Enhancing Quality And Safety

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, Enhancing Quality And Safety 2013).

Enhancing Quality And Safety 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.

. 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. Enhancing Quality And Safety

· 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.

Scenario

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. Enhancing Quality And Safety

Enhancing Quality And Safety Instructions

This will be within the specific context of patient safety risks at 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 health care 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 quality of care and promote medication administration safety in the context of your chosen health care 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.

Enhancing Quality And Safety Additional Requirements

· 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.