Review the story at the link below before posting to the discussion:

Rau, J. (2015). Half of nation's hospitals fail again to escape Medicare's readmission penalties. Kaiser Health News.

After you have finished, consider how you would respond to the following situation:

Your local hospital has received notice from CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid) regarding their readmission rates.

As a BSN prepared nurse, you have been asked to serve as a consultant to suggest a new Quality (Performance) Improvement process for ONE of the areas of deficiency.

Write some brief steps (suggestions) for improvement as you contemplate accepting the consulting opportunity.

Share practice improvements utilized from your own clinical nursing experiences that have led to enhanced patient outcomes.

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Collapse SubdiscussionDesirae Freeze

Desirae Freeze

All healthcare professionals, including nurses, must be actively involved in the continuous improvement of patient care. Quality improvement provides an opportunity to improve patient care at the unit level.

Most of these improvements concentrate energies on factors that are most important to patient quality and safety. Proactive management of quality supports continuous improvement of patient care.

What improvement method has been initiated at your facility? What data was gathered? How was this done? What outcomes were measured and how was change implemented to improve the quality of care and patient outcomes?