5
Andrea Raines and Karen Hardin
Introductions
Introduction: As a nurse, I have always found great passion and importance in ensuring I provided good quality care to my patients. I believe that most nurses live this truth, or at least I hope they do. As you are reviewing the information contained in this section, please personally reflect on your own personal beliefs and ask yourself the following questions:
- Do I understand how making changes are necessary to improve quality and safety?
- Do I understand who can make changes?
- Do I know what Benchmarks are utilized to measure quality in the environment where I am practicing?
Learning Objective
Quality Improvement and Patient Safety
https://josieking.org/patient-safety-quality-improvement-modules/
The following are the topics you will learn about while completing the modules. You are encouraged to take notes about each topic while completing the modules:
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Image: Quality and Safety in Nursing Education: The QSEN Project | Nurse Key
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The Importance of Benchmarks
Comparing one healthcare organization to another allows for a level of a measurement called benchmarking (Davis, 2015). Agencies, such as The Joint Commission, establish patient safety goals which patient-care organizations are required to meet. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services assesses hospital readmission rates as a top benchmark (Davis, 2015). The collection of data that is reflective of nursing and healthcare contributions present a clear picture regarding the quality of care provided at an organization. For nursing, the data is a way to offer support and show where improvement might be needed (ACSs Can Benchmark, 2018). The benchmarks are used to establish evidence-based practice guidelines. management and leadership use these types of benchmarks to establish goals for nursing to work toward. Support from leadership and nursing is a requirement for nursing to meet specific goals. Through the allocation of resources and implementation of interventions, goals may be met thus leading to improved clinical outcomes and increased patient safety (Davis, 2015).
Change
The following link will take you to the assigned reading for the topic of change. Please use the outline below to take notes while you read.
Learning Objectives from the Chapter
- Explain why nurses have the opportunity to be change agents.
- Identify how different theorists explain the change.
- Discuss how the nursing process is similar to the change process.
- Discuss the medicine wheel as a change model.
- Describe the nurse leader’s role in implementing change and the call to action.
- Differentiate among change strategies.
- Recognize how to handle resistance to change.
The following sections should be addressed in your reading. You are encouraged to take notes about each topic while reading:
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Image: Going Merry: Be the Change Minority Nursing Scholarship | December 2020 Retrieved from: https://www.google.com/search?q=change+in+nursing&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwj5ooGs5tHyAhUGEVMKHUbqBUUQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=change+in+nur&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQARgAMgUIABCABDIGCAAQBRAeM |
Organizational Readiness for Change
As you have read and studied, change is important to make new evidence-based practice guidelines to improve patient safety and quality of care. Two theories frequently guide an organization’s readiness for change. The Organizational level theory is focused on the relationships that influence members between the characteristics of the organizational structure. The individual-level theory is based on individual members’ perceptions (Benzer et al., 2017) During the COVID-19 pandemic there was a crisis point that caused an overwhelming and rapid drain on the entire medical infrastructure in the United States. The lack of supplies and equipment needed to care for the sick required rapid coordination between healthcare, design, community, and the organizations supporting the regulation of supplies and equipment (Rebola, 2020). The creation of innovative teams was important to facilitate the change necessary to provide needed supplies such as masks, gowns, and ventilators.
References
ASCs can benchmark with nursing indicators. (2018). Same–Day Surgery, 42(5) Retrieved from https://acproxy.ac.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/ascs-can-benchmark-with-nursing-indicators/docview/2025259294/se-2?accountid=26255
Benzer, J., Charns, M., Hamdan, S., & Afable, M. (2017). The role of organizational structure in readiness for change: A Conceptual integration. Health Services Management Research, 30(1). 34-46. doi: 10.1177/0951484816682396
Davis, C. (2015). Let’s talk about benchmarking. Nursing Made Incredibly Easy!, 13(2). 4. doi: 10.1097/01.NME.0000460363.11541.5C
Rebola, C. B., Norton, R. M., Doehler, S. & Kubley, A. (2020). Tri-design: Coordination between healthcare, design, and regulatory communities. Strategic Design Research Journal, 13(3). 474-487. doi: 10.4013/sdrj.2020.133.14
Creative Commons License Information
Leadership and Influencing Change in Nursing edited and co-authored by Joan Wagner, and published by University of Regina Press (2018), is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 International License.
Download this book for free at www.opentextbooks.uregina.ca/lead