Quality Improvement and Safety Initiatives Essay

Quality Improvement and Safety Initiatives Essay

Quality Improvement and Safety Initiatives Essay

Gaps in nurse skills and knowledge limit the quality of care in health care organizations. Nurses deliver primary care in any health care organization. This implies that they need formal training and mentoring to ensure adequate health care delivery. However, forming a team of nurses with limited formal training would overburden health care because of the compromised quality. Nurses in any hospital setting need mentoring to offer better and improved patient care and services (Eckerson, 2018). Limited attention taken on the mentoring of nurses leads to low retention that further affects the quality improvement in health care. The purpose of this assignment is to demonstrate the role of a nurse and how a nurse leader supports the alignment of quality improvement and safety initiatives.

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Role of the Nurse and Nurse Leader

The nurse leaders have a role to play in developing the skills of other nurses in the hospital. These nurse leaders have experience and skills gained overtime thus are able to mentor nurses to meet hospital expectations of quality. While the nurses need to be ready for mentoring programs, the nurse leaders would spearhead and organize training seminars for nurses (Eckerson, 2018). This implies that both the nurses and nurse leaders have a role in the quality improvement and safety initiatives required in any hospital setting. The SWOT analysis conducted at the hospital setting reveals some of the strengths as an adequate number of senior nurses mentoring novice nurses. The high number of senior nurses in the hospital needs to reflect on the professional development of the new nurses.

Despite the increased number of senior nurses in the hospital, low mentorship and low retention issues have been on the rise. These senior nurses, who are supposed to be the mentors, face various constraints like lack of enough time and increased workload. These constraints affect the senior nurses’ ability to train the fresh nurses on the skills and knowledge required to meet the rising needs of the patients at the hospital (Eckerson, 2018). Therefore, in as much as the hospital can count the number of senior nurses as a strength, there is a need to revise the workload of the senior nurses to allocate time to mentoring the other nurses. Besides, the nurses also need to be aggressive in learning from the mentors. This would increase the number of professional nurses at the hospital, further heightening the quality and safety of health care delivery.

Accountability as a Healthcare Provider

The health care provider has a key role in solving issues of inadequate mentorship and low retention of nurses. The management has the function of overseeing the daily operation at a hospital. This implies that they have the power to design a mentorship structure that can allow the senior nurses to train the new nurses while offering complex nursing services (Van Camp& Chappy, 2017). For example, assigning each senior nurse, a mentee would allow the mentees to learn the complex nursing activities at the hospital. The main objective of assigning nurses to their mentors is t ensure that they develop the complex nursing skills from the senior nurses. The increase in the number of professional nurses would affect the overall quality of service delivery.

Both senior nurses and fresh nurses in the hospital need strong motivation from the management. A well-motivated nurse would tend to surpass their performance, increasing the positive patient outcome (Hoover et al., 2020). Solving employee retention problems requires the management to allow the nurses to develop a sense of belonging with the hospital. For instance, the management needs to revise the salaries and benefits of the nurses to ensure that efforts taken towards improving the quality of safety and delivery at the hospital pay in the long run. The shortage of nurses is a great threat to any health care institution. This implies that the existing nurses in any hospital need a reason to stay at the clinic while offering the required health care needs.

The increase of application of modern technology at the hospital would as well be significant in solving the problem of low retention and inadequate mentorship. The automation of health care services through the application of modern health software would reduce the workload of skilled nurses (Hoover et al., 2020). This would allocate more time to mentor the new nurses to meet the required health care quality. Training the nurses on the technological skills would also solve the problem of low retention as they would feel the ease of interacting with the new technology in the clinic.

Application of Evidence-Based Practices

Retaining experienced nurses is paramount, especially as the nursing profession ushers another shortage era. Cases of shortage of skilled nurses in a hospital would affect the quality of care and patient safety. The first-line managers in the health care setting need to devise effective strategies to enhance job satisfaction. This EBP practice would empower nurses to meet their duties and responsibilities at the facility. A satisfied nurse would be more productive as compared to an unsatisfied nurse. Secondly, the frontline nurse managers need to invest in effective communication (Vergara, 2017). The power of the nurse’s work relies on effective communication that would allow them to reduce human errors and meet the expectations of the patients. Positive communication between nurses and other health care professionals allows an effective flow of treatment on patients, thus raising the quality of the service delivery.

Conclusion

Quality improvement and safety initiatives at the hospital depend on the skills exhibited by the nurses. The nurses and nurse leaders have an imperative role to play in ensuring that experience and professionalism define health care delivery at a hospital. Mentoring new nurses by the existing skilled nurses is an activity managed by the hospital management. The accountability of the hospital stems from its ability to retain nurse. As a nurse leader, an essential role is to participate in coordinating mentorship programs and use various strategies like effective communication to improve nurse retention. The nurses also have a role to play in solving the problem by giving the mentors an easy time to train them on the required quality. In addition, application of evidence-based practice is key.

References

Eckerson, C. M. (2018). The impact of nurse residency programs in the United States on improving retention and satisfaction of new nurse hires: an evidence-based literature review. Nurse education today, 71, 84-90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2018.09.003

Hoover, J., Koon, A. D., Rosser, E. N., & Rao, K. D. (2020). Mentoring the working nurse: a scoping review. Human resources for health, 18(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-020-00491-x

Van Camp, J., & Chappy, S. (2017). The effectiveness of nurse residency programs on retention: a systematic review. AORN journal, 106(2), 128-144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aorn.2017.06.003

Vergara, J. Y. (2017). Implementation of a mentorship program to increase staff satisfaction and retention in critical care. Nurse Leader, 15(3), 207-212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mnl.2017.02.003

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Assessment Description
Being able to articulate your personal worldview can help you formulate a personal philosophy of practice and enhance your influence on patients and the industry. In this assignment, you will have an opportunity to reflect on your current and future practice and the ways worldview and nursing theory influence that practice.

Draft a 1,000-1,250 word paper in which you:

Describe your personal worldview, including the religious, spiritual, and cultural elements that you think most influence your personal philosophy of practice and attitude towards patient care.
Choose a specific nursing theory that is most in line with your personal philosophy of practice and approach to patient care and discuss the similarities. Explain how the nursing theory reinforces your approach to care.
Include in your explanation a specific example of a past or current practice and how your worldview and the nursing theory could assist you in resolving this issue.
Finally, explain how your worldview and the nursing theory will assist you in further developing your future practice.
You are required to cite five to 10 sources to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years and appropriate for the assignment criteria and nursing content.

Complete the “APA Writing Checklist” to ensure that your paper adheres to APA style and formatting criteria and general guidelines for academic writing. Include the completed checklist as an appendix at the end of your paper.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Class Resources if you need assistance.