Based on the four areas of potential improvement identified based on data collected from OASIS and OBQI reports, an improvement plan on patient and family education would be necessary. Poor patient and family education is a significant concern that deters the efficiency of quality service. To provide quality patient care, patients or family members must interact with caregivers including the RN, CAN, physical therapists, respiratory therapists, and the physicians to enable them to understand and learn about the care and services provided. The purpose of this quality improvement plan is to develop a framework for department quality improvement efforts, and to provide a structure for evaluating, monitoring, and promoting quality improvement activities that will lead to performance improvement throughout the department (Peter et al., 2015). The quality improvement plan will include the causes and contribution of the poor patient and family education, the action plan, need for and success and failure of the plan, goals as well as positive and negative outcomes of the plan.
Causes Contributing to the need for Patient and Family Education
Patients and family members play a significant role in the treatment of patients. Families provide both physical and emotional support to help patients recover as they take them through the medication process by interacting with physical therapists, respiratory therapists, and physicians. Consequently, patients and family members have to maintain frequent contacts with the medical and nursing staff to obtain adequate information concerning the condition and progress of patients (Shemek et al., 2018). Lack of adequate information has proven to undermine the interaction affecting the quality and value of care leading to great misunderstandings, which affect the outcome of the services provided. Patients and their family members should understand their rights and responsibilities in the delivery of care treatment and services (Shemek et al., 2018). Sometimes, patients find it difficult to understand or interact with caregivers due to the lack of comprehension or understanding of the medical language and terms. In this sense, it is important to educate patients and families on the home health agency policies and care plans.
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Action Plan to Address Patient and Family Education
The first action plan is the development of visiting regulations in the home health agency. There is a need for the development of visiting rules to guide families on what time they can visit patients, which will help reduce congestion at the facility and a patient’s environment even at home (Peter et al., 2015). This policy will exclude cases of children as their parents and families will have unlimited free visiting hours due to the necessity of their presence. Also, it is important to consider the role of the family during the patient’s admission in the agency. The family is considered an integral part of the patient’s recovery process. Illness is often associated with fear, distress, and the feeling of weakness and lack of hope (Shemek et al., 2018).
Hence, the medical team can help treat the patient, but the family members need to provide emotional support to hasten the treatment process. In other words, any intervention to decrease the effects of pressure and accelerate the treatment and recovery process is highly recommended (Peter et al., 2015). It is important to educate family members on the activities that can provide emotional and psychological support to the patient to avoid breakdown (Shemek et al., 2018). Such activities include patient encouragement, taking part in the patient’s therapeutically process, participation in the patient’s care and taking part in the provision of patient’s care including administration of meals, drugs and body massages while working with the nurses and therapists.
Markers used to Measure the need for Success and Failure of the Plan
A positive outcome on a patient’s care is the ultimate goal of every healthcare facility. It has been observed that most families do not have adequate knowledge to provide effective care to their patients. Progress in patient’s condition and needs of knowledge will act as markers and indicators of the success of the education program and the general care provided at the facility (Peter et al., 2015). For this reason, health care professionals need to provide reliable and sincere information so that families and patients can comprehend it. Markers used to measure the need for success and failure of this education plan include daily reports from the doctor about the progress of the patients’ condition, monitoring changes that may occur when patients are away from the facility, and communicating with the nurse responsible for their patient after education both the patient and their family.
Goals for the Quality Improvement Plan
The main goal of this quality improvement plan is to help patients and families to understand their rights and responsibilities in the process of care provision and treatment services. The ultimate goal of this plan is to develop long term changes in how caregivers render services to patients and provide more patient-centered services by educating patients and their families about care provision. The education of patients and families will enable them to make autonomous decisions to take ownership of their care and improve their outcomes.
How to Address Positive and Negative Outcomes of the Plan
The plan will most likely lower the cost of medical care through the wellness mode while improving patients’ outcome, hence, more measures will have to be put in place to encourage patient and family education. Regarding the negative outcomes, the team tasked with the plan formulation will have to identify areas that would not be working well and correct or put in more educational measures. Also, there would be the need to visit patients and families in their homes to check on their progress and correct anything that would have been done wrong.
Conclusion
Patients’ and family education about patient care in healthcare facilities is critical for the wellbeing of patients. Participation of families in a patient’s care is useful if the families are well informed about the patient’s condition and the activities they can do to help them. Thus, appropriate education by medical and nursing staff helps to inform families on how they can provide adequate emotional and psychological support to patients.
References
Peter, D., Robinson, P., Jordan, M., Lawrence, S., Casey, K., & Salas-Lopez, D. (2015). Reducing readmissions using teach-back: enhancing patient and family education. Journal of Nursing Administration , 45 (1), 35-42.
Shemek, M., Carey, D. H., Ott, A., Tiedemann, A., Moffa, L., Stanzione, M., & Walsh, K. (2018). Assessing the Need for a Multidisciplinary Patient and Family Education Pediatrics Inpatient Rehabilitation Setting.
