HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS AND QUALITY OUTCOMES

To prepare:

Review the Learning Resources. Also conduct a search of the literature related to your selected quality improvement issue and complete the Evidence Matrix (provided in this week’s Learning Resources).

Evaluate the evidence presented in the research literature and the quality standards proposed by various organizations, including the IOM’s six aims for quality improvement.

Based on this review and your knowledge of the organization that you have selected, determine appropriate measures and indicators of performance related to your identified quality improvement issue.

Consider how you could gather and use historical evidence of the organization’s performance related to the quality improvement issue. Also consider methods for gathering and assessing current quantitative and qualitative data, including those currently in use by the organization (e.g., chart audit data, staff surveys, quality indicators that are monitored, observations). If possible, examine actual data to assess your selected organization’s performance related to the issue.

Think about what, specifically, you would like to achieve related to this issue. Establish realistic, evidence-based quality performance targets.

Analyze gap(s) between the organization’s current performance and the performance targets.

As you do this, you may wish to create a graphic organizer/alignment chart for your own use that illustrates:

The measures and indicators that you would evaluate

Current and historical data related to this quality issue—either actual data or methods for how you would collect and analyze the data

Methods for collecting and analyzing data in the future (including when you would do this)

Realistic, evidence-based targets

To complete this Assignment, you will write a paper introducing your quality improvement plan.

Think about the quality improvement issue that you are addressing and the associated plan that you are developing. Consider the following:

What is the overall purpose, or aim, of doing this work?

What would you hope to achieve for the organization by undertaking this project? What are the objectives of this initiative?

What value would this work add to the organization?

How would this work improve practice and create outcomes with impact?

Review Chapter 7 of the Sadeghi, Barzi, Mikhail, and Shabot course text. Consider how addressing this quality improvement issue would align with the organization’s mission, vision, values, and strategic goals and objectives. How does it relate to regulatory issues, and other matters that are significant for the organization? If you notice a misalignment, use this as an opportunity to refine your focus.

With this in mind, continue to hone your development of this Assignment, integrating the concepts addressed here into Section 3.