EBP Assignment Question
EBP Assignment Question
Post a cohesive scholarly response that addresses the following: • Share your project question, as you have developed it thus far. • Discuss salient elements that inform your project question: theory, current research, nursing practice, and specialty knowledge. • Pose any questions or concerns you may have related to developing your project question or literature review. You may also include any other issues related to expanding your expertise within your specialty area. EBP Assignment Question
Falls are considered to be a public healthcare concern across the world. In essence, fall risks increase with age and hospitalization and they result in injuries, illnesses, long hospital stays and increased treatment cos as well as morbidity and mortality. As such, falls are devastating to both clinicians and patients and the general healthcare system. This necessitates the development of an evidence-based intervention to help reduce and prevent falling particularly in the acute care settings where severe injuries, urgent medical conditions and surgical recoveries are actively treated. A gap in practice is evident from the increased number of fall rates in acute care setting. Hourly rounding of hospital staff presents significant potential to resolving falls in the hospital since it facilitates early identification of risks and enhances prevention before the falls occur (Linehan & Linehan, 2018).
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Project question
In elderly inpatient adults within an urban acute care agency in Midwestern United States, does hourly rounding of nursing staff protocol adoption as recommended by geriatric specific standard of care compared to the use of bedside alarms reduce the rate of falls in three months of implementation?
Salient elements
Behavior change theories are essential in the success of most evidence-based practices in nursing practice. They help in understanding why people practice or fail to practice health promoting behaviors, identify the needed information in designation of effective interventions as well as offer insights into designing a successful program (Tricco et al., 2016). In this case, the social learning / social cognitive behavior change theory is identified to inform the project question.EBP Assignment Question
Social cognitive theory is associated with individual experiences, environmental factors and the actions of others and the impact on individual health behaviors. This theory was developed by Albert Bandura in 1960s as the social learning theory characterized by self-evaluation, self-observation, self-reaction and self-efficacy (Guirguis-Blake et al., 2018). This theory is informative to the practice in that it explains the importance of resources and support in raising self-efficacy in individual behaviors. It also notes that environmental changes encourage behavior change by providing opportunities, assisting changes, and offering social support (Tricco et al., 2017). It also helps to recognize the environmental constraints that might discourage changes in behavior. As such, this theory will support the organizational change and help the nurses to increase their self-efficacy levels in making the intervention a success (Bassett, Siu & Honaker, 2018). They will be able to develop positive attitudes towards hourly rounding and develop an intentional behavior focused on patient welfare.
Questions and concerns
The questions or concerns I may have related to project development include:
- Will the hourly rounding of healthcare providers improve patient satisfaction?
- What health or safety risks are associated with the intervention?
- Does the intervention require an increased nursing staff level?
- Does the nursing staff require education on how to conduct the hourly rounds? How effective will be the education and how will it be carried out if necessary?
- What strategies should be put forward to enhance the active engagement and collaboration of patients and the nurses in the intervention to make it more purposeful?
- What strategies will be developed to identify and recognize the concerns of both the nurses and the patients during the course of implementation of the hourly rounding intervention? EBP Assignment Question
Conclusion
Falls are a major healthcare concern particularly due to the increasing aging population requiring acute care treatment. Hourly rounding of hospital staff is an effective intervention in reducing falls and the project seeks to employ behavior change theory to explore and adopt the change in acute care setting.
References
Bassett, A. M., Siu, K. C., & Honaker, J. A. (2018). Functional measures for fall risk in the acute care setting: a review. Western journal of nursing research, 40(10), 1469-1488.
Fleig, L., McAllister, M. M., Chen, P., Iverson, J., Milne, K., McKay, H. A., … & Ashe, M. C. (2016). Health behaviour change theory meets falls prevention: feasibility of a habit-based balance and strength exercise intervention for older adults. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 22, 114-122.
Guirguis-Blake, J. M., Michael, Y. L., Perdue, L. A., Coppola, E. L., & Beil, T. L. (2018). Interventions to prevent falls in older adults: updated evidence report and systematic review for the US Preventive Services Task Force. Jama, 319(16), 1705-1716.
Linehan, J., & Linehan, J. (2018). Fall Prevention in Long Term Care Using Purposeful Hourly Rounding. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 19(3), B17.
Tricco, A. C., Thomas, S. M., Veroniki, A. A., Hamid, J. S., Cogo, E., Strifler, L., … & Riva, J. J. (2017). Comparisons of interventions for preventing falls in older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Jama, 318(17), 1687-1699.
EBP Assignment Question
