Description
Submission Instructions:
- You should respond to at least two of your peers by extending, refuting/correcting, or adding additional nuance to their posts.
- All replies must be constructive and use literature where possible.
Discussion #1
One of the main goals that every healthcare provider has is to constantly find new ways to improve the quality of care they provide for their patients. For this reason, quality improvement initiatives are a common thing in healthcare settings. One of the most recent quality improvement initiatives in my clinical setting was a project aimed at reducing the prevalence of patient falls. Patient falls are a common occurrence and can have adverse effects on the health of the patient (Shaw et al., 2022). Therefore, it is important for every healthcare setting to come up with a strategy to reduce the prevalence of patient falls and improve patient outcomes. The plan to reduce patient falls in my practice setting was to provide patient education that would provide patients with the necessary information to prevent them from doing things that put them at risk of falling as well as provide personalized fall prevention intervention for every patient.
The roles of nurses in this project included providing the necessary patient education and learning about the patient well enough to come up with an effective fall prevention strategy for each patient. Depending on the fall risks for each patient, the nurses would provide the necessary education to the patient about what they should or should not do to avoid falling (Heng et al., 2020). The nurses were also tasked with coming up with fall prevention strategies for each patient. Research shows that the risks of a patient falling are specific to every patient. For example, elderly patients are more likely to fall because they have lost their stability as they have grown older. Fall prevention strategies for elderly patients may, therefore, include incorporating balance and stability exercises in the patients routine and encouraging them to perform more exercises that require them to stay upright, such as walking. Therefore, nurses had the responsibility of identifying the risk factors for every patient and coming up with a plan for each patient.
After implementing the plan, the prevalence of patient falls in the hospital was reduced significantly. There were fewer cases of patients, especially elderly patients, falling and injuring themselves. Patients were more aware of what would put them at the risk of falling and they, therefore, did the necessary things to avoid falling. The patients were also informed about the different interventions that healthcare professionals used to help prevent falls. For example, elderly patients understood that the reason they were asked to participate in an aerobics class is to improve their mobility and stability, which was an intervention meant to reduce the risk of them falling and injuring themselves (Garrigan et al., 2022). Therefore, they were more willing to adhere to the recommended interventions. The improved adherence is one of the reasons why the main goal of reducing patient falls was achieved. The personalized fall prevention plans also worked great for most patients. The results of the project have been maintained so far and the expectation is that these outcomes will continue to be maintained for as long as we, as healthcare providers, continue following the plan.
Discussion #2
The body’s severe response to an infection is sepsis. It’s a medical emergency that could endanger life. When an infection you already have sets off a series of events throughout your body, it results in sepsis. Sepsis-causing infections typically begin in the gastrointestinal system, urinary tract, skin, or lungs (Garay-Fernández, 2017). At my medical center, the protocols for sepsis detection and the beginning of therapy were disjointed and drastically different throughout the system, which had a negative impact on results. After taking a quality improvement initiative, we were able to increase awareness into sepsis enactment and drive improvements by applying a complete data-driven approach to encourage early sepsis discovery and normalize sepsis management.
This included the addition of notices supported by evidence. A comprehensive approach to early detection and treatment of the condition considerably improved the following sepsis outcomes: a 1% reduction in mortality for people with a severe type of sepsis or sepsis shock. Patients who had the facts-based procedures had a nine percent lower death rate than those who did not, and the facts-based therapies considerably decreased mortality. Patients with acute sepsis and septic shock stay in the ER for 4% less time (Price et al., 2019). Acute sepsis and septic shock patients’ length of stay and admittance to the intensive care unit were both lowered by 4% in the ER.
Nurses Role in the Initiative
Serious sepsis patients typically visit the crisis department. Triage nurses prioritize care while taking into account the seriousness of a patient’s condition. Similar to acute stroke and acute myocardial infarction, it is crucial to detect severe sepsis early in order to enhance patient outcomes. As the first step in the process, the nurse has to determine if the patient has a suspected or visible infection source with concomitant systemic symptoms. To assess the seriousness of the patient’s illness and the appropriate level of urgency, the triage nurse collects vital signs and a patient’s medical history. They may rely on this nurse to work well with the other nurses in the emergency room as the patient is shifted from one nurse to another.
This change must be made because sepsis treatment must be given continually. When necessary, sepsis bundles might be employed in the emergency room. The nurse maintains effective communication with physicians, support staff, patients, and family members throughout the emergency procedure to manage the treatment of severe sepsis. Patients may be transferred to a bed in the critical care ward once they have been stabilized (Price et al., 2019).
The Outcomes of the Initiative
Despite advancements in ICU therapy, the prognosis for sepsis and septic shock is still grim. Even though prognostic factors have been found for a few septic patients, the majority cannot have their short- or long-term prognoses predicted.
Sustainability of the Initiative
We continued to apply this tried-and-true method to improve patient care and sepsis outcomes. Early recognition screening instruments will be relocated to outpatient settings, such as urgent care facilities and doctor’s offices, in accordance with current plans.