The aim of the quality improvement initiative is to bolster the health outcomes in the care facility. Hospital-acquired or nosocomial pneumonia prevention can be a significant healthcare problem that adversely impacts the quality of care. It is important to note that the spread of the hospital-acquired pneumonia is facilitated by a bacterium known as Streptococcus pneumoniae that colonizes the upper respiratory tract. The quality improvement initiative will, therefore, focus on performing antibiotic drug resistance test to determine the medications that are least effective in the elimination of the bacteria responsible for the spread of the deadly infection in the hospital facility.
The target population for this quality improvement initiative will encompass the healthcare fraternity, researchers in the laboratory, and pharmacists responsible for dispensing the drugs. It will also include a group of policymakers and administrators responsible for developing policies and guidelines for drug use in the healthcare system.
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Antibacterial resistance remains one of the primary causes of nosocomial infections. Ventola, (2015) identifies several factors responsible for the resistance, including the overuse of the drugs, failure by the pharmaceutical industry to develop new drugs, and the misuse of the medications, among others. As a quality improvement initiative, the antibiotic drug resistance will come with a host of benefits to the organization. First, it will identify the antibiotics with the least effect on the agent responsible for the spread of pneumonia among patients. Secondly, it will allow for the use of effective medication with the strongest impact on the disease-causing agent. Thirdly, it will assist in enhancing the use of evidence-based care as treatment will have been informed by scientific research. Band & Weiss, (2019) point out that this initiative will be crucial for clinicians in determining the cause of drug failure, thereby maximizing their ability to select only the active drugs to treat pneumonia.
Inter-professional collaboration is a significant step towards improving the quality of healthcare in an organization. According to Busari, Moll, & Duits, (2017), inter-professional collaboration is about the complementarity of roles, working cooperatively, and sharing responsibility for the overall benefit of solving problems. Just like any other initiative, the drug resistance testing for the pneumonia disease-causing agent would require interdisciplinary cooperation of professionals. Physicians, scientists, laboratory technologists, nurses, and pharmacists will need to work together in this endeavor. For instance, the scientists and laboratory technologists will perform the drug testing and offer results to the physicians and nurses who will change the medication accordingly. Pharmacists will need to update their stock with the latest medication that has the highest efficacy.
The quality initiative program will require only a few resources to complete. However, none of these resources are expensive, so long as the hospital has a laboratory. The first aspect will involve the isolation of the bacteria, which might not cost anything at all. After the bacteria have been isolated, the necessary medium with each drug component for which growth will be determined after several days. An incubator will be required. Therefore;
Drug medium-$10
Incubator-$500
Isolation of bacteria-0
Total-$510
The quality improvement initiative will be evaluated on several grounds. The first one will revolve around the prevalence of the pneumonia disease in the care facility. High mortality means poor drug response thereby signifying that the initiative is not playing its role. Secondly, the extent to which the care facility adheres to a particular drug will demonstrate positive outcomes. It demonstrates a sense of consistency that is informed by evidence-based research. Lastly, the rates of successful treatment will also assist in determining the success of the initiative. It was earlier postulated that treatment failure is a sign of antibacterial resistance.
References
Band, V. I., & Weiss, D. S. (2019). Heteroresistance: A cause of unexplained antibiotic treatment failure?. PLoS pathogens, 15(6), e1007726.
Busari, J. O., Moll, F. M., & Duits, A. J. (2017). Understanding the impact of interprofessional collaboration on the quality of care: a case report from a small-scale resource-limited health care environment. Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare, 10, 227.
Ventola, C. L. (2015). The antibiotic resistance crisis: part 1: causes and threats. Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 40(4), 277.
