HLTH 4110 Walden University Improving a Healthcare Situation Discussion
Learning Resources
Required Readings
Spath, P. L. (2018). Introduction to healthcare quality management (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press.
- Chapter 5, “Continuous Improvement” (pp. 119–142)
- Chapter 6, “Performance Improvement Tools” (pp. 143–174)
Honeycutt, L. C., & Keller, S. D. (2018). Effectiveness of the lean process compared to other quality improvement initiatives on length of stay and wait times in healthcare organizations a systematic review protocol. JBI Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports, 16(1), 12–20.
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Required Media
Larsson, S. (2013, October). Stefan Larsson: What doctors can learn from each other [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/stefan_larsson_what_doct…
Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 13 minutes.
Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). Good Samaritan Hospital organizational chart—Week 4: Quality and safety improvement techniques. [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
This week, Vice President of Operations T.J. Senker and President Jeff Matton share how current and future improvement projects implemented by Good Samaritan Hospital have and will affect patient quality and safety directly and indirectly.
Discussion: Improving a Healthcare Situation
Healthcare organizations, by their nature, must constantly strive to improve quality of patient care. Many different approaches to improvement have been utilized over the years. The Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle (PDSA) is a useful tool that has been used by hundreds of healthcare organizations for testing proposed changes. In addition to PDSA, there are other valuable quality improvement techniques that may be used in the healthcare setting (such as Force Field Analysis, Fishbone, SBAR, 5 Whys, etc.).
In this Discussion, you will evaluate a situation and apply an improvement plan using the PDSA cycle. You will also apply other quality improvement techniques to healthcare situations.
To prepare for this Discussion:
- Review this week’s Learning Resources and specifically focus on Chapter 5 of the course text.
- Select or create a specific healthcare situation that needs improvement. Some examples could be:
- Patient no-shows for doctor’s appointments
- Equipment “parked” and obstructing hospital hallways
- Volunteers forgetting to wash their hands before transporting patients to radiology.
BY DAY 4
Post a comprehensive response that includes the following:
- Describe the healthcare situation that you selected or created.
- Explain the current process in the healthcare situation that you have selected or created.
- Identify the necessary improvements required for the healthcare situation that you have selected or created. Explain why.
- Describe what you will measure to track improvement.
- Define what data should be collected in order to determine if your intervention resulted in an improvement for the healthcare situation.
- Utilize the Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle (PDSA)
- Describe one full PDSA cycle of the situation that you have selected or created.
- Display the PDSA cycle of your situation in a table format.
Read a selection of your colleagues’ postings.
Support your work with specific citations from this week’s Learning Resources and/or additional sources, as appropriate. Your citations must be in APA format.
BY DAY 6
Respond to at least two of your colleagues in one of the following ways:
- Share an insight or any experience that you had with a situation similar to the one that your colleague selected or created by your colleague and their proposed improvement.
- Explain how the situation that your colleague selected or created relates to the IOM domains
- Describe another quality improvement technique (such as Force Field Analysis, Fishbone, SBAR, 5 Whys, etc.) that you would have applied to the healthcare situation that yoiur colleague selected.
Return to this Discussion, in a few days, to read the responses to your initial posting. Note what you have learned and/or any insights that you have gained as a result of your colleagues’ comments. You are welcome to post these final insights.