Assignment

Overview

As a student of healthcare quality management, it is vital that you are able to identify problems that arise in healthcare organizations and propose strategies for their improvement. A critical part of this process requires you to be familiar with quality and accreditation standards and navigate the communication channels of the organization.

For your summative assignment, you will identify a departmental problem within a healthcare organization and develop a collaborative performance improvement initiative to address it. Ideally, the proposed evidence-based solution will serve to improve the departmental problem, thus contributing to the overall success of the healthcare organization. The project is divided into three milestones, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality final submissions. These milestones will be submitted in Modules Two, Four, and Seven. The final product will be submitted in Module Eight.

In this assignment, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following course outcomes:

• Evaluate appropriate methods of healthcare data collection and interpretation for informing organizational decision making

• Assess healthcare performance improvement initiatives for addressing gaps in organizational performance

• Evaluate requirements of current quality and safety initiatives for how they promote the culture of safety in healthcare organizations

• Formulate communication and teamwork strategies in quality management that engage diverse stakeholders within healthcare organizations

• Evaluate information management systems and patient care technologies that promote healthcare quality

Prompt

Begin by identifying an organizational problem within your own workplace healthcare setting or a hypothetical healthcare organization. Propose an initiative that addresses this chosen problem, utilizing evidence-based literature and quality standards. If you choose a problem in your workplace, be sure to utilize data from that healthcare organization; if you have created a hypothetical healthcare organization, you may use a public domain database with instructor permission. As this is a scholarly initiative, this assignment must adhere to all APA requirements and formatting, and include peer-reviewed and evidence-based sources to support any and all claims.

Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:

I. What Is the Organizational Problem?

1. Provide a contextual basis for the organizational problem that you have chosen. How does this problem fail to meet quality or other regulatory requirements?

2. Articulate organizational challenges posed by the problem (e.g., interdepartmental conflicts, communication failure, budgeting issues).

1. Evidence-Based Support

1. Provide data that supports the existence of the problem. You may utilize public sources to find data related to your selected problem.

2. How has this problem been addressed in the past? What information management systems or patient care technologies have been utilized
when addressing this problem? Be sure to use peer-reviewed literature to support your answer.

3. Discuss relevant accreditation standards, safety standards, compliance standards, and quality initiatives. How do these standards promote a culture of safety within the department? Be sure to cite the appropriate standards within your answer.

2. Performance Improvement Initiative

1. Propose an initiative that will address this problem within the department of your chosen healthcare organization. What specific relevant quality standard will this quality initiative address?

2. Discuss the data determinants of success, as related to this initiative. In other words, what type of data will be indicative of a quality outcome?

3. Implementation of the Plan in the Organization

1. What interdepartmental communication channels will be used for plan implementation?

2. What manner of data interpretation will be used to communicate the findings within the organization?

3. If this initiative was implemented, what do you believe would be the hypothetical effect(s) on patient care outcomes? How will health
information systems support those improvements in patient care?

4. What do you think the hypothetical effect of the quality or performance initiative will be on the culture of safety within the organization?

4. Success of the Performance Improvement Plan

1. If this initiative is successful, what would be the financial implications for the healthcare organization?

2. How would the existing information management systems contribute to the success of your proposal?

3. What organizational processes will permit continued viability of the performance improvement initiative, if it is successful?

4. Analyze interdepartmental communication that would be necessary for continued engagement in the proposed initiative.

Milestones

Milestone One: Identify Organizational Problem

In Module Two, you will identify an organizational problem within your own workplace healthcare setting or a hypothetical healthcare organization. If you choose a problem in your workplace, be sure to utilize data from that healthcare organization; if you have created a hypothetical healthcare organization, you may use a public domain database with instructor permission. As you develop this first part of the assignment, provide a contextual basis for the organizational problem and articulate the organizational challenges posed by the problem. Provide data that supports the existence of the problem.

Milestone Two: Initiative Proposal

In Module Four, propose an initiative that addresses your problem selected in Milestone One. You will also implement your performance improvement initiative and discuss what success of the performance improvement plan will look like after implementation.

Milestone Three: Implementation of Performance Initiative

In Module Seven, you will implement your performance improvement initiative. Additionally, you will discuss what success of the performance improvement plan will look like after implementation.