Problem Analysis and its Impact on the Organization, Patients, and Nursing Profession
From a personal perspective, there is the need for some changes to take place in healthcare facilities for addressing the issue of increasing poor quality of care and lack of patient safety within nursing professional. As a result, patients are more likely in dying or suffering from complications at health institutions that receive the lowest ratings in Health-grade. Karuppan, Dunlap and Waldrum (2016) add that there are high chances of patients to experience difficulties, and this may reflect on a negative image of the healthcare organization in addition to their nurses.
Also, reduced patient safety and poor quality of care can lead to higher healthcare general costs. It happens as a result of a definitive relationship between higher complications and death rates and the related hospital’s increased direct costs (Savage, Leroy & Simons, 2013). Moreover, direct costs used to care for patients experiencing difficulty are averagely about twice the cost used to care for the patients who never suffered these complications. However, health institutions are capable of improving quality outcome in addition to lowering direct costs through performance improvement.
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Evidenced-Based Solutions
Finding the solution for reduced patient safety and low quality of care would mean engaging the staff and professionals of health care around reporting mistakes and errors. The advantage of this strategy is that it would assist in reducing the risk as well as improving the culture of safety within a hospital institution. This would as well assist the nursing staff in learning from the instances of poor patient outcomes, and preventable medical errors (Xiong, He, Ke & Zhang, 2016). However, the disadvantage of this move is that it does not provide a clear structure of how the nursing leaders can respond to the events of safety, as well as communicating to staff, patients together with their families following the occurrence of such events.
Also, transparency can as well be utilized as a solution to providing safer and quality healthcare. Xiong, He, Ke and Zhang (2016) posit that transparency is the most crucial aspect among the best recommendations necessary for transforming the industry of healthcare. However, the disadvantage of openness is that in most health institutions, the departments for patient safety and risk management are differentiated by scope, leadership, and goals thereby undermining transparency. Its advantage is that it can allow for easy functional integration of risk management into the department of patient safety (Givan, 2016). As a result, this would help in improving the system of patient safety through enhancing transparency in disclosing, increasing patient safety, reporting, and mitigating risk.
Barriers and Resistance to Change
Ineffective leadership within healthcare institutions can act as a significant barrier to providing quality care and improved patient safety. According to Savage, Fottler and Blair (2011), if hospital nurses and physicians are not capable of embracing new changes, then it would be more difficult in implementing such a change, and this represents the most prominent worry by most healthcare CEOs. Besides, there could also be consequences if this issue is not properly solved as it may further disintegrate an institution’s health professionals and nurses so that they openly criticize the process of change management.
Broken communication could as well pose a significant barrier to providing quality care and improved patient safety. As noted by Karuppan, Dunlap and Waldrum (2016), when planning for a hospital’s change management, it is imperative in communicating the changes to undergo implementation to all organizational levels. At this stage, all those nurses, patients, and clinical officers involved must be perceived as crucial stakeholders for ensuring a successful result. However, failure to sort out the issue of broken communication may result in less enthusiasm and confusion for the change.
Strategies for Overcoming Barriers and Resistance to Change
A health institution’s healthcare culture should not tolerate ineffective leadership such as aggressive and ineffectual health managers or CEOs. Savage, Leroy and Simons (2013) add that it should never be considered normal in healthcare for professionals and leaders in acting out and misbehaving while still within the hospital’s premise. However, if hospital leaders are within the required standards and budget, then it is obvious that such a facility would be managed by a leader who is driven by the desire for a positive change through the provision of improved patient safety and quality care.
Additionally, solving the issue of broken communication in healthcare institution would require taking the step of assisting health workers in mastering the needed communication skills through traditional clinical models of training. As a result, this would allow the professionals of healthcare in learning from research, lectures, or even memorizing scientific information (Xiong, He, Ke & Zhang, 2016). This can be achieved by using an intellectual approach including a poster, which clearly shows the receiving and giving guidelines for constructive feedback.
A Plan for Implementing Evidence-Based Solutions and Evaluation
A healthcare institution should plan on using institutionalization as well as end-user adoption as the closing stage of implementing the evidence-based solution. As noted by Givan (2016), this is because this stage would primarily focus on getting healthcare teams, health institutions, and patients in adopting as well as continually making use of evidence-based innovations and research outcomes in everyday healthcare practice. This would involve intricate interrelationships among the identified health issue, individual clinicians and the characteristics of a hospital’s social system. Various strategies can be used in achieving this implementation including the use of multidisciplinary teams of implementation to help in the practical elements to implant novelty in the ongoing change processes of a hospital.
On the other hand, quality measurement approach would be used in evaluating how well these implemented strategies are working. This would be achieved through determining whether a healthcare institution has delivered quality care and improved patient safety that is in line or exceeding the intended expectations. It, therefore, would be crucial in tracking quality as well as making the necessary adjustments (Karuppan, Dunlap & Waldrum, 2016). Importantly, even after successful implementation of these strategies, quality assurance would always be used as an ongoing element for the implementation of these strategies.
Health Care Professionals
Various healthcare professionals can as well be enlisted as inter-professional team members for driving change in hospitals. Primary care professionals including nurse practitioners and general doctors can be enlisted in the change process of providing quality care and improved patient safety. This is because they are highly skilled and have undergone graduate training in all aspects of healthcare regarding the provision of quality care to patients. They are as well capable of conducting medical check-ups for determining what exactly a patient is suffering from and therefore using that information to find the best treatment measures to use.
Finally, nursing care professionals including registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and advanced practice nurses can as well be enlisted to drive a positive change in a healthcare institution. For instance, Savage, Leroy and Simons (2013) note that advanced practice nurses have more education and experience and are therefore capable of making informed decisions with regards to improving patient safety and quality care.
References
Givan, R. K. (2016). The Challenge to Change : Reforming Health Care on the Front Line in the United States and the United Kingdom. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press.
Karuppan, C. M., Dunlap, N. E., & Waldrum, M. R. (2016). Operations Management in Healthcare : Strategy and Practice. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.
Savage, G. T., Fottler, M. D., & Blair, J. D. (2011). Biennial Review of Health Care Management. Bingley, U.K.: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Savage, G. T., Leroy, H., & Simons, T. (2013). Leading In Health Care Organizations : Improving Safety, Satisfaction, and Financial Performance. Bingley, U.K.: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Xiong, J., He, Z., Ke, B., & Zhang, M. (2016). Development and validation of a measurement instrument for assessing quality management practices in hospitals: an exploratory study. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 27(5/6), 465-478. doi:10.1080/14783363.2015.1012059\
