Assignment: Identify a quality improvement opportunity in your organization or practice.
Assignment: Identify a quality improvement opportunity in your organization or practice.
Identify a quality improvement opportunity in your organization or practice. In a 1,250-1,500 word paper, describe the problem or issue and propose a quality improvement initiative based on evidence-based practice. Apply “The Road to Evidence-Based Practice” process, illustrated in Chapter 4 of your textbook, to create your proposal.
ORDER A CUSTOMIZED, PLAGIARISM-FREE Assignment: Identify a quality improvement opportunity in your organization or practice. HERE
Good News For Our New customers . We can help you in Completing this assignment and pay after Delivery. Our Top -rated medical writers will comprehensively review instructions , synthesis external evidence sources(Scholarly) and customize a quality assignment for you. We will also attach a copy of plagiarism report alongside, AI report alongside the assignment. Feel free to chat Us
Quality Improvement Proposal
Providing safe and quality patient care is the primary goal of healthcare providers and other key stakeholders in the healthcare sector. Similarly, our healthcare organization strives to provide all patients with safe and quality care. However, this goal is compromised by the high rate of medication errors reported in the healthcare organization. Hence, this clinical issue must be addressed to improve the safety and quality of patient care. This paper covers evidence-based quality improvement strategies for reducing the high rate of medication errors and adverse drug events in the healthcare organization.
Overview of the Clinical Issue: Medication Errors
The rate of medication errors has increased dramatically in healthcare organizations. According to Classen et al. (2016), these errors occur at various stages of the medication process, including prescribing, handling, and administering medication to a patient. Higher medication errors are reported in stressful and fast-paced areas, including intensive care units, emergency departments, and operating rooms. These errors are attributed to extreme age, new medical procedures, and high acuity. Errors often occur when necessary personnel is not available when needed during health care delivery. About 50% of medication errors lead to adverse drug events, significantly increasing patient morbidity and mortality (Classen et al., 2016). Additionally, these errors increase the overall cost of health care significantly. Consequently, medication errors have become a serious public health concern in the United States and worldwide. Therefore, the healthcare organization should implement Computerized Prescriber Order Entry (CPOE), an evidence-based approach for lowering the high rate of medication errors in medical facilities.
The Need for Computerized Prescriber Order Entry in the Healthcare Organization
Computerized order entry is an application designed to enhance medication distribution by involving key players, including prescribers, pharmacists, and nurse practitioners. Thus, CPOE reduces the high prevalence of adverse drug events in healthcare organizations. Hence, the high rate of medication errors and adverse drug events in the healthcare organization is anticipated to decrease dramatically following the implementation of the CPOE.
Support from Previous Studies
Previous studies have emphasized the efficacy of Computerized Prescriber Order Entry in reducing the high rate of medication errors in healthcare organizations. CPOE is among the functions of health information technology (HIT) in which clinicians utilize order entry applications to order medication and other therapies electronically aided by pre-determined alerts, rules, and knowledge databases. According to Elshayib and Pawola (2020), CPOE significantly enhances the patient management process by enhancing a wide range of systems, including pharmacy, radiology, laboratory, and resource management. CPOE also engages various users and key players, including healthcare workers such as physicians, nurse practitioners, lab technicians, pharmacists, and system developers (Elshayib & Pawola, 2020). Hence, implementing CPOE lowers the high rate of medical errors, thus improving the quality of patient care and reducing the overall costs of health care. Another study conducted by Nuckols et al. (2018) indicates the efficacy of CPOE is lowering the high rate of preventable adverse drug events. Therefore, implementing CPOE in healthcare organizations improves patient outcomes.
Steps Involved in Implementing the Computerized Prescriber Order Entry
Implementing a quality improvement strategy is a complex process, which involves sequential steps. The six key steps will be utilized in implementing the Computerized Prescriber Order Entry in the healthcare organization. The first step involves establishing quality improvement goals. In this case, the quality improvement goal involves reducing the high rate of medication errors and adverse drug events in the healthcare organization. The second step involves identifying possible strategies that can be adopted to achieve the desired outcomes. In this case, possible approaches including implementing CPOE, increasing the workforce, and bridging the knowledge gap among healthcare workers. The next step entails selecting a particular intervention to be implemented in the healthcare organization. In this case, CPOE will be adopted in the medical facility. This evidence-based intervention is preferred due to its efficacy in reducing the high rate of medication errors and adverse drug events in the healthcare system (Elshayib & Pawola, 2020). The other step is preparing a written action plan to guide the implementation process. An action plan enhances the success of implementing a quality improvement initiative in a healthcare organization. Therefore, an action plan will be prepared to guide the implementation of CPOE in the medical facility. The next step involves implementing the quality improvement initiative in which CPOE will be adopted in the healthcare organization to reduce the high rate of medication errors. The last step is evaluation, in which the project implementation team examines whether project goals have been achieved following the adoption of the proposed intervention.
The Quality Improvement Initiative Evaluation
Evaluation is an important step in implementing a change intervention in a healthcare organization. It is conducted sometime after the adoption of the quality improvement intervention. The evaluation aims at assessing if project goals were achieved following the implementation of the proposed intervention. In this case, the evaluation will focus on examining whether the rate of medication errors and adverse drug events in the healthcare organization reduced following the implementation of CPOE. Medical reports will be reviewed to identify the medication errors cases reported before implementing the new intervention. The healthcare workers will then give the number of medication errors cases reported in the healthcare organization three months after implementing the proposed intervention. A decline in medication errors in the healthcare organization following the implementation of CPOE will indicate that this quality improvement initiative effectively reduces the high rate of medication errors in medical facilities. On the contrary, CPOE will be considered ineffective in reducing medication errors if no significant difference is reported in the rate of errors following the implementation of this initiative in the healthcare organization. In this case, an alternative quality improvement strategy should be implemented in the healthcare organization to lower the high rate of medication errors.
Overall, the high rate of medication errors and adverse drug events is a major problem facing healthcare organizations. This clinical issue can be addressed by implementing CPOE in healthcare organizations. This application enhances safety during medication distribution by involving key players, including prescribers, pharmacists, and nurses practitioners. Thus, its implementation is anticipated to lower the high rate of medication errors reported in the medical facility. Successful implementation of this quality improvement will involve six steps, including setting project implementation goals, identifying potential change improvement options, selecting the best alternative, developing an action plan, the actual implementation of the proposed strategy, and evaluation of the results. Evaluation will involve the comparison of medication errors reported in the healthcare organization before and after implementing CPOE.
ORDER A CUSTOMIZED, PLAGIARISM-FREE Assignment: Identify a quality improvement opportunity in your organization or practice. HERE
References
Classen, D. C., Munier, W., Verzier, N., Eldridge, N., Hunt, D., Metersky, M., et al. (2016). Measuring patient safety: the medicare patient safety monitoring system (past, present, and future). J. Patient Saf. 00 (00), 1–7. doi: 10.1097/PTS.0000000000000322.
Elshayib, M., & Pawola, L. (2020). Computerized provider order entry–related medication errors among hospitalized patients: An integrative review. Health Informatics Journal, 26(4), 2834-2859.
Nuckols, T. K., Smith-Spangler, C., Morton, S. C., Asch, S. M., Patel, V. M., Anderson, L. J., … & Shekelle, P. G. (2018). The effectiveness of computerized order entry at reducing preventable adverse drug events and medication errors in hospital settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Systematic reviews, 3(1), 1-12.