Change Strategy and Implementation
Introduction.
Adoption and implementation of strategies to improve both the quality and safety of care are important within any health care facility. It is important to ensure the implementation of evidence-based strategies to guarantee success (Alagoz et al., 2018). Proper planning is important during the implementation phase to ensure that implemented strategies guarantee success and improve the quality and safety of care.
Data table.
Rate of Hospital Acquired Infections for the month of April 2022.
| Type of infections. | Current state. | Desired state. |
| Catheter-associated urinary tract infections. | 24 (40%) | 6 (33.3%) |
| Bloodstream infections. | 16 (26.7%) | 6 (33.3%) |
| Hospital-acquired pneumonia. | 12 (20%) | 4 (22.2%) |
| Surgical site infections. | 8 (13.3%) | 2 (11.1%) |
Change Strategies.
To reduce hospital-acquired infections, several changes can be implemented to guarantee success. Effective handwashing is one of the strategies that can go a long way in reducing hospital-acquired infections (Magill et al., 2018). Having and enforcing a handwashing policy is very important within our care setting. Provision and having guidelines highlighting the use of personal protective equipment (PPEs) among health care practitioners is another crucial strategy.
Education of health care practitioners and other staff members is another critical change strategy geared towards reducing or eliminating the incidence of hospital-acquired infections. These are simple yet effective change strategies that we can implement within our practice setting to address these infections.
Justifying Change Strategies.
Hand washing is one of the most effective ways of reducing hospital-acquired infections. As Haque (2020) notes, handwashing with soap and running water, preferably warm water, for twenty seconds is important in killing pathogens that play a role in the transmission of infections.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend the use of alcohol-based sanitizers with at least 60% alcohol in areas where soap and water are unavailable (Jing et al., 2020). Hand washing should be emphasized before and after touching patients, before and after touching the patient’s surroundings, before clean and aseptic procedures, and after coming into contact with fluids and other risks.
The use of personal protective equipment (PPEs) should be encouraged. PPEs, including gloves, masks, waterproof gowns, shoe covers, and face shields, should be availed, and health care providers are encouraged to use them. PPEs act as a barrier between potential infectious agents coming into contact with either the patient or the health care provider (Sturdy et al., 2020). This is important in infection prevention and control and plays a vital role in minimizing the occurrence of hospital-acquired infections.
Education of health care providers and other staff members is another strategy that can greatly minimize the occurrence of hospital-acquired infections. Health care organizations should ensure they provide continuous and recurring education forums emphasizing and teaching new and proven ways toward infection prevention and control (Schreiber et al., 2018). Education means that the health care providers stay up to date with current recommendations aimed at addressing hospital-acquired infections.
How Will Change Strategies Lead To Quality Improvement?
These change strategies greatly improve the patient experience of care, including both quality and satisfaction. Implementing these strategies greatly minimizes or eliminates the risk of developing hospital-acquired infections. This goes a long way in alleviating patient pain and suffering, guaranteeing a smooth hospital experience. Reducing the length of stay within health care facilities also translates to improved patient satisfaction throughout the whole care delivery process.
Change strategies facilitate the establishment of effective systems that allow the delivery of improvements in both the quality and safety of care through continuous improvement techniques, thus facilitating equitable care. Education of staff and other health care providers empowers them with the capacity to provide safe, high-quality, reliable, and equitable health care that guarantees patient satisfaction (Curry et al., 2018).
Educating health care providers and other staff members within our care setting regarding infection prevention and control will, therefore, go a long way in ensuring both the quality and safety of care.
Change strategies minimizing the rate of hospital-acquired infections significantly reduce the workload within care settings. Reduced burden at the workplace greatly minimizes the occurrence of burnout. This translates to improved motivation and performance at the workplace. This means that health care providers are motivated to perform duties such as care for patients, which is essential in facilitating the provision of safe, quality, and equitable health care.
How Change Strategies Utilize Interprofessional Considerations.
A key interprofessional consideration to take into account is effective and timely communication. Effective and timely communication facilitates change strategies through both the planning and implementation phase, thus guaranteeing success.
Mutual trust and respect ensure that everyone’s opinions are considered during the implementation of the change strategies, thus ensuring that everyone is on board to ensure successful implementation (Renfro et al., 2018). Cooperation among team members means that all parties on board are striving and working towards a common goal of successfully implementing the change aimed at improving the quality and safety of care.
Conclusion.
Change strategies are important in ensuring the improvement of both the quality and safety of care. Data collection is important in enabling organizations to know where they are and strive to achieve set targets. Implementation of change strategies confers several benefits to patients in ensuring that care is safe and equitable. Interprofessional collaboration is important in ensuring the success of the implementation of change strategies.
References.
Alagoz, E., Chih, M. Y., Hitchcock, M., Brown, R., & Quanbeck, A. (2018). The use of external change agents to promote quality improvement and organizational change in healthcare organizations: a systematic review. BMC Health Services Research, 18(1), 42. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-2856-9
Curry, L. A., Brault, M. A., Linnander, E. L., McNatt, Z., Brewster, A. L., Cherlin, E., Flieger, S. P., Ting, H. H., & Bradley, E. H. (2018). Influencing organisational culture to improve hospital performance in care of patients with acute myocardial infarction: a mixed-methods intervention study. BMJ Quality & Safety, 27(3), 207–217. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2017-006989
Haque M. (2020). Handwashing in averting infectious diseases: Relevance to COVID-19. Journal of Population Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology = Journal De La Therapeutique Des Populations Et De La Pharmacologie Clinique, 27(S Pt 1), e37–e52. https://doi.org/10.15586/jptcp.v27SP1.711
Jing, J., Pei Yi, T., Bose, R., McCarthy, J. R., Tharmalingam, N., & Madheswaran, T. (2020). Hand Sanitizers: A Review on Formulation Aspects, Adverse Effects, and Regulations. International Journal of Environmental Research And Public Health, 17(9), 3326. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17093326
Magill, S. S., O’Leary, E., Janelle, S. J., Thompson, D. L., Dumyati, G., Nadle, J., Wilson, L. E., Kainer, M. A., Lynfield, R., Greissman, S., Ray, S. M., Beldavs, Z., Gross, C., Bamberg, W., Sievers, M., Concannon, C., Buhr, N., Warnke, L., Maloney, M., … Edwards, J. R. (2018). Changes in prevalence of health care–associated infections in U.S. hospitals. New England Journal of Medicine, 379(18), 1732–1744. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmoa1801550
Renfro, C. P., Ferreri, S., Barber, T. G., & Foley, S. (2018). Development of a Communication Strategy to Increase Interprofessional Collaboration in the Outpatient Setting. Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland), 6(1), 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy6010004
Schreiber, P. W., Sax, H., Wolfensberger, A., Clack, L., & Kuster, S. P. (2018). The preventable proportion of healthcare-associated infections 2005–2016: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 39(11), 1277–1295. https://doi.org/10.1017/ice.2018.183
Sturdy, A., Basarab, M., Cotter, M., Hager, K., Shakespeare, D., Shah, N., Randall, P., Spray, D., & Arnold, A. (2020). Severe COVID-19 and healthcare-associated infections on the ICU: time to remember the basics?. The Journal of Hospital Infection, 105(4), 593–595. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2020.06.027
Change Strategy and Implementation Instructions
Professional Context
One area in health care that it is necessary to consider is the environment in which nurses work. It is important that this environment evolves and changes so that all patients are adequately supported. For this assessment, you will develop a change strategy to improve the health care environment. These changes can be rooted in a desire to improve clinical outcomes and data related to assessment accuracy, drug administration, or disease recovery rates. A key skill for master’s-level nurses is to be able to evaluate clinical data and create a change plan to help drive improvements in the data to reach set goals.
Scenario
Consider a current environment. This could be your current care setting, the care setting presented in the scenario Vila Health: Using Concept Maps for Diagnosis, or a care setting in which you are interested in working. For the setting that you choose you will need to have a data set that depicts sub-optimal outcomes related to a clinical issue. This data could be from existing sources in the course, a relevant data set that already exists (a data set from the case study you used as a basis for your previous Concept Map assessment or from your current place of practice), or an appropriate data set that you have created yourself. (Note: if you choose to create your own data set, check with your instructor first for approval and guidance.)
After you have selected an appropriate data set, use your understanding of the data to create at least one realistic goal (though you may create more) that will be driven by a change strategy appropriate for the environment and goal.
Potential topics for this assessment could be:
- Consider ways to help minimize the rate of secondary infections related to the condition, disease, or disorder that you focused on for your previous Concept Map assessment. As a starting point, you could ask yourself, “What could be changed to facilitate safety and minimize risks of infection?”
- Consider how to help a patient experiencing traumatic stress or anxiety over hospitalization. As a starting point, you could ask yourself, “How could the care environment be changed to enhance coping?”
Once you determine the change you would like to make, consider the following:
- What data will you use to justify the change?
- How can the team achieve this change with a reasonable cost?
- What are the effects on the workplace?
- What other implementation considerations do you need to consider to ensure that the change strategy is successful?
- How does your change strategy address all aspects of the Quadruple Aim, especially the well-being of health care professionals?
- Once the change strategy is implemented, how would you evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of the care system if the desired outcomes are met?
Instructions
Your assessment submission should include a data table that illustrates the current and desired states of the clinical issue you are attempting to improve through your application of change strategies. Additionally, you will need to explain the rationale for your decisions around your chosen change strategies, as well as how the change strategies will be successfully implemented. The bullet points below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Be sure that your change strategy addresses all of them. You may also want to read the Change Strategy and Implementation scoring guide and Guiding Questions: Change Strategy and Implementation [DOCX] to better understand how each grading criterion will be assessed.
- Develop a data table that accurately reflects the current and desired states of one or more clinical outcomes.
- Propose change strategies that will help to achieve the desired state of one or more clinical outcomes.
- Justify the specific change strategies used to achieve desired outcomes.
- Explain how change strategies will lead to quality improvement with regard to safety and equitable care.
- Explain how change strategies will utilize interprofessional considerations to ensure successful implementation.
- Communicate the change plan in a way that makes the data and rationale easily understood and compelling.
- Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using current APA style.
Example assessment: You may use the assessment example, Assessment 2 Example [PDF], to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like.
Submission Requirements
- Length of submission: 3–5 double-spaced, typed pages, not including the title and reference pages. Your plan should be succinct yet substantive.
- Number of references: Cite a minimum of 3–5 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that supports your goal setting, proposed change strategies, quality improvement, and interprofessional considerations. Resources should be no more than five years old.
- APA formatting: The APA Template Tutorial [DOCX] can help you in writing and formatting your analysis. No abstract is required.