Analyze the elements of a successful quality improvement initiative.

For this assessment, you can use a supplied template to conduct a root-cause analysis. The completed assessment will be a scholarly paper focusing on a quality or safety issue pertaining to medication administration in a health care setting of your choice as well as a safety improvement plan.

As patient safety concerns continue to be addressed in the health care settings, nurses can play an active role in implementing safety improvement measures and plans. Often root-cause analyses are conducted and safety improvement plans are created to address sentinel or adverse events such as medication errors, patient falls, wrong-site surgery events, and hospital-acquired infections. Performing a root-cause analysis offers a systematic approach for identifying causes of problems, including process and system-check failures. Once the causes of failures have been determined, a safety improvement plan can be developed to prevent recurrences. The baccalaureate nurse’s role as a leader is to create safety improvement plans as well as disseminate vital information to staff nurses and other health care professionals to protect patients and improve outcomes.

As you prepare for this assessment, it would be an excellent choice to complete the Quality and Safety Improvement Plan Knowledge Base activity and to review the various assessment resources, all of which will help you build your knowledge of key concepts and terms related to quality and safety improvement. The terms and concepts will be helpful as you prepare your Root-Cause Analysis and Safety Improvement Plan. Activities are not graded and demonstrate course engagement.

Demonstration of Proficiency

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.

. Apply evidence-based and best-practice strategies to address a safety issue or sentinel event pertaining to medication administration. ;

. Create a viable, evidence-based safety improvement plan for safe medication administration.

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

. Analyze the root cause of a patient safety issue or a specific sentinel event pertaining to medication administration in an organization.

· Competency 3: Identify organizational interventions to promote patient safety.

. Identify existing organizational resources that could be leveraged to improve a safety improvement plan for safe medication administration.

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

. Communicate in writing that is clear, logical, and professional, with correct grammar and spelling, using current APA style.

Professional Context

Nursing practice is governed by health care policies and procedures as well as state and national regulations developed to prevent problems. It is critical for nurses to participate in gathering and analyzing data to determine causes of patient safety issues, in solving problems, and in implementing quality improvements.

Scenario

For this assessment, you may choose from the following options as the subject of a root-cause analysis and safety improvement plan:

· The specific safety concern identified in your previous assessment pertaining to medication administration safety concerns.

· The readings, case studies, or a personal experience in which a sentinel event occurred surrounding an issue or concern with medication administration.

Instructions

The purpose of this assessment is to demonstrate your understanding of and ability to analyze a root cause of a specific safety concern in a health care setting. You will create a plan to improve the safety of patients related to the concern of medication administration safety based on the results of your analysis, using the literature and professional best practices as well as the existing resources at your chosen health care setting to provide a rationale for your plan.

Use the   template to help you to stay organized and concise. This will guide you step-by-step through the root cause analysis process.

Additionally, 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 you understand what is needed for a distinguished score.

· Analyze the root cause of a patient safety issue or a specific sentinel event pertaining to medication administration in an organization.

· Apply evidence-based and best-practice strategies to address the safety issue or sentinel event pertaining to medication administration.

· Create a feasible, evidence-based safety improvement plan for safe medication administration.

· Identify organizational resources that could be leveraged to improve your plan for safe medication administration.

· Communicate in writing that is clear, logical, and professional, with correct grammar and spelling, using current APA style.

Example Assessment: You may use the following to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like but keep in mind that your Assessment 2 will focus on safe medication administration.

· .

Additional Requirements

· Length of submission: Use the provided Root-Cause Analysis and Improvement Plan template to create a 4–6 page root cause analysis and safety improvement plan pertaining to medication administration.

· Number of references: Cite a minimum of 3 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that support your findings and considerations. Resources should be no more than 4 years old.

· APA formatting: Format references and citations according to current APA style.

Analyze the elements of a successful quality improvement initiative.

Introduction

Quality improvement (QI) is a well-known and accepted method for improving the quality of your business. But what are some other ways you can use this process to improve your team’s performance? In this article, we’ll look at how you can use QI to make better decisions, make improvements in areas where they’re needed most and move forward with confidence.

The first step is to analyze the current state of quality.

The first step in a quality improvement initiative is to analyze the current state. This means defining your problem, setting goals for improvement and creating a plan for achieving them.

The most important thing to remember as you’re working toward these goals is that they should be realistic—don’t try to do too much too fast or expect immediate results! By focusing on one small step at a time, you’ll be able to see progress and make adjustments along the way if necessary.

For example: If you’re looking at losing weight because it’s been difficult for years but now have an opportunity through dieting/exercise routines (or both), then breaking down your goal into smaller steps may help keep things manageable while still making progress towards reaching those big long-term goals eventually!

Then, make a list of problems and opportunities (most often, there are many).

Now it’s time to make a list of problems and opportunities. The more you can think of, the better:

• Problems: What do your employees see as areas that need improvement? What are the most pressing problems in their day-to-day lives? What are the top three things they would like you to help them with?
• Opportunities: How could these issues be addressed by improving quality or reducing costs (or both)?

Set goals that are quantifiable and will give you clear, measurable results.

• Set goals that are quantifiable and will give you clear, measurable results.
• Goals should be specific and measurable; they should also be realistic and achievable.
• It’s important to set time-bound goals: what do the metrics look like when you reach them? How long does it take for those metrics to change? What happens if the project fails to achieve its expected outcome? This allows organizations to measure success at every stage of development in order for them to know whether or not their efforts are paying off (and how much).

Determine what action you’ll take to address your problem or opportunity.

Once you’ve identified the problem or opportunity, the next step is deciding on a course of action. To do this, it’s important to consider both the cost and benefits of each option. For example:

• High-quality products cost more than low-quality ones, but they also last longer and are less likely to break down in use. You may want to invest in some higher quality materials if your goal is customer satisfaction; however, if you’re trying out new technology that requires high precision parts (such as 3D printing), then lower quality parts will probably be sufficient for now until they improve over time.
• Higher wages mean employees will have more disposable income after paying bills every month; however, lower wages could mean less turnover among staff members who have been working there for several years (and thus fewer training costs).

Create a plan for implementing the solution.

The next step is to create a plan for implementing the solution. A successful quality improvement initiative requires that all stakeholders are involved in the process and have their needs addressed, as well as having an understanding of how they fit into the overall picture.

Who should be responsible for what?

Who will do what?

How long does it take to implement, measure success and address any problems if something goes wrong?

With a well-planned QI, you can discover new ways to be better, faster and more efficiently.

Quality improvement is a process of continuous improvement. The goal of quality improvement is to make products or services more valuable and efficient by finding ways to do what you are already doing better.

Quality Improvement involves identifying problems and opportunities, setting goals, creating a plan, implementing the plan and evaluating results.

Conclusion

Of course, the best way to improve your QI is to use it. That’s why we’ve included a practical section on how to implement your plan.