MSN-FP6016 Assessment 3 Data Analysis and Quality Improvement Initiative Proposal Sample Answer for MSN-FP6016 Assessment 3 Data Analysis and Quality Improvement Initiative Proposal
Data Analysis and Quality Improvement Initiative Proposal
Data refers to information, particularly facts and numbers, collected to be analyzed and considered and to guide decision-making. Data is utilized to make clinical judgments, solve questions, and track and foster healthcare quality improvement (QI) initiatives (Shah, 2019). QI initiatives purpose to bring a difference in patient care by improving effectiveness, safety, and care experience. They require health providers to apply their understanding of the complex healthcare environment, use a systematic approach, and design, test, and execute changes using real-time measurement for quality improvement. The purpose of this paper is to carry out a data analysis in a healthcare organization and discuss a QI initiative proposal based on a health issue of interest.
Health Care Issue or Area of Concern
Sepsis is the identified healthcare issue at Katherine Shaw Bethea Hospital in Dixon, IL. The hospital is an 80-bed “not-for-profit” facility that provides general and specialized health services. Data on sepsis in the last three years (2019-2021) was analyzed from the hospital’s dashboard metrics. During the period, 10,589 patients above 18 years were admitted to the facility. Sepsis was identified in 230 patients, accounting for a cumulative incidence rate of 7.4% among hospitalized adult patients. In addition, most of the septic cases (56%) were secondary to community-acquired infections. Severe sepsis occurred in 45 patients, which leads to an incidence rate of 45 cases per 100,000 adults annually.
Furthermore, 17 patients developed septic shock, an incidence rate of 9 cases per 100,000 adults per year. Moreover, most patients met the diagnostic criteria for severe sepsis or septic shock on a day they would have also qualified for the septic status. Besides, some patients had a median time of two days between the sepsis and severe sepsis, while between severe sepsis and septic shock was three days. The facility’s mortality rate due to sepsis was 4.8%; for severe sepsis, it was 5.1%, and for septic shock was 8.7%.
The hospital could measure and use process data to improve its knowledge of the causes of the high sepsis rate in the inpatient units. Process data typically includes information on interventions implemented by healthcare providers to alleviate or prevent incidences of sepsis among hospitalized patients. On the other hand, outcome data includes the outcome of these QI interventions and is used to assess their impact. Vital dashboard metrics that act as process data include The number of patients whose blood cultures drawn before antibiotic administration; The number of patients on antibiotic therapy; The number of patients whose lactate levels were assessed; The number of patients with signs of sepsis administered IV fluids (Shahsavarinia et al., 2020). The process data metrics can enable the facility to identify whether the sepsis rates are contributed by failure to implement crucial measures that prevent sepsis, such as putting patients on antibiotic therapy, reassessing lactate levels, and administering IV fluids.
Need a high-quality paper urgently?
We can deliver within hours.
The hospital can sustain QI processes and outcomes since it has a QI team tasked with ensuring QI initiatives are effectively implemented by the staff in the facility. In addition, the organization’s culture supports innovations in supportive leadership style, effective communication styles, shared values, behaviors, attitudes, and working practices. The hospital’s data on sepsis is reliable since it has been collected and analyzed using scientific methods. Each case of sepsis is reported and recorded in case report forms. In the forms, nurses document the patient’s demographic data, the reason for admission, comorbidities, the origin of primary infection, the date of sepsis diagnosis, and cultures performed with their results.
QI Initiative Proposal
Ineffective screening for sepsis has been attributed to the high sepsis rates at Katherine Shaw Bethea Hospital. Nurses play a major role in recognizing patients with sepsis since they are constantly interacting with patients. However, nurses inadequately screen patients due to inadequate nurse training on screening measures for sepsis and management interventions (Shahsavarinia et al., 2020). Therefore, the proposed QI i