors during transplant. Issues related to patient safety lead to adverse legal and financial consequences to the institution.
Moreover, UC San Diego experiences challenges associated with administering the wrong medication to patients. Inappropriate medication administration to patients could be caused by omissions of data about the patient history of medication. Medical prescriptions are dependent on patient information such as underlying health conditions, current medications, and history of treatment. Administering wrong medicines could lead to complications or advancement of an infection resulting in death. Besides the effects of medical errors, UC San Diego also faces the challenge of hospital-acquired infections. Hospitals play a significant role in controlling the rates of hospital-acquired infections by identifying susceptible patients with underlying conditions and employing appropriate treatment measures (Monegro, Muppidi & Regunath, 2020). Due to the increased hospital-acquired infections, there has been a surge in cases of hospital readmissions.
Reasons for the Quality Improvement Initiative
Technology serves as a solution to medical organizations looking to improve their data management, quality and provide affordable medical care. Considering UC San Diego's current challenge, Electronic Medical Records would be an effective quality improvement initiative. EMR systems collect and retrieve patient records, and this feature minimizes the use of filing systems, which is time-consuming. These systems also save on operational costs and space used by the organization. EMR systems serve as a central interactive space between patients and doctors. The use of these systems will help to reduce medical errors and mortality rates within UC San Diego. Employees within the organization can retrieve clinical data from these systems. Patients can also receive medical prescriptions without interacting face-to-face with physicians, which helps to mitigate hospital-acquired infections. These systems can also be merged with several add-ons to enhance the system's versatility in guiding medical procedures such as surgery.
Results from Previous Research
According to Lin, Jha & Adler-Milstein (2018)...