3806NRS Professional Nursing Practice – A3 Written Assignment

(Individual) Quality and Safety

2,000 words

Weighting

45%

The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) developed the

National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards to ‘protect the public from

harm and to improve the quality of health service provision’ (ACSQHC, 2021, p. 5). The

Registered Nurse is integral to every one of these standards.

Aim:

The aim of this assignment is for you to develop your understanding of quality improvement

(QI) concepts in health care, and to analyse and evaluate an organisational issue in the context

to the NSQHS for quality improvement and safety in an acute health care setting.

This assessment item will address

course learning outcome 2.

Evaluate the effectiveness of organisational and professional standards for quality

improvement and safety in health

care.

Description:

This assessment item

has two parts: Part A focuses on a key quality improvement issue, a

clinical care activity and effective strategies to meet the NSQHS Standards in an acute health

care setting. Part B focuses on the analysis and evaluation of the effectiveness of a quality

improvement program to improve adherence to a NSQHS Standard.

Instructions:

For this task you need to write

a 2000 word structured essay that addresses

Part A and Part B. You must use headings throughout your essay.

Part A

For Part A of your essay you need to choose ONE clinical scenario (see below), and using relevant and appropriate literature:

1. write an introduction to the topic that includes a clear description of what your chosen scenario is, its related NSQHS Standards, and the aim of the essay. You also need to write a conclusion in which you summarise the essay and provide a brief recap of the main points without introducing any new concepts (suggested word count 175 words for each = 350 words in total).

Page 2

2. Identify a quality improvement (QI) issue in your chosen scenario, and discuss the issue in relation to the risks or impact of low-quality care (suggested word count 300 words).
3. Briefly describe the NSQHS Standard that link to the QI issue in your chosen scenario (suggested word count 250 words).
4. Discuss a clinical care activity central to your chosen scenario. In your discussion you need to:
5. a) Identify ONE appropriate clinical care activity that is tailored to the specific issue in your chosen scenario and justify why your chosen care activity is essential to improve clinical care (suggested word count 300 words).
6. b) Discuss TWO strategies for implementing quality improvement (200 words).

Clinical scenarios (choose ONE from numbers 1 to 5)

A tertiary hospital’s annual report highlighted the main areas for quality improvement. A Registered Nurse (RN) has been assigned 10% of their work time to “Quality Improvement (QI)” in order to assist the clinic in addressing long-standing quality of care issues and to begin working on operational and clinical improvements.

The five priority areas for quality improvement include:

1) Surgical site infection rates have increased by more than 5% in patients with total knee replacements due to poor hand hygiene, as staff did not follow the 5-Moments for Hand Hygiene protocol.

2) The incidence of pressure injuries have risen in the rehabilitation ward, particularly for older adults. According to a subsequent audit report, the key concerns were a lack of detail about the screening and assessment processes used by healthcare staff to prevent and manage pressure injuries.

3) The incidence of omissions in nursing care have risen due to non-comprehensive clinical handover, especially when transferring the patients from the operating theatre to the general surgical ward, as no clearly structured handover tools were used by the nursing staff.

4) There has been a 5% increase in the incidence of near-miss blood transfusion errors in the pre-transfusion checking procedures as staff were unfamiliar with policies and guidelines for the administration of blood products.

5) Overall patient satisfaction has decreased 10% from last year due to the COVID pandemic causing a shortage of healthcare staff.

Part B – Analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of a quality improvement program (suggested word count is 600 words for this part)

For Part B of your essay, you need to analyse and evaluate the following full-text research article and complete the tasks below:

Oberai, T., Laver, K., Woodman, R., Crotty, M., Kerkhoffs, G., & Jaarsma, R. (2021). Does implementation of a tailored intervention increase adherence to a National Safety and Quality Standard? A study to improve delirium care. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 33 (1), 1- 7. doi:10.1093/intqhc/mzab006

Page 3

1. a) Outline the aim/objective of the study and the study design, including which of the NSQHS Standards this study applied to.
2. b) Outline how the clinical QI issue was identified e.g., which data were collected prior to the intervention phase.
3. c) Identify and describe the components of the intervention.
4. d) Define process and outcome data/measures and identify three (3) examples of each from this study.
5. e) Evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention, including how the effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated.

Essay formatting guidelines:

Title Page

Include student name, student number, total word count

Include section headings in the body of your essay:

1. Identification of quality improvement issue and its impacts
2. The NSQHS Standard
3. Clinical care activity to meet the NSQHS Standard
4. Evaluation of a quality improvement program to meet the NSQHS Standard

Insert letters a) to g) for each subsection response.

References (start on new page)

Other elements:

• Always refer to the Griffith Health Writing and Referencing Guide
• Do not exceed the 2000-word limit – the word limit does not include the reference list BUT does include in-text references and quotations.
• Examine the Turnitin report for your draft assignment. If you have text-matching identified in the written section of the assignment, this may be used as the basis of reporting an academic integrity concern.
• Submit your FINAL assignment via Turnitin as per the instructions on your [email protected] course site. [Submit in the ‘Assessment’ tab]. Keep your Turnitin receipt as evidence of successful submission. Check you have submitted the correct assignment file.
• Email yourself a copy of your final assignment file so you have a record of your submission.