Improvement work invariably involves work across multiple systems and disciplines within a practice. The quality improvement (QI) team or committee (QIC) is the group of individuals within a practice charged with carrying out improvement efforts (AHRQ.gov). The QI initiative I’ve selected focuses on the medication reconciliation. Medication reconciliation is the process of creating the most accurate list possible of all medications a patient is taking including drug names, dosage, frequency and route (IHI.org). Indications of use should also be reviewed during the medication reconciliation. Adverse events related to incomplete or inaccurate medication reconciliation in my facility are usually handled through having a root cause analysis with all involved. This will allow the team to see where the error occured, how it could have been prevented and how they can move forward to prevent it from happening again. This method deals with the problem at the source and focuses on preventing further incidents. More than 40% of medication errors are believed to result from inadequate reconciliation in handoffs during admission, transfer and discharge of patients. Of these errors, about 20% are believed to result in harm (Barnsteiner, 2008). Often negative outcomes such as death from medication errors could often become headline news, causing the public to sometimes loose trust in the health care systems.
The article I chose is as follows.
A 71-year-old female accidentally received thiothixene ( Navane ), an antipsychotic, instead of her anti-hypertensive medication amlodipine ( Norvasc) for 3 months. She sustained physical and psychological harm including ambulatory dysfunction, tremors, mood swings, and personality changes. Despite the many opportunities for intervention, multiple health care providers overlooked her symptoms (DaSilva, 2016). This incident is a perfect example of just how important the medication reconciliation is. Reviewing the outside pharmacy records or simply calling this patient’s pharmacy, could have picked up on this error, before it had such serious effects on the patient. Medication errors can across throughout all aspects of a patient’s care. when we think of medication errors the first thing that usually come to mind is a nurse administering the wrong medication or the wrong dose. Though this is probably the most common type of medication error, other health care professionals can make medication errors as well.
References:
Barnsteiner, JH (2008). Patient safety and qualtiy: an evidence-based handbook for nurses.
DaSilva, B. Krisshnamurthy, M. (2016). The alarming reality of medication error: A patient case and review of Pennsylvania and national data.
www.ihi.org
Module 14. Creating Quality Improvement Teams and QI Plans | Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (ahrq.gov)
Sample Answer 3 for NURS 8302 Assignment 1: Organizational Culture Assessment Tool ANSWER
Quality improvement is critical for a healthcare organization’s efforts to offer safe and better patient care services. Therefore, a quality improvement initiative has to be formulated and implemented. However, the success of such an implementation effort heavily depends on the organizational culture (Mannion & Davies, 2018). The implication is that there is a need to assess the organization’s culture to evaluate the readiness for quality improvement initiative implementation. The purpose of this week’s assignment is to complete the organizational culture assessment tool for a healthcare organization and explore the state of the organizational readiness for quality improvement. In addition, the write-up will explore the leadership strategies present in the organization to support quality improvement, positive patient experiences, and healthcare quality.
The State of the Organizational Readiness for Quality Improvement
As earlier highlighted, the success of implementing a quality improvement initiative heavily hinges on an organization’s culture, which affects its readiness for a quality improvement initiative implementation (Fulop & Ramsay, 2019). As such, an organizational culture assessment tool (Appendix 1) was completed by responding to sixteen questions reflecting on various aspects of the organization’s readiness for quality improvement. In general, the organization looks ready for quality improvement; this is indicated in the answers to some prompts in the assessment tools. For instance, a strongly agree response was given for the prompt, “If a process, procedure, approach is not working, we can correct it with ease.” The response indicates that the organization is always ready to change a process or a procedure in a case where it is not working. This is where the quality improvement initiative comes in, where the organization will readily accept the proposed quality improvement initiative to improve the organization.
The organizational culture is also present for quality improvement. Quality improvement initiatives require the involvement of every staff. The organization’s assessment revealed that the organization uses tools and platforms internally to help collaborate and communicate more effectively. This is an indication that the culture is present for quality improvement. Collaboration and communication between various staff members will be key for successfully implementing the quality improvement initiative (Busse et al., 2019). Therefore, the organizational culture is likely to support the prosed quality improvement initiative fully.
Leadership Strategies Present in the Organization
The organization’s assessment also revealed various leadership strategies present in the organization that can support quality improvement, positive patient experience, and healthcare quality. One of such strategies is effective communication. The leadership has established well-defined communication channels and kept the channels open. The implication is that every staff and patient can communicate to the right person what bothers them so that action can be taken as appropriate. Such effective communication will foster quality improvement and positive patient experiences (Asif et al., 2019).
Another strategy present in the organization’s leadership is the willingness to delegate duty. Duty delegation and responsibility assignment make the staff feel valued and part of the organization. This ensures that the implementation of the quality improvement initiative will be successful since everyone will be involved. The organization leadership also fully supports various organizational administrators in proposals to improve patient care services. Such support will be key in improving patient satisfaction and healthcare quality (Asif et al., 2019). When various administrators receive the full support of the top leadership, they will accomplish the patient service quality improvement initiatives improving the patient experience and healthcare quality in the process.
Conclusion
The implementation of a quality improvement initiative substantially depends on the organizational culture. Therefore, it is imperative to embark on the organizational culture assessment to ascertain the organization’s readiness for the quality improvement initiative implementation. This write-up has presented an assessment of organizational culture and a discussion of the readiness to implement the quality improvement initiative.
References
Asif, M., Jameel, A., Sahito, N., Hwang, J., Hussain, A., & Manzoor, F. (2019). Can leadership enhance patient satisfaction? Assessing the role of administrative and medical quality. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(17), 3212. https://dx.doi.org/10.3390%2Fijerph16173212
Busse, R., Klazinga, N., Panteli, D., Quentin, W., & World Health Organization. (2019). Improving healthcare quality in Europe: characteristics, effectiveness, and implementation of different strategies. World Health Organization. Regional Office for Europe.
Fulop, N. J., & Ramsay, A. I. (2019). How organizations contribute to improving the quality of healthcare. BMJ, 365. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l1773
Mannion, R., & Davies, H. (2018). Understanding organizational culture for healthcare quality improvement. Bmj, 363. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k4907
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Important information for writing discussion questions and participation
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Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to
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Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.
Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.
I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!
Hi Class,
Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.
Contact me if you have any questions.
Important information on Writing a Discussion Question
- Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
- There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
- Include in-text citations in your response
- Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
- Follow APA-7th edition
- Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor
- A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
- Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
- Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
- Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
- Follow APA 7th edition
- Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
- Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
- Here are some helpful links
- Student paper example
- Citing Sources
- The Writing Center is a great resource