NURS FPX 4020 Assessment 3 Improvement Plan In-Service Presentation Presentation’s Outline
Safety Improvement Plan
The current problem necessitating a safety improvement plan is healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Also called nosocomial infections, HAIs are infections not present at the time of admission to a care facility (Cristina et al., 2021). They are a significant threat to patient safety and care quality, hence the need for practical interventions to improve health outcomes. As health professionals work in multiple settings, knowledge of the causes of HAIs is crucial for effective control. Leading causes include inappropriate hand hygiene practices, dependence on excessive antibiotics, and the conditions of the care environments, particularly infected and polluted hospital surfaces (Mouajou et al., 2022; Haque et al., 2020). An intervention may be designed to address one or multiple risk factors.
The adverse effects of HAIs underline the need for care providers, hospital managers, program analysts, and other professionals to collaborate and implement safety improvement programs. According to Peters et al. (2022), HAIs increase the risk of other infections besides prolonging hospitalizations. Prolonged hospitalizations imply increased dependence on costly care and the use of health care resources. This increases illness management costs for patients, families, and care facilities. HAIs also demonstrate a hospital’s inability to provide care that meets the desired patient outcomes. Consequently, they ruin patient-provider relationships due to decreased trust in the care process. A robust safety improvement plan would help the organization prevent these risks and others related to HAIs.
The Proposed Plan
The multifaceted nature of HAIs necessitates a multimodal safety improvement plan. The most appropriate is infection prevention and control (ICP) policy and planning for ensuring HAI risks are identified and effectively addressed (Haque et al., 2020). The plan has three components essential for improvement outcomes. Its first component is a risk assessment to identify at-risk patients and cohort them into a contact precautions group. The second component is environmental hygiene to reduce the risk of transmission significantly. In this case, porous and non-porous surfaces that increase the risk of infection should be routinely cleaned and disinfected. The third component is the plan’s sustainability through policy adoption and continuous health education.
Importance of Addressing the Current Situation
Addressing HAIs denotes a commitment to providing care that meets the desired outcomes. As a result, it is a strategy for reducing performance gaps and aligning care with the organization’s strategic goals. Peters et al. (2022) found that safety improvement through infection control is essential for reduced hospitalizations, morbidity, and health management costs. The infection control and prevention program is crucial for ensuring compliance with government regulations. Through the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) obliges health care providers to coordinate care and adopt other interventions to reduce avoidable readmissions (CMS.gov, 2023). Infection control reduces readmissions by preventing HAIs. Above all, the program is critical in improving patient-provider relationships that are usually ruined when care quality fails to meet patients’ expectations.
Audience’s Role and Importance
The current plan’s success depends on your valuable contribution to the implementation process and other critical phases. Your first role is to embrace a new workplace culture characterized by new roles, perspectives, and work approaches. Secondly, nursing staff directly involved in patient care should actively participate in change implementation. Driving the safety improvement plan further requires the entire health care staff to liaise with colleagues to enhance safety by identifying risks and offering effective responses as the plan recommends. Other valuable roles include educating patients and care providers on infection control and guiding new nurses on safety protocols for the plan to achieve long-term success.
It is also important to understand how you are critical to the success of the safety improvement plan for HAIs. Firstly, its success depends on how you collaborate to implement clinical knowledge. For instance, effective risk assessment of vulnerable patients combines clinical knowledge, analytical judgment, and risk assessment skills. Secondly, successful HAI prevention requires an interdisciplinary approach. Therefore, your presence and commitment to implement the plan are needed at all phases. A key benefit associated with your participation is promoting a safety culture in the organization. This implies working in envi