Nursing and Quality Outcomes in Healthcare Settings

Identifying or Creating a Healthcare Entity

Task:

Identify or create a health care entity. (Provide an overall description of this entity without using the real name; i.e. location, size, profit or nonprofit, years in operation).

Do not give the real name of any entity or person you are describing. Using defined quality outcomes and/or patient safety measures, describe the health care entity's successes and failures. Include identified criteria and data that demonstrate why this entity is successful and in what areas.

Using the quality outcomes data, identify a quality or safety area that nursing science can impact. Describe the specific variables. Identify potential obstacles that may hinder the implementation of the quality or safety measure.

Identify those groups or leadership roles within the entity with whom you may need to collaborate.

Safety and quality are essential components in nursing science. There are many ways to improve the quality and safety of the patients in health care settings. Many hospitals are successfully becoming digitalized to improve the health care delivery and safety of the patients. EMR (electronic medical record) is one of the successful technologies which help the patients, nurses and providers to obtain positive outcome in patients without any mistakes. Healthcare facilities have adopted new technologies to improve patient care and communication. Voalte is one of the communication technologies firms that have been able to enhance patient communication to improve the quality of services provided within hospitals to listen to customers. Hospitals are sophisticated communication networks with many key components for communication and collaboration. The use of technology to communicate with their patients and staff members effective manner improves the quality outcome. Nurses are not just responsible for providing care but also making sure of the health of the patients is maintained. Nurses have an important role in ensuring the high-quality care and safety of patients.

Quality or Safety in the Nursing Science

Patient safety is a priority to the quality care provided by the hospital. There are many reasons why nurses should be involved in patient safety. One of reason is, nurses are highly trained to take care of patients. Change theory can be applied to health care settings to improve the quality and safety of patients. Change in the hospital to enhance the safety is important in nursing science at hand and the other strategies, which may be behind the change implementation and effective evidence utilization (Aguilera & Rodriguez-Henderson, 2014). One change theory can that be applied to the nursing field is Lewin’s Change Theory. This theory is often implemented into the healthcare industry as it is flexible and accommodates individuals learning needs. This model integrates three phases: Unfreezing, change and refreezing (Petiprin, 2016). In the unfreezing phase, the individuals identify the need to change (Petiprin, 2016). Often, individuals may express anxiety and may feel overwhelmed regarding the change. It is at this time that healthcare leaders can implement motivation factors to initiate and support change. Education also is completed during this phase. Next, within the change phase, the change is initiated (Petiprin, 2016). During this phase, healthcare leaders should continue to support motivational factors, in order to promote positive influences. Last, the refreezing phase, the change becomes habit and a part of daily routines (Petiprin, 2016). The time frame in which the change becomes a daily habit, is dependent upon the individual and their learning needs. Healthcare leaders can incorporate this theory in many instances associated with change, such would be upgrading to an electronic health record (EHR) format. In the first step of Lewin’s Model suggests that the individual identifies the need to change. Thus, upgrading to EHR has many positives such as decreasing the rate of medical errors associated with illegible handwriting.

During this phase, the individuals recognizes concerns for change and completes education. Next, the change phase, the individual completes initiation of the change. Therefore, the change is implemented into daily regimens. Healthcare leaders need to promote and provide support during this phase, as individuals may experience anxiety as troubleshooting and technical difficulties could arise. Lastly, the refreezing phase, the change becomes daily habits. Therefore, the healthcare staff becomes proficient at all the duties involved within the EHR format. Thus, healthcare leaders need to support the individual learning needs when implementing change, in order to incorporate positive behaviors. The change enables the nurses to reflect clinically and critically and to attain great insights on how training, education, and experience required and leveraged to accomplish high-quality care for all the patients and hospitals settings.

Medical errors can affect the quality and safety of patient care. Implementation of electronic health records in the health care settings will decrease the medical errors. For instance, EHR alert or Alarm gender -specific entry errors, such as an elderly woman who prescribed Flomax instead of Flonase. The women ended up in an emergency department, complaining of dizziness. EHRR is an efficient tool in ensuring safety thereby reducing mortality. To ensure the safety of EHR, protected health information (PHI) individually identifiable information must be transmitted by electronic media, maintained in electronic medical records or transmitted or maintained in any other form (Dehghan et al., 2017).