Quality Improvement Proposal
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.
Include the following:
Provide an overview of the problem and the setting in which the problem or issue occurs.
Explain why a quality improvement initiative is needed in this area and the expected outcome.
Discuss how the results of previous research demonstrate support for the quality improvement initiative and its projected outcomes. Include a minimum of three peer-reviewed sources published within the last 5 years, not included in the course materials or textbook, that establish evidence in support of the quality improvement proposed.
Discuss steps necessary to implement the quality improvement initiative. Provide evidence and rationale to support your answer.
Explain how the quality improvement initiative will be evaluated to determine whether there was improvement.
Support your explanation by identifying the variables, hypothesis test, and statistical test that you would need to prove that the quality improvement initiative succeeded.
While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and documentation of sources should be presented using APA formatting guidelines, which can be 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.
ANSWER
Quality Improvement Proposal
Overview of the Problem
Nursing burnout is one of the key threats that affect the delivery of viable healthcare services. Nurses play a crucial role in boosting care services because they offer primary assistance to all patients. Due to the massive number of patients visiting different healthcare organizations, nursing burnouts are commonly reported. Nurses find themselves handling a large number of patients. They often faced mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion due to long working hours and other forms of pressure associated with their responsibilities (Mudallal, Othman & Al Hassan, 2017). Coupled with unrealistic job expectations and limited autonomy, nurses build reduced motivation and job satisfaction. Burnouts make nurses manifest physical and emotional exhaustion that affects their work motivation. They often feel frustrated and may deliver poor results in the workplace. The numerous tasks they handle and other challenges associated with their role build up to cause mental and physical problems. Thus, burnout is one of the main issues in the nursing field. It interferes with the ability and capacity of the nursing professionals to deliver optimal services to the patients. Thus, there is a dire need to develop and implement a robust quality improvement initiative to deal with nurses’ burnouts across various healthcare settings. This challenge attracts a reduction in non-clinical tasks to enable nurses to focus on important clinical tasks.
Quality Improvement Initiative Needed to Manage Nursing Burnouts
Reducing non-clinical tasks is one of the quality improvement initiatives that can help to address nursing burnouts. Nurses handle increased tasks and responsibilities in the care sector. These massive duties make them develop physical and emotional challenges because they spend most of their time handling them. Healthcare administrators should consider reducing non-clinical tasks to enable these professionals to focus on the most valuable tasks associated with their duties. As Dalla’Ora et al. (2020) state, a high workload is one factor that exposes nurses to burnout. Addressing these workloads can provide nurses with a point of relief and, in the long run, enabling them to deliver optimal outcomes in the workplace. Further research shows that nurses spend 10% of their time in delegable and non-nursing activities (Yen et al., 2018). This shows that assigning some of these tasks to other professionals can help limit exposure to physical and mental challenges among nurses. For instance, by assigning non-clinical staff some of the frontline care needs, administrators can limit burnouts. In addition, non-clinical staff members can comfortably handle tasks like post-discharge follow-up and linking patients with community resources. This will potentially depressurize nursing workload and offer them the opportunity to concentrate on crucial clinical tasks.
Reducing non-clinical tasks poses a key advantage to healthcare service delivery. Patients are likely to receive quality care services because nurses can commit their time and efforts to meet their needs. This is due to the reduced task loads at their disposal. For example, if a nurse spent a significant share of their time doing post-discharge follow-ups, they can use this time to focus on the patients. Also, they have ample time to rest, engage in extra activities, and spend their time with families and friends. Increased motivation and job satisfaction are potential outcomes associated with reduced non-clinical tasks among nurses. This opens the doors for advanced healthcare outcomes in the long run.
Previous Research on Reduced Non-Clinical Tasks in the Nursing Domain
Re-examining nursing work and activities is a crucial step likely to deal with the issue of nursing burnouts. Leaders across various healthcare settings have a mandate to ensure that nurses have reduced tasks as a way of reducing burnouts. This also accelerates their work motivation which translates to effective care service delivery. At times, nurses handle tasks that could be assigned to other professionals to ensure that nurses have reduced responsibilities at their disposal. According to Yen et al. (2018), nurses spend 10% of their working time handling non-nursing activities. Ensuring that these professionals deliver the best outcomes calls for a re-examination of their duties. This will give them ample time to rest and boost their mental status to enable them to offer quality care to the patients. Ahmadishad et al. (2019) further note that critical nurses spend their time handling non-related activities. This denies them the time to concentrate on other core activities that boost patient outcomes. Therefore, healthcare administrators should ensure that they allocate only the essential duties to these professionals to limit burnouts. Further studies show that team-based primary care redesign is an effective solution for nursing burnouts (Zhang et al., 2020). Healthcare administrators can reduce nurses’ exposure to physical, emotional, and psychological challenges by redesigning duties and responsibilities. Overall, research shows that reducing non-clinical tasks is an effective way of dealing with nursing burnouts.
Steps to Implement this Quality Improvement Initiative
Reducing non-clinical tasks in the nursing sector opens opportunities for advancing healthcare delivery. One of the steps is to liaise with the affected professionals to discuss the initiative. Leaders should gather nurses and other non-clinical staff members to discuss this issue with them. Nurses will have a viable chance of airing out their voice regarding duties they feel can be assigned to the non-clinical staff members. Notably, the other party can also raise their views and opinions regarding this change process. After this engagement process, the team will develop goals and objectives associated with this initiative. Afterward, the team will move ahead to define the requirements to set the foundation for reducing nursing burnouts in the workplace. This will integrate a plan that will act as an effective guide for implementing this important initiative. Strategic planning guarantees the effective delivery of healthcare services (Jimenez & Jacob, 2020). Its main target is the health and well-being of the patients, families, and the community. The team will also develop key performance indicators will also be developed to gauge the achievements attained. These indicators provide points of strength and challenges for decision-makers to take appropriate steps (Pourmohammadi et al., 2018). KPIs will help the decision-making team to gauge the milestones achieved. The team will also create a strategy reporting and link it to the expected organizational performance. This will assist them in measuring the performance attained against the expected one. Lastly, the team will develop a monitoring and evaluation plan to enable it to examine the performance achieved and assess if there is any need to create strategic adjustments.
Evaluation of the Initiative
The selected course of action is reduced non-clinical tasks to boost nurses’ motivation and job satisfaction. Its evaluation will revolve around identified strategies. One of these is the exposure to the performance of the nursing professionals. Hospital administrators will assess how nurses have performance since this initiative was implemented. For example, if the indicators portray advanced nursing outcomes, this will show that the initiative has greater efficacy. The other important way of measuring its effectiveness is by understanding patient’s experiences. When reduced have reduced tasks at their disposal, they are better positioned to deliver excellent services. Thus, if patients report positive experiences and increased satisfaction with the services relayed to them, this will show a high level of effectiveness associated with this important quality improvement initiative.
The variables surrounding this initiative are reduced tasks, improved work morale, and improved service delivery for the patients. If nurses have reduced tasks and responsibilities, they will potentially deliver improved services. This is because they are likely to become motivated and highly satisfied with their duties. Patients will also benefit from advanced services. The test hypothesis is that nurses will have reduced non-clinical tasks to focus on valuable clinical tasks that support improved healthcare outcomes for the patients, their families, and the community. The regression test is an effective way of measuring the success of a quality improvement strategy. The strength of the relationship between the dependent and independent variables will highlight the potential of this initiative in addressing the nursing burnout problem.
Overall, reducing non-clinical tasks is crucial for limiting nurses’ physical, emotional, and psychological issues. The alarming number of patients visiting and those admitted in hospitals exist as crucial challenges that interfere with the nursing role. These professionals often juggle numerous tasks that leave them physically exhausted. Reducing non-clinical tasks and responsibilities is an effective way of boosting their morale and consequently enabling them to deliver improved outcomes. By paying greater attention to vital clinical tasks, nurses can assist patients in advancing their health and well-being. Reduced burnouts translate into increased healthcare outcomes since nurses build excellent mental, psychological statutes that allow them to produce advanced results. In the long run, healthcare institutions that implement this initiative stand to achieve improved patient outcomes.
References
Ahmadishad, M., Adib-Hajbaghery, M., Rezaei, M., Atoof, F., & Munyisia, E. (2019). Care and noncare-related activities among critical care nurses: A cross-sectional observational time and motion study. Nursing and Midwifery Studies, 8(1), 40-47.
Dall’Ora, C., Ball, J., Reinius, M., & Griffiths, P. (2020). Burnout in Nursing: A theoretical review. Human resources for health, 18, 1-17.
Jimenez, J. & Jacob, P. (2020). Strategic planning and management of healthcare in Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health. 7. 5198. 10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20204989.
Mudallal, R. H., Othman, W. A. M., & Al Hassan, N. F. (2017). Nurses’ burnout: the influence of leader empowering behaviors, work conditions, and demographic traits. INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, 54, 0046958017724944.
Pourmohammadi, K., Hatam, N., Shojaei, P., & Bastani, P. (2018). A comprehensive map of the evidence on the performance evaluation indicators of public hospitals: a scoping study and best fit framework synthesis. Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation, 16(1), 1-22.
Yen, P. Y., Kellye, M., Lopetegui, M., Saha, A., Loversidge, J., Chipps, E. M., … & Buck, J. (2018). Nurses’ time allocation and multitasking of nursing activities: A time motion study. In AMIA Annual Symposium Proceedings (Vol. 2018, p. 1137). American Medical Informatics Association.
Zhang, X. J., Song, Y., Jiang, T., Ding, N., & Shi, T. Y. (2020). Interventions to reduce burnout of physicians and nurses: An overview of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Medicine, 99(26).
