Overview

Deliver a 5–7-page analysis of an existing quality improvement initiative at your workplace. The QI initiative you choose to analyze should be related to specific disease, condition, or public health issue of personal or professional interest to you.

Too often, discussions about quality health care, care costs, and outcome measures take place in isolation—each group talking among themselves about results and enhancements. Because nurses are critical to the delivery of high-quality, efficient health care, it is essential that they develop the proficiency to review, evaluate performance reports, and be able to effectively communicate outcome measures related to quality initiatives. The nursing staff’s perspective and the need to collaborate on quality care initiatives are fundamental to patient safety and positive institutional health care outcomes.

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:

• Competency 2: Plan quality improvement initiatives in response to routine data surveillance.
  • Recommend additional indicators and protocols to improve and expand quality outcomes of a quality initiative.
• Competency 3: Evaluate quality improvement initiatives using sensitive and sound outcome measures.
  • Analyze a current quality improvement initiative in a health care setting.
  • Evaluate the success of a current quality improvement initiative through recognized benchmarks and outcome measures.
• Competency 4: Integrate interprofessional perspectives to lead quality improvements in patient safety, cost effectiveness, and work-life quality
  • Incorporate interprofessional perspectives related to initiative functionality and outcomes.
• Competency 5: Apply effective communication strategies to promote quality improvement of interprofessional care.
  • Communicate evaluation and analysis in a professional and effective manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
  • Integrate relevant sources to support arguments, correctly formatting citations and references using current APA style.

Assessment Instructions

Preparation

You have been asked to prepare and deliver an analysis of an existing quality improvement initiative at your workplace. The QI initiative you choose to analyze should be related to a specific disease, condition, or public health issue of personal or professional interest to you. The purpose of the report is to assess whether specific quality indicators point to improved patient safety, quality of care, cost and efficiency goals, and other desired metrics.

Your target audience consists of nurses and other health professionals with specializations or interest in your selected condition, disease, or issue. In your report, you will define the disease, analyze how the condition is managed, identify the core performance measurements used to treat or manage the condition, and evaluate the impact of the quality indicators on the health care facility:

Note: Remember, you can submit all, or a portion of, your draft to Smarthinking for feedback, before you submit the final version of your analysis for this assessment. However, be mindful of the turnaround time for receiving feedback, if you plan on using this free service.

The numbered points below correspond to grading criteria in the scoring guide. The bullets below each grading criterion further delineate tasks to fulfill the assessment requirements. Be sure that your Quality Improvement Initiative Evaluation addresses all of the content below. You may also want to read the scoring guide to better understand the performance levels that relate to each grading criterion.

1. Analyze a current quality improvement initiative in a health care setting.
   • Evaluate a QI initiative and explain what prompted the implementation. Detail problems that were not addressed and any issues that arose from the initiative.
2. Evaluate the success of a current quality improvement initiative through recognized benchmarks and outcome measures.
   • Analyze the benchmarks that were used to evaluate success. Detail what was the most successful, as well as what outcome measures are missing or could be added.
3. Incorporate interprofessional perspectives related to initiative functionality and outcomes.
   • Integrate the perspectives of interprofessional team members involved in the initiative. Detail who you talked to, their professions, and the impact of their perspectives on your analysis.
4. Recommend additional indicators and protocols to improve and expand quality outcomes of a quality initiative.
   • Recommend specific process or protocol changes as well as added technologies that would improve quality outcomes.
5. Communicate evaluation and analysis in a professional and effective manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
6. Integrate relevant sources to support arguments, correctly formatting citations and references using current APA style.

Submission Requirements

• Length of submission: A minimum of five but no more than seven double-spaced, typed pages.
• Number of references: Cite a minimum of four sources (no older than seven years, unless seminal work) of scholarly peer reviewed or professional evidence that support your interpretation and analysis.
• APA formatting: Resources and citations are formatted according to current APA style and formatting.

Note: Faculty may use the Writing Feedback Tool when grading this assessment. The Writing Feedback Tool is designed to provide you with guidance and resources to develop your writing based on five core skills. You will find writing feedback in the Scoring Guide for the assessment, once your work has been evaluated.