The Role of the Leader in Evaluating Data to Improve Quality and Safety

A patient who is admitted to a facility may be alert, oriented, and independent in ambulation. Add on intravenous (IV) tubing attached to a pole, a telemetry monitor, a foley catheter, and new medications for the patient. This patient now has fall risk factors. The purpose of this paper is to describe and evaluate change in preventing falls in the hospital setting.

The Healthcare field is becoming more aware of how important it is to change the way that organizational culture is becoming in order to help improve patient safety. Even though patient safety plays a very important part of our health care system which helps explain the importance quality of health care. However, when trying to keep patients safe, it can be a demanding challenge because of human errors and mistakes that are made. According to World Health Organization, patient safety is the absence of preventable harm to a patient while in the process of health care (who.int/patientsafety). Being in the position of a clinical content manager, the first step in reporting problems is to make sure that when reporting a problem, it need to be done at the earliest stage to show the importance to the company. The approach that I would take as a Clinical content manager is to identify the problem, have regular shift meetings to address any issues, flag any errors that occurred, have regular safety meeting, give feedback to staff on any errors that were found, try to figure out the best solution not only for the patients, but staff also, and although being a team leader, I would give the staff the opportunity to address any concerns that they may have.

The main objective of healthcare professionals is to provide the best quality of patient care and the highest level of patient safety. To achieve that objective, there are many organizations that help improve the quality of care. One of the best examples is the Joint Commission. Unfortunately, the healthcare system is not free from total risks. In healthcare activities, there are possible errors, mistakes, near miss and adverse events. All of those negative events are preventable. But, it is clear that errors caused in healthcare result in thousands of deaths in the United States.

Keeping patients safe is essential in today’s health care system, but patient safety events that violate that safety are increasing each year. It was only recently, that the focus on patient safety was reinforced by a report prepared by Institute of medicine (IOM) entitled ” To err is human, building a safer health system”(Wakefield & Iliffe,2002).This report found that approx-imately 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur each year due to medical errors and that the majority was preventable. Deaths due to medical errors exceed deaths due to many other causes such as like HIV infections, breast cancer and even traffic accidents (Wakefield & Iliffe, 2002). After this IOM reports, President Clinton established quality interagency

Quality improvement is referred to as “the use of data to monitor the outcomes for care processes and use improvement methods to design and test changes to continuously improve the quality and safety of health care” (Sherwood & Barnsteiner, 2012). Data is used as the reflection of quality care that is provided by nurses and presents whether or not improvement is needed. In order for nurses to be mindful of the care that they give, they must be taught a systematic process of defining problems, identifying possible causes of those problems, and methods for trying out new solutions to prevent those problems (Sherwood & Barnsteiner, 2012). Currently, quality improvement measures are being utilized throughout hospitals to reduce the risk of patient falls and fall injuries.

Health care managers need to improve quality services in health organizations. To improve these quality services they have to use methods that are proven helpful in the QI process. For example, Six Sigma is used to display and measure quality improvement data. It is also used to measure

With the new healthcare landscape, quality improvement has become a priority; and as required by current legislation, quality initiatives need to be implemented, monitored, and reported (Ransom, Joshi, & Nash, 2008). According to Dattilo and Constantino (2006), human factors play an important role in most errors despite the existence of other root causes. For example, short staffing, shift overlapping, staff level of training and qualifications, close supervision, and overall team and staff culture are all factors that may be the trigger points

Quality Improvement (QI) is an organizational approach that leads to the quality of patient care and services through use of specific set of guidelines, principles, and methodology. This is so that there is assurance that quality care is provided for every patient. Principles of quality improvement focus on measurements. These measurements involve data collection used to improve the quality of care, and patient outcomes. Any good quality improvement program ensures strengthening the systems through analyzes and processes.

For health care organizations quality data collection is an essential tool used for data collection. The information produced from the data assists the health care organization in other functions such as effective ways to manage and perform decision making for the organization, this includes the strategic planning process. Quality improvement is the method of assessing processes and provides the information necessary to improve services. All of this together allows the health care organization to become a high producing system of

It is estimated that nearly 100,000 people die each year from medical errors in hospitals, with an estimated cost of between $17 and $29 billion per year. Finding a solution to this crisis has become a priority for every healthcare organization, with the realization that most errors are not caused by reckless staff, but by poor systems and processes (Institute of Medicine, 2000). Consequently, healthcare has begun to look to outside organizations in order to find solutions, by examining industries that are considered highly reliable, despite operating in hazardous situations. The lessons learned by these Highly Reliable Organizations (HROs) can be used to promote safe and reliable performance, which in turn should improve patient and staff

Errors pervade in our lives whether it is our home, in our workplace, or in our society. The effects of healthcare errors have impacted all our lives either directly or indirectly. Patient safety and quality care are at the core of healthcare system which strongly depends upon nurses. “To achieve goals in patient safety and quality, thereby improve healthcare, nurses must assume the leadership role. Nurses need to ensure that they and other healthcare providers center healthcare on patients and their families. Even though the quality and safety of healthcare is heavily influenced by the complex nature

Clinical leadership is fundamental to patient safety. World Health Organization (WHO, 2016) considers patient safety as “ an prevention of errors and adverse effects”. WHO has pointed out, as the greater development of technologies, medicines and treatments, health care services become more complex therefore decision-making in clinical setting are crucial. Financial and emotional burden may easily occur with poor decision-making by

The purpose of this paper is to identify a quality safety issue. I will summarize the impact that this issue has on health care delivery. In addition, I will identify quality improvement strategies. Finally, I will share a plan to effectively implement this quality improvement strategy.

In today’s health care system, “quality” and “safety” are one in the same when it comes to patient care. As Florence Nightingale described our profession long ago, it takes work and vigilance to ensure we are doing the best we can to care for our patients. (Mitchell, 2008)

Quality is something that every health care agency strives to achieve. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) suggests that health care organizations develop a culture of safety such that an organization's care processes and workforce are focused on improving the reliability and safety of care for patients (Groves, Meisenbach, & Scott-Cawiezell, 2011). In order to address an issue related to health care quality, it is important to look at the frameworks that will analyze an organization and identify opportunities to improve performance. The purpose of this paper is to provide a description of an organization and an analysis of the following: mission, vision and values, strategic plan, goals,