ASSESSING THE PROBLEM: QUALITY, SAFETY, AND COST CONSIDERATIONS

ASSESSING THE PROBLEM: QUALITY, SAFETY, AND COST CONSIDERATIONS

In a 5-7 page written assessment, assess the effect of the patient, family, or population problem you’ve previously defined on the quality of care, patient safety, and costs to the system and individual. Plan to spend approximately 2 direct practicum hours exploring these aspects of the problem with the patient, family, or group you’ve chosen to work with and, if desired, consulting with subject matter and industry experts. Report on your experiences during your first two practicum hours.
Organizational data, such as readmission rates, hospital-acquired infections, falls, medication errors, staff satisfaction, serious safety events, and patient experience can be used to prioritize time, resources, and finances. Health care organizations and government agencies use benchmark data to compare the quality of organizational services and report the status of patient safety. Professional nurses are key to comprehensive data collection, reporting, and monitoring of metrics to improve quality and patient safety.
Preparation
In this assessment, you can assess the effect of the health problem youâ€ve defined on the quality of care, patient safety, and costs to the system and individual. Plan to spend at least 2 direct practicum hours working with the same patient, family, or group. During this time, you may also choose to consult with subject matter and industry experts.
To prepare for the assessment:

Review the assessment instructions and scoring guide to ensure that you understand the work you will be asked to complete and how it will be assessed.
Conduct research of the scholarly and professional literature to inform your assessment and meet scholarly expectations for supporting evidence.
Review the Practicum Focus Sheet Pasted below, which provides guidance for conducting this portion of your practicum.

Practicum Focus Sheet:
Note: Expect to spend at least 2 hours with the patient, family, or group youâ€ll be working with during this portion of your practicum, exploring issues of patient safety, quality, and costs associated with the health problem youâ€ve defined. This includes time spent in consultation with subject matter or industry experts. Youâ€ll report on the results of this work as part of your next assessment. For this portion of your practicum, discuss, in depth, how the problem will affect patient safety, quality of care, and costs. Consider the following questions to help guide your exploration of quality, safety, and costs and to make the most of your time:

Has the patient, family or group experienced any serious safety events because of the problem?
How many times have they gone to the emergency department (ED)?
How many times have they been hospitalized?
What is the frequency of ED visits or hospitalizations?
How many medications are needed to manage the problem?
Does insurance pay for these medications?
Have the medications caused any side effects?
How often are doctors†visits or other therapies needed?
Does insurance pay for these visits or treatments?

Instructions
Complete this assessment in two parts.
Part 1
Assess the effect of the patient, family, or population problem you defined in the previous assessment on the quality of care, patient safety, and costs to the system and individual. Plan to spend at least 2 practicum hours exploring these aspects of the problem with the patient, family, or group. During this time, you may also consult with subject matter and industry experts of your choice. Use the Practicum Focus Sheet/Assessment 2 pasted above for this assessment to guide your work and interpersonal interactions.
Part 2
Report on your experiences during your first 2 practicum hours, including how you presented your ideas about the health problem to the patient, family, or group.

Whom did you meet with?
Comment on the evidence-based practice (EBP) documents or websites you reviewed.
Share the process and experience of exploring the influence of leadership, collaboration, communication, change management, and policy on the problem.

Requirements
The assessment requirements, outlined below, correspond to the scoring guide criteria, so be sure to address each main point. Read the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed. In addition, note the additional requirements for document format and length and for supporting evidence.

Explain how the patient, family, or population problem impacts the quality of care, patient safety, and costs to the system and individual.
Explain how state board nursing practice standards and/or organizational or governmental policies can affect the problemâ€s impact on the quality of care, patient safety, and costs to the system and individual. Provide an explanation—based on a perceptive and coherent synthesis of current literature—of how state board nursing practice standards and/or organizational or governmental policies can affect a patient, family, or population problemâ€s impact on the quality of care, patient safety, and costs to the system and individual. Provides clear insight into how policy affects nursing scope of practice and will inform and guide an intervention.
Propose strategies to improve the quality of care, enhance patient safety, and reduce costs to the system and individual. Exhibit clear insight into the effectiveness of the strategies and available sources of relevant benchmark data.
Use concise paraphrasing or summarizing to accurately represent ideas from external sources. Exhibits an insightful interpretation and synthesis of credible sources.
Apply APA style and formatting to scholarly writing. Exhibits strict and nearly flawless adherence to stylistic conventions, document structure, and source attributions.
Format: Format your paper using APA style.
Length: Your paper should be approximately 5–7 pages in length, not including the reference page.
Supporting evidence: Cite at least five sources of scholarly or professional evidence that support your central ideas. Resources should be no more than five years old. Provide in-text citations and references in APA format. Make sure to include the DOIâ€s with the references
Proofreading: Proofread your paper, before you submit it, to minimize errors that could distract readers and make it more difficult for them to focus on its substance.