Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.

Preparation

Your analysis of the gap between current and desired performance was the first step toward improving outcomes. You now have the information you need to move forward with proposed changes. Your next step is to focus on existing outcome measures and their relationship to the systemic problem you are addressing. For this assessment, you have been asked to draft a summary of existing outcome measures for your organization\’s executive team to raise awareness of the problem and the strategic value of existing measures.Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.

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Systemic problem the paper is addressing= increase in falls in my facility

Requirements- organize paper sections by addressing each bullet point below.

Note: The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the Executive Summary Scoring Guide. Be sure that your written analysis addresses each point, at a minimum. You may also want to read the Executive Summary Scoring Guide and Guiding Questions: Executive Summary (linked in the Resources) to better understand how each criterion will be assessed.Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.

Composing the Executive Summary

• Explain key quality and safety outcomes, & reflects on the strengths and weaknesses of these outcome measures.
• Determine the strategic value to an organization of specific outcome measures, & suggests how existing outcome measures could be used to provide additional value to the organization.
• Analyze the relationships between a systemic problem (increased falls) in your organization or practice setting and specific quality and safety outcomes, & suggests additional data that could be collected to gain an expanded understanding of the increased falls problem.Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.
• Determine how specific outcome measures support strategic initiatives related to a quality and safety culture, & comments on the relevance of the organization\’s strategic plan in light of the current health care environment.
• Determine how the leadership team would support the implementation and adoption of proposed practice changes affecting specific outcomes, & highlights opportunities for interprofessional collaboration.

Writing and Supporting Evidence

• Write clearly and concisely, using correct grammar and mechanics.
• Integrate relevant and credible sources of evidence (at least 3) to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.

Additional Requirements

Format your document using APA style.

• Use the APA Paper Template linked in the resources. Be sure to include:
  • A title page and reference page. An abstract is not required.
  • A running head on all pages.
  • Appropriate section headings.
  • Properly-formatted citations and references.
• Your summary should be 4–5 pages in length, not including the title page and reference page.Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.

Attached is the actual paper description, grading guide, and suggested resources.

The key quality and safety outcomes include the fall rate, the compliance of the nursing staff to the interventions towards reducing falls, reduced healthcare costs, and increased patient satisfaction. Studies show that falls in hospitals occur at a rate of 3–5 per 1000 bed-days and about 700,000 to 1,000,000 hospitalized patients sustain fall every year (Bouldin et al., 2015). Over one-third of inpatient falls result to injury, and this includes serious injuries like head trauma and fractures (Bouldin et al., 2015).

The first measure is examining the patient fall rate in the organization. Patient fall rates are examined by the number of fall incidents per 1000 patient days and they are direct measures of patient safety in healthcare organizations. A reduced fall rate will be an indication of improved care quality and safety (Aizen et al., 2015). The strength of the fall rate as a quality and safety outcome is that it will show the direct impact of the program. However, it will be necessary to monitor the fall rate for a long time to verify the sustainability of the project. The second outcome will be increased adherence of the nursing staff to the interventions such as conducting a fall risk assessment and intentional hourly rounding (Slade et al., 2017). The strength of this quality and safety outcome is that adherence to the implemented interventions such as intentional hourly rounding will also improve other care outcomes. However, the weakness of this outcome is that it does not provide direct outcomes of the project’s success.Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.

The reduced healthcare costs will also be used as a quality measure because a reduced fall rate will imply the organization is not spending so much finances in the treatment of falls and associated injuries. A survey will be performed to assess patient satisfaction. Patient satisfaction is a vital indicator to measure the quality of health care (Ott, 2018). However, the weakness with patient satisfaction as a safety outcome in this project is that it will not directly show the effectiveness of this specific project.Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.

The Strategic Value to an Organization of Specific Outcome Measures

If falls are not reduced in the healthcare organization, this may lead to negative reputation, loss of customers (patients) and legal liabilities. Therefore, the organization should focus on reducing the fall rate to ensure patient loyalty, improve patient retention, have a positive reputation, as well as preventing likely malpractice lawsuits. Secondly, a reduced fall rate will also improve the organization’s reputation with key organizations such as The Joint Commission, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Thus, the organization will improve its reputation score in the healthcare industry. Moreover, with reduced healthcare costs, the organization will be able to save costs (Jones et al., 2019). The saved costs can be used to make more investments such as expanding the organizational operations and recruiting more healthcare providers and specialists to improve the quality of care and thus improve its performance e and reputation.Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.

The existing outcome measures include reduced mortality rates and improved patient satisfaction. These measures can provide additional value to the organization by illustrating how well the organization is doing in ensuring patient safety and better health outcomes. This will improve the organization’s standing regarding its performance and reputation score in the healthcare industry (King et al., 2019).

Relationships Between Increased Falls and Quality and Safety Outcomes

Falls are associated with patient harm, injuries, disability, functional impairment, prolonged stay in hospitals, and increased healthcare costs (Ott, 2018). Therefore, with the increased rate of patient falls, healthcare costs are likely to increase. According to the CDC, about $50 billion goes on the treatment of non-fatal fall injuries while $754 million is spent in the treatment of fatal falls every year within the US. This clearly indicates that increased falls will lead to increased healthcare costs. Moreover, since falls are associated with patient harm, injuries, disability, functional impairment, and prolonged stay in hospitals, and increased fall rate is likely to lead to reduced patient satisfaction.Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.

The additional data that could be used to gain an expanded understanding of the problem of the increased fall is by collecting the data of the repeated falls on each specific unit. This is because at times a single repeat fall for one patient can skew the fall rate within a unit. Therefore, being aware of repeat falls will help in understanding the data (Mohammed et al., 2019). Moreover, it is necessary to collect data about the injury level after each fall as this will provide data about the rate of injurious falls. Finally, during fall risk assessment, all risk factors for each patient should be identified to ensure they are integrated into the care plan and acted upon. Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.

How Specific Outcome Measures Support Strategic Initiatives Related to a Quality and Safety Culture

All the outcome measures are likely to implant a culture of safety and provision of quality care in the organization. Injuries that result from falls can impair mobility and increase morbidity. Moreover, costs allied to the treatment of injuries resulting from falls have a negative impact on the organizational costs and reimbursement. Therefore, implementing an evidence-based fall prevention program will be important in sustaining and promoting a strong culture of safety in the organization (Jones et al., 2019). For example, when the nursing staff consistently adhere to the laid down interventions aimed to prevent falls, this will cultivate a culture of safety in the organization. Similarly, the outcome measure of ensuring patient satisfaction will create a culture that prioritizes quality care to patients.Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.

An organizational strategic plan is necessary to address the current healthcare environment. A strategic plan will address the key organizational issues such as addressing fall rate and improving patient safety and stipulate the steps to achieve this (Jones et al., 2019). Moreover, strategic planning will help the organization to be well prepared to handle the ever-changing healthcare environment.Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.

Leadership Team Support to the Implementation and Adoption of the Proposed Practice Changes affecting Specific Outcomes

The leadership team is an important source of communication and support for the proposed practice changes. First, the expressed support to reduce fall rate will reinforce the significance and therefore increase the motivation and impetus among staff to comply with the proposed new changes. Secondly, the leadership team can help in eliminating barriers such as resistance to the proposed changes among the staff (Sullivan et al., 2018). The leadership can act as the champions for the proposed change and persuade the staff to support the proposed changes.

Leaders are actively involved in the development of policies either at the organizational level or unit level. For example, the leadership team could consider implementing policies that require the nursing staff to adhere to the proposed practice changes to facilitate improved quality of care. Moreover, senior leaders have the responsibility of authorizing resources in quality improvement initiatives. Therefore, the leadership team will need to negotiate with the organizational management and unit manager to secure availing of staff training and unit champions as well as the availing of the necessary financial support (Parand et al., 2014).  Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.

The leadership team needs to ensure interprofessional collaboration during the implementation of the quality improvement initiative by recruiting all the relevant multidisciplinary team members such as nurses, orthopedic specialists, physiotherapists, dieticians, and occupational therapists, registered nurses, and registered dieticians. This will ensure that each specialist provides the required expertise during the implementation of a fall prevention program.Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Essay.