Assessment 2 Quality Improvement
In this assignment, you will propose a quality improvement initiative from your place of employment that could easily be implemented if approved. Assume you are presenting this program to the board for approval of funding. Write an executive summary (750-1,000 words) to present to the board, from which the board will make its decision to fund your program or project. Include the following:
I would like to it on Eliminating Discharge Delays on patients seem medically fit for discharge.
The purpose of the quality improvement initiative.
The target population or audience.
The benefits of the quality improvement initiative.
The inter professional collaboration that would be required to implement the quality improvement initiative.
The cost or budget justification.
The basis upon which the quality improvement initiative will be evaluated.
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Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
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Eliminating Discharge Delays on Patients Seem Medically Fit for Discharge
Discharge delays is a common and long-standing problem in the healthcare sector. Delayed discharge is the time taken by patients to continue staying in hospital after they seem medically fit to leave the facility but are unable to do so due to non-medical reasons. Discharge delays affect the healthcare institutions’ ability to deliver effective health outcomes and services resulting in increased operational costs, workflow delay, decreased patient satisfaction, bed-block, errors in care, and increased waiting list (Ragavan et al., 2017). In healthcare facilities providing care for acute illnesses, delayed discharges increase the rates of complications and workload for health providers. Delayed discharge has been identified as a system-level problem that necessitate a multi-disciplinary teamwork between healthcare and social care. Due to the impact of delayed discharge on the patients, healthcare facilities, and staff; this paper seeks to present a quality improvement initiative on eliminating discharge delays.
Purpose
According to Ragavan et al (2017), delay in hospital discharge is caused by social reasons, financial issues, organizational causes within the healthcare facility, individual causes, and lack of vacancies in the healthcare units. Delays in discharge of patients that seem medically fit for discharge has been a rampant problem in my current workplace. The causes of the delay has been associated with poorly coordinated discharge preparation and lack of a standard procedure of communication among the health practitioners on the patient’ needs upon discharge. The purpose of this quality improvement initiative is to reduce the delays in discharge of patients by 80 percent in the next 6 months by improving discharge timelines, promoting the development of individualized discharge plan for each patient leaving the hospital, and organization of post-discharge services.
Target Population
Discharge of patients entail several health professionals who plan and oversee that a patient’s discharge needs are met. To reduce the delays in discharge, this quality initiative plan targets health providers involved in the discharge including nurses, consultants, discharge coordinators, and pharmacists (Zanger, 2018). Nurses are a critical target group since they are usually the main contact persons when a patient is in the hospital and are tasked with ensuring that plans and care is provided before leaving the hospital. Consultants are a part of the target group since they make decisions on the type of medical care to be provided and time of discharge. The discharge coordinator are targeted in this plan because they are responsible in the coordination of discharge. Pharmacist are a target group since they provide medication and instructions on its administration. Other personnel who will be targeted include social workers, psychiatrist nurses, nutritionists, occupational therapists and counsellors. This is because they may be involved in the discharge in the event a patient requires their services.Assessment 2 Quality Improvement
Benefits
The quality initiative plan to eliminate discharge delays in hospital will have accrued benefits to the healthcare facility and the beneficiaries. When the plan is successful, it will minimize the costs associated with delays in discharge (Khalifa, 2017). It will also help the healthcare facility to deliver quality health outcomes and services which will improve patient outcomes and satisfaction. The quality plan will help to minimize the risk of increased infections, mortality and depression on the patients as a result of delayed discharge. The plan will help to reduce workload on the health practitioners associated with delayed discharge as well as enhance teamwork among the practitioners to ensure prompt patients’ discharge.
Inter-Professional Collaboration
Inter-professional collaboration will be required in the implementation of quality improvement initiative towards elimination of delayed discharge in health facility. Hospital discharge requires collaboration between healthcare professionals (Khalifa, 2017). The inter-professional collaboration will be required to improve discharge preparation and communication among the health practitioners. The collaboration will help health professionals involved in discharge understand the importance of coordinated patient care and discharge. In addition, it will help health practitioners involved with discharge o generate better and comprehensive discharge plans. Inter-professional collaboration is required in this quality improvement plan to work towards the same goal and to overcome communication barriers that emanate during discharge.
The Cost or Budget Justification
The quality improvement initiative plan will incur costs related to its planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The cost to be incurred on the initiative plan is justifiable since its benefits outweighs the cost. The healthcare facility has been incurring huge costs emanating from delayed discharges. In addition, patients have been dissatisfied with the service delivery as well out health outcomes. Many clients have failed to make a repeat visit to the health facility due to delays in service delivery and discharge. To promote efficient and effective service delivery, improve patient care and outcomes, and reduce the workload of health practitioners that emanate from delayed discharge, it is necessary to undertake the quality improvement plan and its associated costs.Assessment 2 Quality Improvement
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Evaluation Methods for the Quality Improvement Initiative
The quality improvement initiative plan will be evaluated by testing its acceptance among the target group and adherence to new discharge practices. In addition, an examination will be done to assess how the new practices in discharge are affecting the delivery of services and patients care and if patient care is improving. The plan will be evaluated in terms of how discharge deadlines are being met, trend lines to reveal movement of key performance indicators over time, number of discharges per day, patients’ perception on the discharge program, and cost reduction as a result of reduction in discharge delays.
References
Khalifa, M. (2017, January). Reducing Length of Stay by Enhancing Patients’ Discharge: A Practical Approach to Improve Hospital Efficiency. In ICIMTH (pp. 157-160).
Ragavan, M. V., Svec, D., & Shieh, L. (2017). Barriers to timely discharge from the general medicine service at an academic teaching hospital. Postgraduate Medical Journal, 93(1103), 528-533.
Zanger, J. (2018). Predicting surgical inpatients’ discharges at Massachusetts General Hospital (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Assessment 2 Quality Improvement