Essay Assignment – Quality Improvement Initiative

Quality Improvement Initiative

When attempting to garner support for a quality improvement initiative, it is important to demonstrate how the initiative supports the organization’s mission, vision, and values, as well as external factors that influence an organization’s priorities. Delivering a proposal for a quality improvement initiative requires clear, concise communication of the plan.

Write a minimum of 550 words essay with at least 2 references in APA format. Include the level one headings as numbered below:

1) Choose a QI initiative which has been the subject of focus in any healthcare setting. Explain the rationale that your senior leaders used in selecting this initiative for attention and focus.

2) Explain how adverse events are handled in your organization from the public’s perspective and well as internally.

3) Find a scholarly article or one from the public press, published within the last 5 years which recounts a serious error. Relate this error to any organization with which you have some familiarity.

Required Readings

Joshi, M.S., Ransom, E.R., Nash, D.B., & Ransom, S.B., (Eds.). (2014). The Healthcare Quality Book, 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press.

Chapter 11: “Patient Safety and Medical Errors”

Clarke, C. M., & Persaud, D. D. (2011). Leading clinical handover improvement: a change strategy to implement best practices in the acute care setting. Journal of Patient Safety, 7(1), 11–18. doi:10.1097/PTS.0b013e31820c98a8

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Designed for leaders who want to improve quality care, this article focuses on clinical handovers that occur within acute care facilities. It provides a model for improvement and is intended to be a supplemental resource that can be used with the existing research and literature on this topic.

Sennett, C. (2010). Healthcare reform: Quality outcomes measurement and reporting. American Health & Drug Benefits. Retrieved from http://www.ahdbonline.com/article/healthcare-reform-quality-outcomes-measurement-and-reporting

The article on this website discusses features of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), focusing on the outcomes and implications for quality outcomes measuring and reporting.

Lazarus, I.R. (2011). What will It take? Exploiting trends in strategic planning to prepare for reform. Journal of Healthcare Management, 56(2), 89–93. Essay Assignment – Quality Improvement Initiative

Required Media

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2011). Organizational and systems leadership for quality improvement: Organizational priorities for quality improvement. Baltimore: Author.

Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 9 minutes.

This video provides an overview of organizational factors that influence quality. Lillee Gelinas discusses the importance of teamwork and enlisting leadership to help move quality initiatives forward. Other topics addressed include the role of stakeholders in improving patient safety and the responsibility of hospital board members in setting the quality and safety agenda.

Essay Assignment – Quality Improvement Initiative

Disparities and Determinants of Health Reflective Assignment Paper

Health disparities and the social determinants of health can be influenced by many factors, some obvious and some you may never have considered until now. What does health equity mean to you? What can be done to improve the health of vulnerable populations in your community, nationally, and even globally?

To prepare for this Application Assignment, review your Learning Resources and the Discussion posts from your classmates this week. Think about your community, and particularly the vulnerable populations and their health risks, as you answer the questions in this week’s application. Find at least two additional resources to add information to your application. One resource should be from a recent (last 5 years) peer-reviewed journal (from the Walden University Library). For suggestions to help with your search, visit the Library. The other additional resource should be from an online source with “.edu”, “.org”, or “.gov” in the web address to ensure you are accessing a reliable resource.

To complete this Application Assignment, write a 2- to 3-page Disparities and Determinants of Health Reflective Assignment Paper that discusses how health equity and the social determinants of health, as described in this week’s Learning Resources, relate to a racial, ethnic, or geographic group of your choice. In your paper, answer the following questions:

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1. What does health equity mean to you? What is the impact of health equity from the perspective of a health care professional?
2. What racial, ethnic, or geographic population are you basing this application on? What types of issues related to health equity are reported in the population you selected for this application?
3. How does your definition of health equity and diversity relate to Walden’s mission of social justice?

Instruction:

Be sure to support your Disparities and Determinants of Health Reflective Assignment Paper work with specific citations from this week’s Learning Resources and additional scholarly sources, as required.

Resources:

Resources for files below:

https://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dch/programs/healthycommunitiesprogram/tools/pdf/SDOH-workbook.pdf

https://class.waldenu.edu/bbcswebdav/institution/USW1/201830_05/BS_HLST/HLTH_3115_WC/artifacts/USW1_HLTH_3115_Week2-WHO_Social_Determinants_health_exec_summary.pdf

Resources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2137064/

https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

Disparities and Determinants of Health Reflective Assignment Paper

Streptococcal Pharyngitis NURS 6501 Week 1 Discussion: Alterations in Cellular Processes

Nursing Essay Writing Proofreading

Basics of Thesis Statements

The thesis statement is the brief articulation of your paper’s central argument and purpose. You might hear it referred to as simply a “thesis.” Every scholarly paper should have a thesis statement, and strong thesis statements are concise, specific, and arguable. Concise means the thesis is short: perhaps one or two sentences for a shorter paper. Specific means the thesis deals with a narrow and focused topic, appropriate to the paper’s length. Arguable means that a scholar in your field could disagree (or perhaps already has!).

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Strong thesis statements address specific intellectual questions, have clear positions, and use a structure that reflects the overall structure of the paper. Read on to learn more about constructing a strong thesis statement.

Being Specific

This thesis statement has no specific argument:

Needs Improvement: In this essay, I will examine two scholarly articles to find similarities and differences.

This statement is concise, but it is neither specific nor arguable—a reader might wonder, “Which scholarly articles? What is the topic of this paper? What field is the author writing in?” Additionally, the purpose of the paper—to “examine…to find similarities and differences” is not of a scholarly level. Identifying similarities and differences is a good first step, but strong academic argument goes further, analyzing what those similarities and differences might mean or imply. Nursing Essays Thesis Statements

Better: In this essay, I will argue that Bowler’s (2003) autocratic management style, when coupled with Smith’s (2007) theory of social cognition, can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover.

The new revision here is still concise, as well as specific and arguable.  We can see that it is specific because the writer is mentioning (a) concrete ideas and (b) exact authors.  We can also gather the field (business) and the topic (management and employee turnover). The statement is arguable because the student goes beyond merely comparing; he or she draws conclusions from that comparison (“can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover”).

Making a Unique Argument

This thesis draft repeats the language of the writing prompt without making a unique argument:

Needs Improvement: The purpose of this essay is to monitor, assess, and evaluate an educational program for its strengths and weaknesses. Then, I will provide suggestions for improvement.

You can see here that the student has simply stated the paper’s assignment, without articulating specifically how he or she will address it. The student can correct this error simply by phrasing the thesis statement as a specific answer to the assignment prompt.

Better: Through a series of student interviews, I found that Kennedy High School’s antibullying program was ineffective. In order to address issues of conflict between students, I argue that Kennedy High School should embrace policies outlined by the California Department of Education (2010).

Words like “ineffective” and “argue” show here that the student has clearly thought through the assignment and analyzed the material; he or she is putting forth a specific and debatable position. The concrete information (“student interviews,” “antibullying”) further prepares the reader for the body of the paper and demonstrates how the student has addressed the assignment prompt without just restating that language. Nursing Essays Thesis Statements.

Creating a Debate

This thesis statement includes only obvious fact or plot summary instead of argument:

Needs Improvement: Leadership is an important quality in nurse educators.

A good strategy to determine if your thesis statement is too broad (and therefore, not arguable) is to ask yourself, “Would a scholar in my field disagree with this point?” Here, we can see easily that no scholar is likely to argue that leadership is an unimportant quality in nurse educators.  The student needs to come up with a more arguable claim, and probably a narrower one; remember that a short paper needs a more focused topic than a dissertation.

Better: Roderick’s (2009) theory of participatory leadership  is particularly appropriate to nurse educators working within the emergency medicine field, where students benefit most from collegial and kinesthetic learning.

Here, the student has identified a particular type of leadership (“participatory leadership”), narrowing the topic, and has made an arguable claim (this type of leadership is “appropriate” to a specific type of nurse educator). Conceivably, a scholar in the nursing field might disagree with this approach. The student’s paper can now proceed, providing specific pieces of evidence to support the arguable central claim. Nursing Essays Thesis Statements

Choosing the Right Words

This thesis statement uses large or scholarly-sounding words that have no real substance:

Needs Improvement: Scholars should work to seize metacognitive outcomes by harnessing discipline-based networks to empower collaborative infrastructures.

There are many words in this sentence that may be buzzwords in the student’s field or key terms taken from other texts, but together they do not communicate a clear, specific meaning. Sometimes students think scholarly writing means constructing complex sentences using special language, but actually it’s usually a stronger choice to write clear, simple sentences. When in doubt, remember that your ideas should be complex, not your sentence structure.

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Better: Ecologists should work to educate the U.S. public on conservation methods by making use of local and national green organizations to create a widespread communication plan.

Notice in the revision that the field is now clear (ecology), and the language has been made much more field-specific (“conservation methods,” “green organizations”), so the reader is able to see concretely the ideas the student is communicating. Nursing Essays Thesis Statements

Leaving Room for Discussion

This thesis statement is not capable of development or advancement in the paper:

Needs Improvement: There are always alternatives to illegal drug use.

This sample thesis statement makes a claim, but it is not a claim that will sustain extended discussion. This claim is the type of claim that might be appropriate for the conclusion of a paper, but in the beginning of the paper, the student is left with nowhere to go. What further points can be made? If there are “always alternatives” to the problem the student is identifying, then why bother developing a paper around that claim? Ideally, a thesis statement should be complex enough to explore over the length of the entire paper.

Better: The most effective treatment plan for methamphetamine addiction may be a combination of pharmacological and cognitive therapy, as argued by Baker (2008), Smith (2009), and Xavier (2011).

In the revised thesis, you can see the student make a specific, debatable claim that has the potential to generate several pages’ worth of discussion. When drafting a thesis statement, think about the questions your thesis statement will generate: What follow-up inquiries might a reader have? In the first example, there are almost no additional questions implied, but the revised example allows for a good deal more exploration.

Extra Tips
Thesis Mad Libs

If you are having trouble getting started, try using the models below to generate a rough model of a thesis statement! These models are intended for drafting purposes only and should not appear in your final work.

In this essay, I argue ____, using ______ to assert _____.
While scholars have often argued ______, I argue______, because_______.
Through an analysis of ______, I argue ______, which is important because_______.
Words to Avoid and to Embrace

When drafting your thesis statement, avoid words like explore, investigate, learn, compile, summarize, and explain to describe the main purpose of your paper. These words imply a paper that summarizes or “reports,” rather than synthesizing and analyzing.

Instead of the terms above, try words like argue, critique, question, and interrogate. These more analytical words may help you begin strongly, by articulating a specific, critical, scholarly position.

Read Kayla’s blog post for tips on taking a stand in a well-crafted thesis statement. Nursing Essays Thesis Statements