Leadership at My Excellence Center became concerned when reimbursements began to shrink with the advent of pay-for-performance for Medicare patients. As they began to evaluate their performance metrics, they noted that there were large variations in outcomes across their patient care units. One safety outcome in particular, patient falls, seemed to show the greatest variability from month to month and across patient care units. Leaders determined to set improvement of falls as a priority for the organization.
A transdisciplinary team was formed to review evidence and make recommendations for practice change. The team reviewed evidence for acute care fall reduction programs, developed a protocol, and gained stakeholder support for its implementation. The team met to determine what outcomes should be measured.
1. a. Why is it important to measure outcomes?
b. What key criteria must be taken into account when deciding what outcomes you will measure ?
2. a. In this scenario, what outcomes might the team measure?
b. Thinking about the sources of data within healthcare organizations, where might the team find data to address the outcomes identified?
Simultaneously, leadership put a dashboard up to track progress and make data readily available to both unit leadership and staff to increase awareness and allow them to monitor data around the unit’s patient fall rates. Additionally, the dashboard allowed nurses to monitor potential relationships among patient falls, changes in staffing, volatility of admissions, discharges, transfers, and case mix. Nurse managers knew the literature suggested that there is a relationship between falls and staffing levels but were unsure how staffing levels were affecting their own units. With the implementation of the new dashboards on their units, they were able to evaluate factors surrounding times of patient falls in order to look for patterns. They became excited about their ability to monitor progress based on their own data.
3. Identify and explain three different mechanisms to report data to stakeholders in a meaningful, understandable way?
Please write this paper according to APA 7 Scholarly Writing Standards, Student Version. Please limit this paper to 2 pages . All assignments must be written in an academic tone. You are NOT to write in the first person. Instead, you need to use the third person. Large word-for-word quotes are not permitted. Direct quotes, if used, need to be only a sentence or two long. Instead, most cited material needs to be paraphrased. Remember that using someone else’s work or ideas as your own and not citing it properly is considered plagiarism. Five references should consist of scholarly journals NO OLDER THEN 3 YEARS OLD (2020). Cite relevant references in your response to the discussion topic/questions. Web sources can be used, though they should come from credible sources such as government agencies, academics and private agencies with a strong reputation within the community they serve. You will not be allowed to use web pages or web groups such as Wikipedia or Answers.com, as the information contained in these web pages are academically questionable. You cannot use web pages with a questionable background or academic source. Furthermore, you will NOT be permitted to cite encyclopedias, dictionaries, newspapers or magazines. It is important to remember that in this class, you must submit work that must be evidence-based credible sources.
