Capella NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety Example 1Enhancing Quality and Safety

Capella NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety Example 1

Enhancing Quality and Safety

Safety in healthcare is essential in ensuring quality services. Safety in healthcare services is a measure of quality in that safety issues in healthcare translate to poor quality services and vice versa. Various patient safety risks and concerns exist in healthcare settings, leading to poor outcomes, loss of trust in the healthcare system, increased costs, and increased hospital length of stay. Quality healthcare also entails patient-centered care, utilization of evidence-based practice, clinical guidelines, and implementation of patient safety initiatives.

This paper examines Healthcare Associated Infections (HAI), a safety quality issue affecting my healthcare setting, and provides evidence-based solutions to address the issue. Additionally, the paper will explore the factors leading to patient safety risks in the healthcare setting, the evidence-based and best-practice solutions to improve patient safety and reduce costs, explain how nurses can help coordinate care to increase patient safety and reduce costs, and finally, identifies stakeholders with whom nurses would coordinate to drive safety enhancements with the safety quality issue.

Factors Leading to HAI in a healthcare Setting

Hospital-associated infections are infections that patients acquire while receiving healthcare services in a healthcare setting, including inpatient and outpatient settings. Various factors lead to HAIs in a healthcare setting. A major factor contributing to HAIs is poor maintenance and use of medical devices. Medical devices such as catheters and ventilators cause infections when not used and maintained appropriately. The other factor is the failure to maintain adequate infection control practices. According to Ripa et al. (2021), failure to adhere to recommended infection control measures significantly contributes to hospital-acquired infections.

Furthermore, patient factors may lead to HIAs in a healthcare setting. Ripa et al. (2021) note that some patients have a high risk of contracting HAIs. These include patients with compromised immune systems, underlying conditions prone to infections, and prolonged hospital stays. Understaffing and high workloads are other issues leading to HIAs. In understaffed settings, care providers have high patient-to-staff ratios, which increases the workload, potentially leading to lapses in infection control practices.

Evidence-based and Best-Practice Solutions to Improve Patient Safety and Reduce Costs

The World Health Organization (2021) developed a patient safety action plan to eliminate harm in healthcare settings, emphasizing the essence of infection prevention and control practices. Every healthcare setting should adhere to strict infection prevention and control measures and develop policies customized to the institution’s needs. Infection control measures include appropriate use of personal protective equipment for the care providers, disinfection of surfaces, environmental cleaning, and adherence to isolation precautions.

The other best-practice solution to improve patient safety and reduce costs is surveillance and monitoring patient safety issues. According to Duarte et al. (2020), healthcare institutions can reduce patient safety issues by creating robust surveillance systems to monitor patient safety issues, including tracking antimicrobial resistance patterns and identifying outbreaks, which allows for early detection and prompt response to prevent further infection transmission. Additionally, educating care providers on infection control practices, guidelines, and protocols is vital in improving patient safety and reducing costs.

Care Coordination to Improve Patient Safety and Reduce Costs

Nurses significantly help in coordinating care to improve patient safety and reduce costs. As among the care team leaders, nurses can mobilize other healthcare providers in initiatives aimed at improving patient safety and reducing care costs (Vaismoradi et al., 2020). For example, nurses can lead in infection prevention and control staff education and programs, ensuring all care providers are aware of the practices, policies, and protocols, thus improving patient safety and reducing costs.

Nurses also coordinate care by ensuring seamless communication among the care team, preventing gaps in care that would lead to patient safety issues such as medication errors, thus promoting patient safety. For instance, nurses can communicate with other care team members on the infection prevention and control protocols currently used to enhance patient safety and reduce costs related to HAIs.

Stakeholder Identification to Drive Safety Enhancements with HAIs

There are various stakeholders with whom nurses would need to coordinate in driving safety enhancements to prevent HAIs. Institution leaders and administrators are among the relevant stakeholders whom nurses need to involve in driving quality initiatives to enhance safety. The leaders allocate resources for the various initiatives and programs in institutions. Therefore, coordinating them in driving safety enhancements is crucial. Additionally, getting their buy-in and support for the initiative is vital, thus promoting success.

Other stakeholders include the clinical support staff, patients, and families, as well as other members of the interdisciplinary team. Simsekler et al. (2020) note that clinical support staff, such as lab technicians, play a major role in minimizing and preventing HAIs. Therefore, they are relevant stakeholders in safety enhancements.

Patients and their families should also be involved in enhancing safety since they also participate in self-management and home care. These stakeholders can also help provide feedback on safety issues, thus improving the initiatives. The interdisciplinary team is also vital in safety enhancements since it takes part in patient care planning, treatment, and care continuity (Simsekler et al., 2020).   

Conclusion

Hospital Associated Infections are a major patient safety risk in healthcare institutions. Patient safety issues such as HAIs compromise care quality and increase the costs to the individual patient and the system. However, as discussed above, a wide array of evidence-based and best-practice solutions exist to address the issues. Nurses can also coordinate care to improve patient safety and reduce costs. Identifying relevant stakeholders in safety enhancement initiatives is crucial to improve their success.   

Capella NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety References

Duarte, S. D. C. M., Azevedo, S. S., Muinck, G. D. C., Costa, T. F. D., Cardoso, M. M. V. N., & Moraes, J. R. M. M. (2020). Best Safety Practices in Nursing Care in Neonatal Intensive Therapy. Brazilian Journal of Nursing 73(2), e20180482. https://doi.org/10.1590/0034-7167-2018-0482

Ripa, M., Galli, L., Poli, A., Oltolini, C., Spagnuolo, V., Mastrangelo, A., Muccini, C., Monti, G., De Luca, G., Landoni, G., Dagna, L., Clementi, M., Rovere Querini, P., Ciceri, F., Tresoldi, M., Lazzarin, A., Zangrillo, A., Scarpellini, P., Castagna, A., & COVID-BioB study group (2021). Secondary infections in patients hospitalized with COVID-19: incidence and predictive factors. Clinical Microbiology and Infection: The Official Publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, 27(3), 451–457. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmi.2020.10.021

Simsekler, M. C. E., Qazi, A., Alalami, M. A., Ellahham, S., & Ozonoff, A. (2020). Evaluation of patient safety culture using a random forest algorithm. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 204, 107186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2020.107186

Vaismoradi, M., Tella, S., A Logan, P., Khakurel, J., & Vizcaya-Moreno, F. (2020). Nurses’ Adherence to Patient Safety Principles: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(6), 2028. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17062028

World Health Organization. (2021). Global patient safety action plan 2021-2030: towards eliminating avoidable harm in health care. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/teams/integrated-health-services/patient-safety/policy/global-patient-safety-action-plan

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Capella NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety Instructions

• For this assessment, you will develop a 3-5 page paper that examines a safety quality issue pertaining to medication administration in a health care setting. You will analyze the issue and examine potential evidence-based and best-practice solutions from the literature as well as the role of nurses and other stakeholders in addressing the issue.

Health care organizations and professionals strive to create safe environments for patients; however, due to the complexity of the health care system, maintaining safety can be a challenge. Since nurses comprise the largest group of health care professionals, a great deal of responsibility falls in the hands of practicing nurses.

Quality improvement (QI) measures and safety improvement plans are effective interventions to reduce medical errors and sentinel events such as medication errors, falls, infections, and deaths. A 2000 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report indicated that almost one million people are harmed annually in the United States, (Kohn et al., 2000) and 210,000–440,000 die as a result of medical errors (Allen, 2013).

The role of the baccalaureate nurse includes identifying and explaining specific patient risk factors, incorporating evidence-based solutions to improving patient safety and coordinating care. A solid foundation of knowledge and understanding of safety organizations such as Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN), the Institute of Medicine (IOM), and The Joint Commission and its National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) program is vital to practicing nurses with regard to providing and promoting safe and effective patient care.

You are encouraged to complete the Identifying Safety Risks and Solutions activity. This activity offers an opportunity to review a case study and practice identifying safety risks and possible solutions. We have found that learners who complete course activities and review resources are more successful with first submissions. Completing course activities is also a way to demonstrate course engagement.

Demonstration of Proficiency in Capella NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:

Competency 1: Analyze the elements of a successful quality improvement initiative.

• Explain evidence-based and best-practice solutions to improve patient safety focusing on medication administration and reducing costs.

Competency 2: Analyze factors that lead to patient safety risks.

• Explain factors leading to a specific patient-safety risk focusing on medication administration.

Competency 4: Explain the nurse’s role in coordinating care to enhance quality and reduce costs.

• Explain how nurses can help coordinate care to increase patient safety with medication administration and reduce costs.
• Identify stakeholders with whom nurses would need to coordinate to drive quality and safety enhancements with medication administration.

Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly, evidence-based strategies to communicate in a manner that supports safe and effective patient care.

• Organize content so ideas flow logically with smooth transitions; contains few errors in grammar or punctuation, word choice, and spelling.
• Apply APA formatting to in-text citations and references exhibiting nearly flawless adherence to APA format.

References for Capella NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety

• Allen, M. (2013). How many die from medical mistakes in U.S. hospitals? Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/09/20/224507654/how-many-die-from-medical-mistakes-in-u-s-hospitals.
• Kohn, L. T., Corrigan, J., & Donaldson, M. S. (Eds.). (2000). To err is human: Building a safer health system. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Professional Context

As a baccalaureate-prepared nurse, you will be responsible for implementing quality improvement (QI) and patient safety measures in health care settings. Effective quality improvement measures result in systemic and organizational changes, ultimately leading to the development of a patient safety culture.

Scenario for Capella NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety

Consider a previous experience or hypothetical situation pertaining to medication errors, and consider how the error could have been prevented or alleviated with the use of evidence-based guidelines.

Choose a specific condition of interest surrounding a medication administration safety risk and incorporate evidence-based strategies to support communication and ensure safe and effective care.

For this assessment:

• Analyze a current issue or experience in clinical practice surrounding a medication administration safety risk and identify a quality improvement (QI) initiative in the health care setting.

Capella NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety Instructions

The purpose of this assessment is to better understand the role of the baccalaureate-prepared nurse in enhancing quality improvement (QI) measures that address a medication administration safety risk. This will be within the specific context of patient safety risks in a health care setting of your choice. You will do this by exploring the professional guidelines and best practices for improving and maintaining patient safety in healthcare settings from organizations such as QSEN and the IOM.

Looking through the lens of these professional best practices to examine the current policies and procedures currently in place at your chosen organization and the impact on safety measures for patients surrounding medication administration, you will consider the role of the nurse in driving quality and safety improvements. You will identify stakeholders in QI improvement and safety measures as well as consider evidence-based strategies to enhance the quality of care and promote medication administration safety in the context of your chosen healthcare setting.

Be sure that your plan addresses the following, which corresponds to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Please study the scoring guide carefully so that you know what is needed for a distinguished score.

• Explain factors leading to a specific patient-safety risk focusing on medication administration.
• Explain evidence-based and best-practice solutions to improve patient safety focusing on medication administration and reducing costs.
• Explain how nurses can help coordinate care to increase patient safety with medication administration and reduce costs.
• Identify stakeholders with whom nurses would coordinate to drive safety enhancements with medication administration.
• Communicate using writing that is clear, logical, and professional, with correct grammar and spelling, using current APA style.

Additional Requirements for Capella NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety

• Length of submission: 3–5 pages, plus title and reference pages.
• Number of references: Cite a minimum of 4 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that support your findings and considerations. Resources should be no more than 5 years old.
• APA formatting: References and citations are formatted according to current APA style.

Capella NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety: Medication Safety Sample Paper 2

Medication errors have significantly affected patient safety, as some have led to mortality or disability. Despite significant improvements by our health system to mitigate these errors, medication safety is still a concern due to various causes.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defines a medication error as an event capable of causing inappropriate medication use or patient harm in the hand of the prescriber, administering clinician, patient, or consumer of the medication (Center for Drug Evaluation & Research, 2019).

In the FDA’s definition, medication errors are preventable. The purpose of this paper is to describe a situation where a medication error occurred, explain the specific risks for the patient, and describe the best nursing coordination strategies to improve patient safety.

Patient Scenario

Charlie is a 22-year-old white male who had an emergency appendectomy following acute appendicitis. His pain persisted even on day four after the resumption of oral intake, and his surgeon prescribed oral morphine medication 10 mg start dose that evening. RN, the oncoming nurse that evening, administered 10 milliliters of morphine solution for injection infusion because the patient had been on other intravenous infusions in the postoperative period.

The formulation given contained a 10mg/ml solution. Three hours about half an hour minutes after the administration of this solution, Charlie started vomiting the milk he had taken that evening and appeared to be in respiratory distress. Therefore, RN called Charlie’s surgeon to review him.

Factors Leading to Patient-Safety Risk

Various patient safety risks could have led to this patient’s risk for medication errors. These errors relate to healthcare professional practice, products, procedures, and systems. These errors can be traced back to product labeling, packaging, prescription, administration, and monitoring.

These patient-safety risks related to medication administration include but are not limited to inadequate or unclear instructions, illegible writing, lack of medication reconciliation, improper administration documentation (Rosenthal & Burchum, 2020), inappropriate drug selection during administration, and failure to continue or discontinue medications. More than one risk can contribute to a single occurrence of medication error due to medication administration.

A qualitative study by Schroers et al. (2020) classified these patient safety risk factors in medication administration into personal factors and contextual factors. Personal factors include fatigue and complacency, while contextual factors include interruptions (Rosenthal & Burchum, 2020), night shift duty, unavailability of administration guidelines (Wondmieneh et al., 2020), and heavy nurse workloads. According to Rosenthal & Burchum (2020), about 60% of these medication errors occur during the care transition. Personal and contextual factors come into play at this time.

Improving Patient Safety Focusing on Medication Administration and Reducing Costs

Every healthcare organization continually works on various measures that they can use to prevent medication errors. Some of the evidence-based strategies to reduce medication errors, especially relating to medication administration, include but are not limited to the adoption of technology, bedside shift reporting, patient education, improving documentation in writing, and medication reconciliation. Adverse events from medication errors are too costly to the healthcare system and the patient. Treating adverse events due to medication increases the medical costs due to unintended patient harm and can cost the patient their lives.

The adoption of technology improves medication prescription and decision-making. According to Rosenthal & Burchum (2020), using technology reduces medication errors by 50%. The use of technology systems such as computerized physician order entry and computerized clinical decision support systems ensures that reduces errors of reception while the use of barcoded technology that identifies the drugs’ barcodes and against the patient information reduces errors of administration by up to 85% in some institutions (Rosenthal & Burchum, 2020). Therefore, technology can play a crucial role in the prevention of medication errors in the whole continuum of patient treatment.

Medication reconciliation is the process of comparing and updating the patient’s old and new medication lists. Medication reconciliation can be carried out at all care transitions, including inter-institutional transfer, admission, and discharge during shift reporting. About 60% of errors are reduced when medication reconciliation at all points of care transition. Bedside shift reporting offers an excellent opportunity for medication reconciliation during care transitions.

The Institute for Safe Medical Practices (ISMP) recommends using brand and generic names of medication during a prescription to ensure that during administration, the nurse is sure and less likely to make medication errors. The joint commission (TJC) banned the use of some abbreviations in prescriptions to reduce the chances of confusion during medication administration.

Improving documentation includes reserving verbal prescriptions for emergencies only. Documentation using electronic means ensures good communication between nurses, dispenses of medication, and prescribers of the medications. On the other hand, patient medication requires developing strong collaborative relationships that improve compliance with prescriptions to reduce the chances of medication errors (MacDowell et al., 2021). Education improves their understanding of the need for compliance and the potential side effects of overdose and toxicity.

Nursing Care Coordination to Increase Patient Safety

Nursing care is the center for care coordination in any healthcare institution. During care coordination, nurses organize patient care activities and share pertinent information with care stakeholders to ensure care effectiveness, safety, and quality (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2018). Care coordination aims at meeting patient care needs thus, the nurse needs to identify all patient needs and ensure they are met by the care providers. Some of the care coordination strategies that the nurse would employ include interprofessional collaboration and medication management.

For example, during interprofessional collaboration, the nurse can help with care transition, assess patient needs, and share all relevant information. The shared relevant information would be used to develop patient medication lists with a low risk of drug interaction and adverse events such as allergies. During care coordination, the nurse should also conduct medication reconciliation at every point of change in patient care providers. These two strategies would increase patient safety relating to medication administration.

Stakeholders During Care Coordination

The nursing care coordination must account for all relevant stakeholders of patient care. These stakeholders can be patient-specific and may not apply to all patient cases. Some of the key stakeholders that the nurse has to coordinate with include but are not limited to patient physicians, informaticists, pharmacists, patient caregivers, and the patient themselves. This coordination requires constant, timely communication and collaboration (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2018).

Collaboration with the patient or their caregivers would be important in safety monitoring and improving compliance with the prescription. Whenever in doubt, the nurse must coordinate with the prescribers of the patient medication lists to ensure that the correct drug and dosage are given to the patient, thereby lowering safety risks, especially due to administration. The nurse must coordinate with the pharmacists to ensure that the correct medication is dispensed. Their collaboration will also ensure that the risk of drug-drug interactions is lowered through medication reconciliation.

Another critical coordination is with fellow nurses. Collaboration with other nurses is essential in various ways. Firstly, it improves job satisfaction, thus lowering the chances of medication and medical errors. This interprofessional coordination and collaboration also enhance fast and smooth medication reconciliation (Tariq et al., 2022). This usually happens during shift handover. The exchange of other essential patient information at this time is also made easy through mutual information sharing and setting new care plans and care goals.

Conclusion

The medication error in this paper involved an overdose that could be due to a myriad of factors ranging from prescription to administration. Documented literature evidence has reported that medication errors due to medication administration arise from personal and contextual factors. Contextual factors are systemic and relate to the circumstances of the error occurrence. Personal factors related to complacency and fatigue from nurses.

To improve patient safety by preventing medication errors, the nurse should adopt strategies such as medication reconciliation, the use of technology, improving documentation, and patient education. Nursing care coordination strategies such as identifying patient needs and sharing information should involve all pertinent patient care stakeholders.

The patient caregivers, doctors, pharmacists, informaticists, the patient themselves, and other nurses and key stakeholders that the nurse will require to communicate and collaborate with to improve patient safety. Medication reconciliation at every point of care transition will be important during the coordination process.

Capella NURS-FPX4020 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety Sample 2 References

• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2018, August). Care Coordination. Ahrq.gov. Retrieved from https://www.ahrq.gov/ncepcr/care/coordination.html
• Center for Drug Evaluation & Research. (2019, August 23). Working to Reduce Medication Errors. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Retrieved from https://www.fda.gov/drugs/information-consumers-and-patients-drugs/working-reduce-medication-errors
• MacDowell, P., Cabri, A., & Davis, M. (2021). Medication Administration Errors. Intensive Care Medicine. https://psnet.ahrq.gov/primer/medication-administration-errors
• Rosenthal, L., & Burchum, J. (2020). Lehne’s pharmacotherapeutics for advanced practice nurses and physician assistants (2nd ed.). Saunders. https://www.us.elsevierhealth.com/lehnes-pharmacotherapeutics-for-advanced-practice-nurses-and-physician-assistants-9780323936064.html
• Schroers, G., Ross, J. G., & Moriarty, H. (2020). Nurses’ perceived causes of medication administration errors: A qualitative systematic review. Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 47(1), 38–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcjq.2020.09.010
• Tariq, R. A., Vashisht, R., Sinha, A., & Scherbak, Y. (2022). Medication dispensing errors and prevention. In StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519065/
• Wondmieneh, A., Alemu, W., Tadele, N., & Demis, A. (2020). Medication administration errors and contributing factors among nurses: a cross-sectional study in tertiary hospitals, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. BMC Nursing, 19(1), 4. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-020-0397-0

Resources: Collaboration and Leadership

Cho, S. M., & Choi, J. (2018). Patient safety culture associated with patient safety competencies among registered nurses. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 50(5), 549–557. https://doi-org.library.capella.edu/10.1111/jnu.12413

• This article discusses the importance of creating a unit-specific patient safety culture that is tailored to the competencies of the unit’s RNs in patient safety practice.

SonÄŸur, C., Özer, O., Gün, C., & Top, M. (2018). Patient safety culture, evidence-based practice and performance in nursing. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 31(4), 359–374.

• Evidence-based practice is a problem-solving approach in which the best available and useful evidence is used by integrating research evidence, clinical expertise, and patient values and preferences to improve health outcomes, service quality, patient safety and clinical effectiveness, and employee performance.

Stalter, A. M., & Mota, A. (2017). Recommendations for promoting quality and safety in health care systems. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 48(7), 295–297.

• This article provides recommendation to promote quality and safety education with a focus on systems thinking awareness among direct care nurses. A key point is error prevention, which requires a shared effort among all nurses.

Manno, M. S. (2016). The role transition characteristics of new registered nurses: A study of work environment influences and individual traits. (Publication No. 10037467) [Doctoral dissertation, Capella University].

• This research study may be helpful in identifying traits and qualities of new registered nurses that are helpful in coordinating and leading quality and safety measures related to this assessment.

Boomah, S. A. (2018). Emergence of informal clinical leadership as a catalyst for improving patient care quality and job satisfaction. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 75(5), 1000–1009. https://doi-org.library.capella.edu/10.1111/jan.13895

• This research analyzes attributes and best practices of leadership and nursing staff that help aid in patient care quality and job satisfaction.

Greenstein, T. (2020). Leading innovation is completely different from leading change. WWD.com.

• This article examines competencies that may help nurses collaborate more effectively to improve patient outcomes.

Poder, T. G., & Mattais, S. (2018). Systemic analysis of medication administration omission errors in a tertiary-care hospital in Quebec. Health Information Management Journal, 49(2-3), 99–107.

• This examination of underlying systemic causes of medication errors may be useful as you consider QI vest practices and ways to coordinate care to increase safety and quality.

Antevy, P. (2017). How care collaboration is improving patient outcomes. EMS World, 46(4), 26–33.

• This article examines competencies that may help health care professionals collaborate more effectively to improve patient outcomes.

Keers, R. N., Plácido, M., Bennet, K., Clayton, K., Brown, P., & Ashcroft, D. M. (2018, October 26). What causes medication administration errors in a mental health hospital? A qualitative study with nursing staff. PLOS One. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0206233

• This examination of underlying systemic causes of medication errors may be useful as you consider QI best practices and ways to coordinate care to increase safety and quality.

Quality and Safety Education

Lyle-Edrosolo, G., & Waxman, K. (2016). Aligning healthcare safety and quality competencies: Quality and safety education for nurses (QSEN), the Joint Commission, and American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet® standards crosswalk. Nurse Leader, 14(1), 70–75.

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