Advanced practice nurses often treat patients with vein and artery disorders such as chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) and deep venous thrombosis (DVT). While the symptoms of both disorders are noticeable, these symptoms are sometimes mistaken for signs of other conditions, making the disorders difficult to diagnose. Nurses must examine all symptoms and rule out other potential disorders before diagnosing and prescribing treatment for patients. In this Assignment, you explore the epidemiology, pathophysiology, and clinical presentation of CVI and DVT.

To Prepare

Review the section “Diseases of the Veins” (pp. 585–587) in Chapter 23 of the Huether and McCance text. Identify the pathophysiology of chronic venous insufficiency and deep venous thrombosis. Consider the similarities and differences between these disorders.

Select a patient factor different from the one you selected in this week’s Discussion: genetics, gender, ethnicity, age, or behavior. Think about how the factor you selected might impact the pathophysiology of CVI and DVT. Reflect on how you would diagnose and prescribe treatment of these disorders for a patient based on the factor you selected.

Review the “Mind Maps—Dementia, Endocarditis, and Gastro-oesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD)” media in the Week 2 Learning Resources. Use the examples in the media as a guide to construct two mind maps—one for chronic venous insufficiency and one for venous thrombosis. Consider the epidemiology and clinical presentation of both chronic venous insufficiency and deep venous thrombosis.

To Complete

Write a 2- to 3-page paper that addresses the following:

Compare the pathophysiology of chronic venous insufficiency and deep venous thrombosis. Describe how venous thrombosis is different from arterial thrombosis.

Explain how the patient factor you selected might impact the pathophysiology of CVI and DVT. Describe how you would diagnose and prescribe treatment of these disorders for a patient based on the factor you selected.

Construct two mind maps—one for chronic venous insufficiency and one for deep venous thrombosis. Include the epidemiology, pathophysiology, and clinical presentation, as well as the diagnosis and treatment you explained in your paper.

Have you ever carefully edited a paper you have written and then, when it is proofread by someone else, he or she finds a glaring typo? Sometimes we get so close to a project that we may fail to notice important details. The complexity of health care processes means that there can be a number of different gaps and varied areas of inefficiency in a single workflow. This is why it can be beneficial to get an outsider’s perspective on workflow issues you are investigating.

In this Discussion, you outline the workflow issue (Incomplete Medication Reconciliation) you plan to use for Part 1 of the Course Project in order for your colleagues to provide their perspectives and feedback. This Discussion serves as an opportunity for you to refine you workflow issue before submitting Part 1 of the Course Project in Week 5. It also builds on the Week 3 Discussion, which provided you with general information about meaningful use and its ties to common workflow issues in health care. You will apply that knowledge in this Discussion by critically analyzing your colleague’s selected workflow issues, which will assist you in gaining a stronger grasp of the Course Project.

The Instructor in this course will also respond to your preliminary workflow issue and provide guidance for any necessary revisions or refinements you should make to better meet the requirements for the Course Project.

To prepare:

• Reflect on the workflow issue that you are planning to use for Part 1 of your Course Project (Incomplete Medication Reconciliation). Consider the inefficiencies and gaps based on your preliminary knowledge about the workflow.
• Examine how the workflow issue (Incomplete Medications Reconciliation) relates to electronic health records (EHRs). How could the workflow issue be addressed through either the implementation or optimization of an EHR system?
• Identify one or more specific meaningful use objectives that connect to your workflow issue (Incomplete Medication Reconciliation). Refer to the Learning Resources in Week 3 for a review of the meaningful use objectives.
• Review your initial thoughts on how you will conduct a gap analysis (your Gap Analysis Plan paper). What information will you need to obtain about the current-state workflow? How will you gather this information, and who will you consult in your organization?

With these thoughts in mind:

Post by 6pm today, a minimum of 550 words essay in APA format and a minimum of 3 references which include the level 1 headings as numbered below:

1) A description of the workflow issue you plan to use for your Course Project. The workflow issue I plan to use is “Incomplete Medication Reconciliation”.

2) Describe where the inefficiencies lie based on your current knowledge about the workflow, and identify the meaningful use objective(s) related to the workflow issue. (read Meaningful Use stage 1 & 2 on medication reconciliation)

3) Provide a brief overview of your plans for conducting a gap analysis, including your data-collection methods and who you will contact in the organization.

This week we will concentrate on Social Determinates of Health. The term social determinants of health refers to the complex, integrated, and overlapping social structures and economic systems that include social and physical environments and health services. Using this weeks readings or other outside sources, use your assignment 1 topics, a target population, and pick one social determinant of health (housing insecurity, poverty, education, social support etc.) and discuss how the health disparity/inequity impacts the target populations. See example below.

Topic: HIV

Target Population: African American Men

Social Determinates: Poverty

African American men that have sex with men between ages 16-34 (MSM) experience higher rates of HIV/AIDS mortality compared to any other racial or ethnic group. One factor that attributed to the high disparity is poverty. Young emerging adult African American MSM have incomes well below the federal poverty level and as a result are unable to afford life saving drugs. With the help of foundations and special programs offered by pharma companies such as Gilead, some individuals are able to quality for special programming to received medication, counseling and other health services…….

The Affordable Care Act seeks to improve the quality of care and the manner in which that care is delivered, while at the same time reducing costs.

Under the Quality of Care & Delivery systems at the following website: http://www.medicaid.gov/affordablecareact/provisions/quality-of-care-and-delivery-systems.html

Did you know that the United States has a higher rate of infant mortality than Japan (CIA, n.d.)? Or, as Dr. Beilenson states in this week’s media presentation, that “your zip code that you live in makes more difference in your health and well-being than the genetic code that you’re born with?” What causes these differences in health outcomes?

To effectively develop policies and programs to improve population health, it is useful to use a framework to guide the process. Different organizations and governmental agencies (for example, Healthy People 2020) have created a variety of such frameworks, which establish measures for assessing population health. These measures frequently are derived from the examination of epidemiologic data, which include key measures of population health such as mortality, morbidity, life expectancy, etc. Within each measure are a variety of progress indicators that use epidemiologic data to assess improvement or change.

For this Discussion, you will apply a framework developed by Kindig, Asada, and Booske (2008) to a population health issue of interest to you. This framework includes five key health determinants that should be considered when developing policies and programs to improve population health: access to health care, individual behavior, social environment, physical environment, and genetics. 

To prepare:

• Review the article “A Population Health Framework for Setting National and State Health Goals,” focusing on population health determinants.
• Review the information in the blog post “What Is Population Health?”
• With this information in mind, elect a population health issue that is of interest to you.
• Using this week’s Learning Resources, the Walden Library, and other relevant resources, conduct a search to locate current data on your population health issue.
• Consider how epidemiologic data has been used to design population health measures and policy initiatives in addressing this issue.

By Day 3

Post a summary of how the five population health determinants (access to health care, individual behavior, social environment, physical environment, and genetics) affect your selected health issue, and which determinants you think are most impactful for that particular issue and why. Explain how epidemiologic data supports the significance of your issue, and explain how this data has been used in designing population health measures and policy initiatives.

Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses.