NURS 8303 Assignment: Project Management for Change to Address a Practice Gap

NURS 8303 Assignment: Project Management for Change to Address a Practice Gap

NURS 8303 Assignment: Project Management for Change to Address a Practice Gap

Assignment 1: Applying Project Management Approaches for a Quality Improvement Practice Gap
Project management allows for a clear and focused workflow to approach an issue or task. These approaches streamline a process, allow for checks and balances, and ensure all stakeholders are active participants in the process. Project management approaches often utilize SMART objectives to define and set the objectives for the project.

Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

ORDER A CUSTOMIZED, PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

Good News For Our New customers . We can write this assignment for you and pay after Delivery. Our Top -rated medical writers will comprehensively review instructions , synthesis external evidence sources(Scholarly) and customize a quality assignment for you. We will also attach a copy of plagiarism report alongside and AI report. Feel free to chat Us

Each letter of the acronym SMART defines a different criterion for the objective. A SMART objective is specific, measurable, assignable, realistic, and timely. These objectives help to steer the work and direct the stakeholders to the completion of the project.
For this Assignment, you will reflect on project management approaches that could be used to address a quality improvement practice gap. You will develop SMART objectives for the planning and execution of a quality improvement project, and will consider potential project management approaches or activities that could be used in executing this project.

To Prepare:
Review the Learning Resources for this week, and consider the approaches of project management.
Refer to the Week 3 Discussion, and reflect on the quality improvement practice gap you identified.
Consider how you might apply the project management approaches examined this week to address the quality improvement practice gap you identified.
Think about how you might develop SMART objectives for the planning and execution of a project to address the quality improvement practice gap you identified.
Consider any other project management approaches or activities you might recommend using for your project that will address the quality improvement practice gap you identified.
The Assignment: (2–3 pages)
Briefly describe the quality improvement practice gap you identified in your nursing practice or organization. Be specific.
Develop at least two SMART objectives you might apply in the project planning phase or execution phase to address the quality improvement practice gap you identified.
Recommend at least two project management activities you would use for your project, addressing the quality improvement practice gap you identified. Explain your justification for why these activities would provide the best support. Be specific and provide examples.
Reminder: The College of Nursing requires that all papers submitted include a title page, introduction, summary, and references. The Sample Paper provided at the Walden Writing Center provides an example of those required elements (available at https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/templates/general#s-lg-box-20293632). All papers submitted must use this formatting.

ORDER A CUSTOMIZED, PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

A Sample Of This Assignment Written By One Of Our Top-rated Writers

Project Management for Change to Address a Practice Gap

            Evidence-based practice or EBP is the clinical practice in which every intervention that is used by the nurses is based on scholarly evidence supporting its efficacy (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2019). The body of EBP is however dynamic and growing day by day. For this reason, what may be acceptable today may turn out to be an obsolete intervention the following day due to new findings from fresh studies. This is why all healthcare organizations that want to remain competitive and also compliant always implement change whenever it becomes necessary. A practice gap is first recognized and acknowledged after which clinical inquiry into the best practices to fill the gap is performed. The best practices are then implemented systematically using a change model of choice within the process of translation. The purpose of this paper is to identify one practice gap and two of its SMART objectives.

Description of the Quality Improvement Practice Gap

            The quality improvement practice gap identified within the organization in question is an increase in the rate of patient falls (Stannard, 2021). This indicates that the interventions aimed at preventing these accidental falls are not adequate or even effective. According to Venema et al. (2019), the national benchmark for patient falls is 3.44 falls per 1,000 patient days. Falls within healthcare settings in the US are a major cause of morbidity, disability, and mortality. This is especially true with elderly patients who are 65 years old and above. These patients have other pre-existing conditions such as type II diabetes, hypertension, and neurocognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Fr this reason, they are very prone to suffering falls.

            Falls are considered by the quality regulatory authorities such as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) as never events. This means that they are preventable and therefore should never occur. For this reason, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services or CMS has since October of 2008 stopped reimbursements for care given to patients who have suffered falls within healthcare premises (Fehlberg et al., 2017). What this means is that this cost is borne by the organization. This is one of the reasons why the quality improvement practice gap has to be addressed.

Two SMART Objectives in the Project Planning Phase

            Change implementation is just a project like any other. This means that it has a budget and timelines that must be adhered to. It also has a project manager (team leader) and a project implementation team (Sipes, 2020). In this case, two of the SMART objectives are:

3. To reduce the falls rate to that of or below that marking the national benchmark (3.44 per 1,000 patient days) within a period of six months.
4. To reduce the number of malpractice litigations by half within a period of 12 months.

These objectives are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART). With the achievement of these objectives, it will be possible to change practice and incorporate evidence-based interventions.

Recommended Two Project Management Activities

            The two project management activities that I would recommend are the drawing up of the project scope and charter. The project scope defines what the project will be about, what the budget will be, the stakeholders, the project sponsor, and what the project intends to achieve. On the other hand, a charter is much larger and in most cases includes the scope. It is a testament that states and defines the authorization for the project to continue from the organization’s executives. Both the charter and the scope are important because the scope helps team members stay focused, while the charter gives them authority to go on with the project.

            Related to these is the need for a Gantt chart and a work breakdown structure or WBS. These are tools that the project manager employs to help ease the task of managing many people. They also help to view the project at a glance. As for the patient falls scenario for instance, the Gantt chart will be able to demonstrate what every team member will be doing and when. It helps a lot with the monitoring and evaluation of the project to see if it is on course to achieving its goals.

Conclusion

            The identification of a gap in practice is the start of a journey towards discovering evidence-based practice. In the case of this paper, the gap identified in the organization in question is that of a rising rate of accidental patient falls. Like in any EBP project, SMART objectives are set and this case was no exception. The paper provides two such objectives. 

 References

Fehlberg, E.A., Lucero, R.J., Weaver, M.T., McDaniel, A.M., Chandler, M., Richey, P.A., Mion, L.C., & Shorr, R. I. (2017). Impact of the CMS no-pay policy on hospital-acquired fall prevention related practice patterns. Innovation in Aging, 1(3), 1-7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igx036

Melnyk, B.M., & Fineout-Overholt, E. (2019). Evidence-based practice in nursing & healthcare: A guide to best practice, 4^th ed. Wolters Kluwer.

Sipes, C. (2020). Project management for the advanced practice nurse, 2^nd ed. Springer Publishing Company.

Stannard, D. (2021). Problem identification: The first step in evidence‐based practice. AORN Journal, 113(4), 377–378. https://doi.org/10.1002/aorn.13359

Venema, D.M., Skinner, A.M., Nailon, R., Conley, D., High, R., & Jones, K.J. (2019). Patient and system factors associated with unassisted and injurious falls in hospitals: An observational study. BMC Geriatrics, 19(348), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-019-1368-8