Decrease in client satisfaction scores related to staff explaining discharge instructions in a manner that is understandable to the client/client.

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Care Clinic Scenario: The Executive Team of Care Clinic prides itself in the care that is provided to the community of Summerville, Florida. The Clinic is known for holistic approach to the individuals served at the clinic as well as presenting various community outreach programs. Annually, the Executive Team of Care Clinic reviews the client satisfaction benchmark results related to client service and quality indicators. The scores have substantially decreased in the past 12 months in the categories of client satisfaction and quality care.

To assist in understanding the quality issues related to client care occurring within the Care Clinic, you are provided with two videos of client situations that have been recorded using Second Life. You are also required to enter Second Life to observe actions and conversations occurring within the Care Clinic. When viewing the videos and participating within the Care Clinic located in Second Life, consider yourself to be the manager and identify quality care issues consistent with decreasing client satisfaction scores. From your leadership perspective, determine how the declining benchmarks can be addressed and improved. Discuss the actions/changes that need to be implemented in order to improve the satisfaction scores and attained Care Clinic quality outcomes.

The Care Clinic Improvement Project will need to be completed by the end of week six of this course and requires that each of the following areas to be addressed.

1. Identify ONE satisfaction benchmark that you will be addressing and why this benchmark has been selected. Select the ONE client satisfaction benchmark from the following list:

2. Decrease in client satisfaction scores related to courtesy and friendliness of staff at the Care Clinic.

3. Decrease in client satisfaction scores related to staff explaining discharge instructions in a manner that is understandable to the client/client.

4. Decrease in the quality nursing care related to interventions provided to clients at the Clinic.

5. Describe the leadership dynamics related to how the improvement/change project will be managed.

6. Identify the change model that will be used in addressing the selected benchmark.

7. Describe the course of action/change.

What health maintenance or preventive education is important for this client based on your choice medication/treatment?

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Mr. JD is a 24-year-old who presents to Urgent Care with a 2-week history of cough and congestion. He says it started out as a “normal cold” and it will not go away. He has a productive cough for green mucous and has green nasal discharge. He says he has had a low-grade temperature for the past 2 days. John reports an intermittent frontal headache with this cold. He is otherwise healthy, with no known allergies. 
In his assessment it is found that his vital signs are stable, temperature is 99.9 degrees F, tympanic membranes (TMs) are clear bilaterally, pharynx is erythematous with no exudate; there is greenish postnasal drainage; turbinates are swollen and red; frontal sinus tenderness; no cervical adenopathy, and lungs are clear bilaterally.

  • Is there any additional subjective or objective information you need for this client? Explain.

In addition to what we have been told there are several things that may be identified. On first glance it would be important to assess the patients skin color, assess if they were sweating or were cold. It would be necessary to ask about allergies and see if he has been exposed to any possible allergens or irritants. It would need to be determined if this was the first time this has happened or has been a common occurrence. Assessing any recent traumatic injuries, headaches, or nose bleeds may help the clinician determine the root cause of the problem. Family history, patients past medical history, social history, and any current medications is a definite must. His vitals are stable besides the climb in temperature, so you could ask how he was sleeping and if he was getting enough fluid intake.

  • Would you treat Mr. JDs cold? Why or why not?

I would definitely treat JD’s symptoms. He has been down and out for two weeks and his condition is not getting any better. His temperature is increasing, and he is symptomatic with tender mucous membranes, post nasal drip, and erythema. These are signs of an infection that should be treated. Not only is he at risk for getting worse but he could potentially expose others to his current illness.  Clinical diagnosis of acute bacterial sinusitis requires prolonged, nonspecific upper respiratory signs such as rhinosinusitis and cough without improvement for more than 10 days, and symptoms such as fever, facial swelling, or facial pain (Woo & Robinson, 2016).

What would you prescribe and for how many days? Include the class of the medication, mechanism of action, route, the half-life; how it is metabolized in and eliminated from the body; and contraindications and black box warnings.

Many times, antibiotics are prescribed too quickly and often times will not be effective if it is a viral infection. Based on the assessment findings and the little we know about the patient; the patient could have possible sinusitis. The first-line treatment for sinusitis in adults is amoxicillin/clavulanate (875 mg amoxicillin/125 mg clavulanate) for 5 to 7 days (Woo & Robinson, 2016). This medication has a half-life of 1-1.3 hours, is metabolized by the liver and eliminated in the urine. It usually takes 30 minutes to be effective and peaks in 1-2 hours. This medication is an oral antibacterial combination that consist of the semisynthetic antibiotic amoxicillin and the β-lactamase inhibitor (FDA, n.d.). This bactericidal hinders bacterial growth by inhibiting the biosynthesis of bacterial cell wall mucopeptide (Woo & Robinson, 2016). For JD, it would be necessary to check a comprehensive metabolic panel to assess liver and kidney function. There is not a black box warning and usually does not have any side effects other than a possible rash. It is usually safe during pregnancy however before prescribing it would be necessary to assess allergies and inform the patient about potential side effects like a rash.

Would this treatment vary if Mr. JD was a 10 year-old 78 lb child? Include the class of the medication, mechanism of action, dosing, route, the half-life; how it is metabolized in and eliminated from the body; and contraindications and black box warnings

Amoxicillin is first-line therapy for sinusitis in children (Woo & Robinson, 2016). If the child has not recently been on antibiotics, they should be on a dose of 25-50mg/kg/d in divided doses. This bactericidal medication is an aminopenicillin that is taken orally, has a half-life of 1.3hrs, is metabolized in the liver and excreted in the urine, and works by inhibiting the bacterial cell wall mucopeptide (Woo & Robinson, 2016). As stated before, it does not have any black box warnings and patients kidney and liver functioning is a concern before use.

What health maintenance or preventive education is important for this client based on your choice medication/treatment?

I would instruct this patient to take the medication until it is gone; not stop it early. In addition, if they failure to respond within 3 to 5 days he should prompt notify his PCP and a change in therapy should be considered (Woo & Robinson, 2016). I would instruct the patient to get plenty of sleep, increase fluid intake, and take a probiotic once they are done with their regimen. Antibiotics have been known to kill of not only the bad bacteria in the gut but the good as well. Preventing side effects like diarrhea should be taken prophylactically.  They should be taken on an empty stomach, 1 hour before a meal or 2 hours after meals (Woo & Robinson, 2016). For additional resources, I would tell the patient the pharmacist is a great tool for resource if they had questions when they picked up the medication but to always call the PCP for further questioning.

Describe how goals might be set for each measure in an aggressive organization, which is seeking to excel in the marketplace. 

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In an 8 to 10-page paper, APA format and 5 references, describe three rate based measurements of quality.

Select three rate based measurements of quality that you will use as the primary basis for this paper.

These measurements must relate to some aspect of clinical or service quality that directly relates to patient care or the patient’s experience of care.  For the purposes of this assignment, an analysis of staffing levels is not permitted.  You can find useful information on quality indicators that are of interest to you on these websites and resources.  You may choose only one of the three measures to be some form of patient satisfaction measure.

Deconstruct each measure to include descriptions of the each of the following as numbered below:

1) The definition of the measure

2) The numerical description of how the measurement is constructed (the numerator/denominator measure counts, the formula used to construct the rate, etc.)

3) Explain how the data for this measure are collected

4) Describe how the measurement is compared externally to other like settings; differentiate between the actual rate and a percentile ranking.

5) Explain whether the measure is risk adjusted or not.  If so, explain briefly how this is accomplished.

6) Describe how goals might be set for each measure in an aggressive organization, which is seeking to excel in the marketplace.

Describe the importance of each measure to a chosen clinical organization and setting.

Using these websites and resources you can choose a hospital, a nursing home, a home health agency, a dialysis center, a health plan, an outpatient clinic or private office; a total population of patient types is also acceptable, but please be specific as to the setting. That is, if you are interested in patients with chronic illness across the continuum of care, you might home in a particular health plan, a multispecialty practice setting or a healthcare organization with both inpatient and outpatient/clinic settings. Faculty appointments and academic settings are not permitted for this exercise. For all other settings, consult the instructor for guidance. You do not need actual data from a given organization to complete this assignment.

Relate each measure to patient safety, to the cost of poor quality, and to the overall cost of healthcare.

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 5: “Data Collection”

Chapter 6: “Statistical Tools for QI”

Park, J., Konetzka, R. T., & Werner, R. M. (2011). Performing well on nursing home report cards: Does it pay off? Health Services Research, 46(2), 531–554. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6773.2010.01197.x

  1. The study in this article evaluates whether or not nursing homes benefit from improvements in quality measures. Four financial outcomes are measured before and after the improvements are enacted. The study shows that the nursing homes that improved quality measures benefited financially.

Suchy, K. (2010). A lack of standardization: The basis for the ethical issues surrounding quality and performance reports. Journal of Healthcare Management, 55(4), 241–251.

Because performance reports are easily found online, this article supports creating ethical guidelines for the performance reports of the health care industry. It compares nearly ten different organizations that provide performance reporting, and then it proposes an ethical framework and principles for public quality reporting.

Wachter, R. M., & Pronovost, P. J. (2009). Balancing “no blame” with accountability in patient safety. New England Journal of Medicine, 361(14), 1401–1406.

This article addresses the issue of individual accountability in health care organizations. It suggests moving from a culture within health care that does not place blame on individuals to a culture where individuals become more accountable.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (n.d.). Quality initiatives: Overview. Retrieved from http://www.cms.gov/QualityInitiativesGenInfo/

Created by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, this website overviews quality initiatives that affect the health care industry. It also provides information and downloadable PDFs on the Post-Acute Care Reform Plan and Development of Quality Indicators for Impatient Rehabilitation Facilities (IRF).

Required Media

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

Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 10 minutes.

The presenters in this video discuss various external organizations involved in quality, and examine the enforcement of standards by governmental agencies versus voluntary organizations. This program also addresses the publication of quality information and why organizations should do their own reporting in addition to mandated reporting. Licensing, credentialing, and certification are discussed as they relate to the social compact that health care providers have for quality and safety.

. Describe two strategies that you, as an advanced practice nurse, would use to guide your decision making in this scenario.

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What type of drug should you prescribe based on your patient’s diagnosis? How much of the drug should the patient receive? How often should the drug be administered? When should the drug not be prescribed? Are there individual patient factors that could create complications when taking the drug? Should you be prescribing drugs to this patient?

These are some of the questions you might consider when selecting a treatment plan for a patient. As an advanced practice nurse prescribing drugs, you are held accountable for people’s lives on a daily basis. Patients and their families will often place trust in you because of your position. With this trust comes power and responsibility, as well as an ethical and legal obligation to “do no harm.” It is important that you are aware of current professional, legal, and ethical standards for advanced practice nurses with prescriptive authority. In this Discussion, you explore ethical and legal implications of scenarios and consider how to appropriately respond.

Scenario 1:

As a nurse practitioner, you prescribe medications for your patients. You make an error when prescribing medication to a 5-year-old patient. Rather than dosing him appropriately, you prescribe a dose suitable for an adult.

Scenario 2:

A friend calls and asks you to prescribe a medication for her. You have this autonomy, but you don’t have your friend’s medical history. You write the prescription anyway.

Scenario 3:

You see another nurse practitioner writing a prescription for her husband who is not a patient of the nurse practitioner. The prescription is for a narcotic. You can’t decide whether or not to report the incident.

Scenario 4:

During your lunch break at the hospital, you read a journal article on pharmacoeconomics. You think of a couple of patients who have recently mentioned their financial difficulties. You wonder if some of the expensive drugs you have prescribed are sufficiently managing the patients’ health conditions and improving their quality of life.

To prepare:

· Review Chapter 1 of the Arcangelo and Peterson text, as well as articles from the American Nurses Association, Anderson and Townsend, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Philipsend and Soeken.

· Select one of the four scenarios listed above.

· Consider the ethical and legal implications of the scenario for all stakeholders involved such as the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and the patient’s family.

· Think about two strategies that you, as an advanced practice nurse, would use to guide your ethically and legally responsible decision-making in this scenario.

With these thoughts in mind:

Post an explanation of the ethical and legal implications of the scenario you selected on all stakeholders involved such as the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and the patient’s family. Describe two strategies that you, as an advanced practice nurse, would use to guide your decision making in this scenario.

LINKS:

https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/nursing-excellence/ethics/code-of-ethics-for-nurses/

https://www.ismp.org/recommendations/error-prone-abbreviations-list