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NURS 8302: Leading Organizations for Quality Improvement Initiatives | Week 6
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NURS 8302: Leading Organizations for Quality Improvement Initiatives
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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.
Submission and Grading Information
Grading Criteria
To access your rubric:
Week 6 Discussion Rubric
Post by Day 3 of Week 6 and Respond by Day 6 of Week 6
To Participate in this Discussion:
Week 6 Discussion
Assignment 1: Organizational Culture Assessment Tool
Your organization is ready to implement a quality improvement initiative; however, it is becoming increasingly clear that perhaps not everyone is on board with the proposal.
What could be contributing to this potential resistance? How might organizational culture impact or influence the ability to engage in quality improvement initiatives?
Photo Credit: M-SUR / Adobe Stock
Organizational culture is the shared way of thinking or feeling in a given organization. This culture creates the dynamic for a willingness to change and/or improve. For example, if an organizational culture is one in which change is welcomed to improve and all voices are encouraged to be shared, the implementation of a quality improvement initiative will likely be accepted and supported. However, if an organizational culture is one in which the acknowledgement of mistakes are penalized and only leadership voices are respected, the implementation of a quality improvement initiative may be met with hesitation and skepticism.
For this Assignment, you will consider the impact of cultural and organizational readiness as it relates to the implementation of quality improvement initiatives. You will consider the leadership strategies needed to support these measures and complete an Organizational Culture Assessment Tool.
To Prepare:
Review the Learning Resources regarding the implementation of quality improvement initiatives.
Consider what stakeholders must be present to implement these initiatives, and reflect on the leadership strategies needed for success in promoting quality improvement initiatives in healthcare organizations and nursing practice.
Select a healthcare organization or nursing practice (with which you are familiar) to complete the Organizational Culture Assessment Tool.
The Assignment: (2–3 pages)
Complete the Organizational Culture Assessment Tool for the healthcare organization or nursing practice you selected. Then, address the following:
What is the state of cultural/organizational readiness for quality improvement?
Is the organizational culture present for quality improvement?
What leadership strategies are present in the organization to support quality improvement, positive patient experiences, and healthcare quality?
Reminder: The College of Nursing requires that all papers submitted include a title page, introduction, summary, and references. The Sample Paper provided at the Walden Writing Center provides an example of those required elements (available at https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/templates/general#s-lg-box-20293632). All papers submitted must use this formatting.
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
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