Quality Improvement Proposal

Quality Improvement Proposal

NURS-FPX6612

 

Assessment 2 Instructions: Quality Improvement Proposal

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Write a quality improvement proposal, 5-7 pages in length, that provides your recommendations for expanding a hospital’s HIT to include quality metrics that will help the organization qualify as an accountable care organization.

Introduction

Health care has undergone a transformation since the release of the Institute of Medicine’s 2000 report To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. The report highlighted medical errors as a contributing factor leading to poor patient outcomes. The Institute of Medicine challenged organizations to implement evidence-based performance improvement strategies in order to improve patient quality and safety. Multiple governmental and regulatory agencies, such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research (AHRQ), vowed to strengthen and improve incentives for participation, safety, quality, and efficiency in accountable care organizations (ACOs).

Health information technology (HIT) performs an essential role in improving health outcomes of individuals, the community, and populations. Health organizations, consumer advocacy groups, and regulatory committees have made a commitment to explore current and future opportunities that HIT offers to continue momentum to meet the Institute of Medicine’s goal of improving safety and quality.

Understanding HIT is important to improving individual, community, and population access to health care and health information. HIT enables quick and easy access to information for both patients and providers. Accessible information has been shown to improve the patient care experience and reduce redundancies, thereby reducing health care costs.

This assessment provides an opportunity for you to make recommendations for expanding a hospital’s HIT in ways that will help the hospital qualify as an ACO.

Reference

Institute of Medicine. (2000). To err is human: Building a safer health system. National Academies Press.

Preparation

In this assessment, you will again assume the role of case manager at Sacred Heart Hospital. This time, you are asked to develop a strategy for tracking quality metrics to help facilitate the hospital’s qualification for ACO status.

Before drafting your proposal, complete the following simulation exercise:

• Vila Health: Quality Metrics Tracking.

Note: Remember that you can submit all or a portion of your draft to Smarthinking for feedback before you submit the final version of this assessment. If you plan on using this free service, be mindful of the turnaround time of 24–48 hours for receiving feedback.

Requirements

Develop a proposal to expand Sacred Heart Hospital’s HIT to better include quality metrics—with the ultimate goal of qualifying for ACO status. Use the following template for your proposal:

• APA Style Paper Template [DOCX].

Writing the Proposal

The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Be sure that your proposal addresses each point, at a minimum. You may also want to read the Quality Improvement Proposal Scoring Guide to better understand how each criterion will be assessed.

• Recommend ways to expand the hospital’s HIT to include quality metrics.

• • How will you collect information and solve the problem of coordinating care for patients who are not getting diagnostic tests, such as mammograms or colonoscopies?
  • What can you do to track health information from the community or the target population to make necessary improvements?
  • How can you most effectively and efficiently show the role of informatics in nursing care coordination?
  • What evidence supports your recommendations?
• Describe the main focus of information gathering in health care and how it contributes to guiding the development of organizational practice.

• • Provide examples to support your description.
• Identify potential problems that can arise with data gathering systems and output.

• • What suggestions can you make for avoiding those problems?
• Write clearly and concisely, using correct grammar and mechanics.

• • Express your main points and conclusions coherently.
  • Proofread your writing to minimize errors that could distract readers and make it more difficult for them to focus on the substance of your proposal.
• Support main points, claims, and conclusions with relevant and credible evidence, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.

• • Is your supporting evidence clear and explicit?
  • How or why does particular evidence support a claim?
  • Will your audience see the connection?

Additional Requirements

Proposal Format and Length

Format your proposal using APA style:

• Use the APA Style Paper Template [DOCX] provided. Be sure to include:

• • A title page and references page. An abstract is not required.
  • A running head on all pages.
  • Appropriate section headings.
• See also the APA Style Paper Tutorial [DOCX] to help you in writing and formatting your proposal.
• Your proposal should be 5–7 pages in length, not including the title page and references page.

Supporting Evidence

• Cite at least six sources of credible scholarly or professional evidence to support your proposal.
• Apply APA formatting to all in-text citations and references.

Portfolio Prompt: You may choose to save your proposal to your ePortfolio.

• ePortfolio.

• • This resource provides information about ePortfolio, including how to use the different features of the product.
• Online ePortfolio Guidelines [PDF].