To Prepare:
Review the Learning Resources for this week, and reflect on the different quality improvement models presented.
Select one quality improvement model from the following to focus on for this Discussion:
Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
A3
Lean
Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA)
Reflect on the quality improvement model you selected, and consider how it might be implemented in your healthcare organization or nursing practice.
Post a brief explanation of the quality improvement model you selected, including a description of the components that make up this model. Be specific. Then, explain how this quality improvement model might be implemented in you healthcare organization or nursing practice in response to an adverse event requiring quality improvement. Be specific and provide examples.
Discussion Week 8: Quality Improvement Models
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliations
Discussion Week 8: Quality Improvement Models
Healthcare organizations aspire to provide care that will improve patients’ well-being and outcomes. They are constantly implementing quality improvement interventions to address gaps in patient care that might be contributing to adverse events. According to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (2021), the application of quality improvement models to guide change initiatives helps healthcare organizations to track changes within their settings and establish whether the desired reforms are being achieved. Additionally, using such models, healthcare organizations are able to identify and modify things that did not go well during change implementation for better performance in the future. The quality improvement model that has been chosen for this discussion is the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycle. Guided by the PDSA model, the healthcare setting can implement a quality improvement initiative aimed at preventing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).
A Description of the Quality Improvement Model
The PDSA model is one of the quality improvement models that are widely used by healthcare organizations to guide change initiatives. It is a four-step model that comprises five phases or components namely plan, do, study, and act. The ‘plan’ component is the initial phase of a quality improvement initiative. Here, the project team writes a concise statement of what the change entails and the specific steps that will be undertaken to accomplish it (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2020). In the ‘do’ phase, the project team implements the actual change that is intended to improve the existing situation. The ‘study’ phase entails observing the impacts of the implemented initiative and recording whether the desired improvement has occurred. The final phase of the model is the ‘act’ phase where the project team records the lessons learned from the entire process, including what could have been done differently and how such lessons will be incorporated into future projects to produce better results (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2020). The figure below is a diagrammatic illustration of the PDSA model.
Figure 1: The PDSA Model
Application of the PDSA Model to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs)
The organization can implement the PDSA model to prevent healthcare-associated infections that have been on the rise in recent months. The model should direct the execution of evidence-based models. The evidence-based intervention that the organization should implement to prevent HAIs is educating nurses on hand hygiene before, during, and after handling patients (Haque et al., 2020). When applying the PDSA cycle, the organization should document training objectives including the specific issues that nurses will be trained about such as handwashing, wearing gloves, and sanitization. This should be done during the ‘plan’ phase. During the ‘do’ phase, the healthcare organization should conduct the actual implementation of the hand hygiene training program for the nurses. This should be followed by comparing the results with the intended outcome during the ‘study’ phase. The organization should document the lessons learned, including what to adopt and drop during the ‘act’ phase (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2020). Successful implementation of the PDSA cycle will help to prevent HAIs in the organization.
Conclusion
Quality improvement models help healthcare organizations to track changes within their settings and establish whether the desired reforms are being achieved. Rates of HAIs have been on the rise in the organization in the recent past. The PDSA model is a good framework to direct the implementation of a hand hygiene training program aimed at preventing HAIs.
References
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2020). Health literacy universal precautions toolkit, 2nd edition: Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) directions and examples. https://www.ahrq.gov/health-literacy/improve/precautions/tool2b.html
Haque, M., McKimm, J., Sartelli, M., Dhingra, S., Labricciosa, F. M., Islam, S., Jahan, D., Nusrat, T., Chowdhury, T. S., Coccolini, F., Iskandar, K., Catena, F., & Charan, J. (2020). Strategies to prevent healthcare-associated infections: a narrative overview. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 13, 1765-1780
https://doi.org/10.2147/RMHP.S269315
Institute for Healthcare Improvement. (2021). Science of improvement: How to improve. http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/HowtoImprove/ScienceofImprovementHowtoImprove.aspx