Executive Summary in Leadership and Management Essay
Improving the quality of patient care is the primary goal of every healthcare organization. High-quality care results in positive health outcomes, including reduced readmission, low cost of healthcare, and reduced length of stay. The positive health results then lead to nurses’ job satisfaction and positive patient experience. This paper presents a quality improvement initiative to be implemented in the healthcare organization, including the purpose of the quality improvement initiative, target population, the benefits of the initiative, interprofessional collaboration, budget justification, and the basis for evaluating the quality improvement initiative.
The Purpose of the Quality Improvement Initiative
The selected quality improvement initiative aimed at addressing nursing shortages to improve patient safety and reduce turnover rate among healthcare professionals. The nursing shortage is a major issue facing the healthcare organization and has reached crisis proportions. Thus, the current situation should be analyzed, and a plan making necessary modifications to address the shortage should be implemented, which will reduce patient safety issues in the organization.
The Target Population
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The proposed quality improvement initiative involves contracting agency nursing staff to provide the healthcare organization with appropriate nurse staffing temporarily until the current staffing challenge is completely resolved. Therefore, this quality improvement initiative targets nurses working in healthcare organization and patients. Contracting agency nursing staff would increase the number of nurses working in the medical facility, reducing the nurse-to-patient ratio and nurses’ workload and working hours, which will improve the quality and safety of patient care.
The Benefits of the Quality Improvement Initiative
The proposed quality improvement initiative involves contracting agency nursing staff to raise the number of nurses working in the healthcare organization. Increasing nursing staff will then reduce the number of patients allocated to an individual nurse. According to Faltas and Abd-Allah (2018), nurses’ workload significantly contributes to the quality, efficiency, and safety of patient care. Therefore, reducing the nurse-to-patient ratio will enable nurses to provide quality and safe patient care, reducing patient safety issues in the healthcare organization. Additionally, an appropriate workload among nurses leads to job satisfaction, improving nurses’ performance, productivity, and work outcomes (Wang et al., 2020). Hence, increasing nursing staff in the healthcare organization would result in better performance, productivity, and work outcomes among nurses, improving the quality and safety of patient care. Furthermore, reducing nurses’ workload lowers absenteeism, burnout, and turnover rates (Wang et al., 2020). Thus, the rate of absenteeism and turnover among nurses would reduce in the healthcare organization following the contraction of agency nursing staff.
Interprofessional Collaboration required in implementing the Quality Improvement Initiative
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Contracting agency nursing staff to work in the healthcare organization would involve other interprofessional team members. First, nurses would be involved in implementing this quality improvement initiative. Nurses currently working in the organization would orient the agency nursing staff, informing them about organizational policies and procedures. Additionally, current nurses would collaborate with agency nursing staff during healthcare delivery. According to Busari et al. (2017), collaboration among interdisciplinary team members during care delivery results in superior health outcomes. During the collaboration, interdisciplinary team members contribute a wide range of clinical skills, competence, and experience. Thus, the collaboration will enable nurses to provide patients with high-quality and safe nursing care. Secondly, physicians will be involved in contracting agency nursing staff in a healthcare organization. Costello et al. (2021) reported that teamwork among interdisciplinary team members during healthcare delivery leads to enhanced patient safety, improved quality of care, higher staff job satisfaction, and greater patient experience. Physicians will collaborate with agency nurses while supervising and guiding them during care delivery, resulting in high-quality and safe patient care. Additionally, the collaboration between physicians and agency nurses will result in job satisfaction among these healthcare professionals, reducing high turnover rates, which is a major issue facing the healthcare organization.
Budget Justification
Financial resources will be required to compensate agency nursing staff. Approximately 20 agency nurses should be contracted to increase the number of nursing staff and temporarily resolve the nursing shortage, which is a significant issue facing the healthcare organization. In the United States, an agency nurse is paid $80, 000 annually. Therefore, a total of $ 1, 600, 000 would be required to compensate 20 agency nurses who will be recruited to work in the healthcare organization.
Quality Improvement Initiative Evaluation
The proposed quality improvement initiative, including contracting agency nurses, will be evaluated to determine if it was successfully implemented in the healthcare organization. First, the success of the initiative will be determined based on cases of patient safety. Increasing nursing staff is anticipated to lower the nurse-to-patient ratio and nurses’ workload, allowing nurses to provide safe patient care. Thus, the decline in patient safety issues after contracting agency nurses will indicate that the initiative was successfully implemented. Secondly, the initiative will be evaluated based on turnover rates among nurses. The rate of turnover among nurses will be compared before and after contracting agency nurse staff. The decline in the rate of nurse turnover will indicate that the initiative was successfully implemented. Increasing the number of nurse staff reduced nurses’ workload, resulting in quality care and job satisfaction, motivating nurses to continue working in the organization.
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Overall, nursing shortage, increase in patient safety issues, and high turnover rate are significant concerns that are facing the healthcare organization. These issues can be addressed by contracting agency nursing staff to provide the healthcare organization with appropriate nurse staffing temporarily until the current staffing challenge is completely resolved. Increasing nurse staff in the organization will reduce nurses’ workload, improving the quality and safety of patient care. These positive health outcomes will lead to job satisfaction, reducing the turnover rate among healthcare professionals.
References
Busari, J. O., Moll, F. M., & Duits, A. J. (2017). Understanding the impact of interprofessional collaboration on the quality of care: a case report from a small-scale resource-limited health care environment. Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare, 10, 227. Doi: 10.2147/JMDH.S140042.
Costello, M., Rusell, K., & Coventry, T. (2021). Examining the average scores of nursing teamwork subscales in an acute private medical ward. BMC nursing, 20(1), 1-10. https://bmcnurs.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12912-021-00609-z
Faltas, S. F., & Abd-Allah, K. F. (2018). The relation be-tween Nurses’ Workload and Patients’ Safe-ty in Surgical and Neurological Intensive Care Units. IOSR Journal of Nursing and Health Science (IOSR-JNHS), 7(6), 21-33. DOI: 10.9790/1959-0706022133
Wang, H., Jin, Y., Wang, D., Zhao, S., Sang, X., & Yuan, B. (2020). Job satisfaction, burnout, and turnover intention among primary care providers in rural China: results from structural equation modeling. BMC family practice, 21(1), 1-10.
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:
The purpose of the quality improvement initiative.
The target population or audience.
The benefits of the quality improvement initiative.
The interprofessional 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.
You are required to cite a minimum of three peer-reviewed sources to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years, appropriate for the assignment criteria, and relevant to nursing practice.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.