Executive Summary Essay Paper
Executive Summary
Optimizing Sepsis Care to Improve Early Recognition and Outcomes
Introduction
Sepsis diagnosis is associated with a high mortality rate. Delays in recognizing sepsis and slow treatment initiation for patients with sepsis leads to poor health outcomes, while early recognizing and prompt treatment has been demonstrated to lead to good outcomes and improve survival (Kim & Park, 2019). Delayed recognition is largely associated with the deteriorating condition and an increased risk of death for patients with sepsis and therefore this summary proposes optimization of sepsis care. Executive Summary Essay Paper
The purpose of the Quality Improvement Initiative
The proposed quality improvement initiative aims to support the optimizing of sepsis care and facilitate early recognition and prompt treatment of sepsis. The program will also aim to provide comprehensive education to all nursing staff and healthcare providers caring for patients with sepsis. The proposed quality improvement initiative includes:
- Mandatory screening of patients with potential septic infection to facilitate early detection and treatment of sepsis
- A tiered approach to early recognition of sepsis, differentiating three main factors necessary to improve:
- Sepsis screening tool
- Integrating the examination of organ dysfunction as a component of the sepsis screening process
- Designing a “code sepsis” to activate team process and expedite care in the ED
- Reviewing the EMR alerts for patients manifesting symptoms of sepsis, for instance, a notification for sepsis is triggered whenever the patient’s heart rate is higher than 120
- Development and integration of a sensitive and specific screening tool into the nurses’ workflow, enabling universal speedy sepsis screening upon patient arrival
- If the patient meets the screening inclusion criteria, a sepsis notification is triggered automatically, informing nurses to obtain laboratory parameters that include lactate, blood cultures, metabolic panels, and complete blood count (Berg & Gerlach, 2018). The nurse is also altered about possible severe sepsis for the patient.
- Initiate immediate care upon recognizing sepsis or septic shock involving:
- Measuring lactate level
- Obtaining blood culture prior to antibiotic administration
- Administration of broad-spectrum antibiotics
- Administration of IV fluid
- Application of vasopressors to maintain arterial pressure at ≥ 65 mm Hg (Husabø et al., 2020).
The Target Audience
The target audience for this quality improvement initiative includes all multidisciplinary professionals including nurses, critical care practitioners, physicians, nurse leaders, radiology staff, laboratory staff, pharmacists, and respiratory therapists. All these practitioners are very essential during the care of patients with sepsis.
Benefits of the Quality Improvement Initiative
Optimizing sepsis care is projected to improve the early detection of sepsis and patient outcomes. The specific benefits from the proposed quality improvement initiative thus include a significant decrease of the mortality rate for patients with sepsis; reduction of length of stay in the ED for patients with sepsis; and a decrease in the length of stay in the ICU for patients with severe sepsis admitted from the ED (Prescott & Angus, 2018).
Appropriate Interprofessional Collaboration
The required interprofessional collaboration includes physicians, nurses, radiology personnel, laboratory personnel, pharmacists, data analysts, and performance improvement specialists. Moreover, a physician champion will be very important to utilize the analytics application to outline components of the quality improvement initiative and share it with other clinicians involved in the quality improvement initiative (Thursky et al., 2018). A nurse leader will be responsible for reviewing the analytics, providing the nursing staff with optimal feedback, and identifying barriers to timely recognition of sepsis and timely treatment. The quality improvement leaders utilize the analytics application to regularly monitor the adherence of clinicians to the quality improvement initiative. Routine utilization of technology will ensure that any areas that require improvement are identified, further facilitating a culture of continuous improvement (Thursky et al., 2018). Executive Summary Essay Paper
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The Cost Justification
The cost associated with treating severe sepsis and the complications arising from the condition is very high. Evidence indicates that the treatment of severe sepsis consumes significant resources whereby the treatment of severe sepsis is estimated to cost about $16.7 billion every year within the US (Paoli et al., 2018). Moreover, it costs healthcare organizations less to treat sepsis during admission, in comparison to treating hospital-associated sepsis. This thus justifies the significance of implementing a quality improvement initiative aimed to facilitate early identification of sepsis and prompt treatment.
Evaluation
The evaluation will aim to improve the efficiency and efficacy of the implemented quality improvement initiative. Therefore, the program will be evaluated based on its ability to meet the set goals that include reducing the mortality rate due to sepsis in the organization; reducing the deterioration of sepsis to severe sepsis; and, reducing the length of stay for patients with sepsis in the ICU and emergency department.
References
Berg, D., & Gerlach, H. (2018). Recent advances in understanding and managing sepsis. F1000Research, 7, F1000 Faculty Rev-1570. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.15758.1.
Husabø, G., Nilsen, R. M., Flaatten, H., Solligård, E., Frich, J. C., Bondevik, G. T., … & Hovlid, E. (2020). Early diagnosis of sepsis in emergency departments, time to treatment, and association with mortality: An observational study. PloS one, 15(1), e0227652.
Kim, H. I., & Park, S. (2019). Sepsis: Early Recognition and Optimized Treatment. Tuberculosis and respiratory diseases, 82(1), 6–14. https://doi.org/10.4046/trd.2018.0041
Paoli, C. J., Reynolds, M. A., Sinha, M., Gitlin, M., & Crouser, E. (2018). Epidemiology and Costs of Sepsis in the United States-An Analysis Based on Timing of Diagnosis and Severity Level. Critical care medicine, 46(12), 1889–1897. https://doi.org/10.1097/CCM.0000000000003342.
Prescott, H. C., & Angus, D. C. (2018). Enhancing Recovery from Sepsis: A Review. JAMA, 319(1), 62–75. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2017.17687.
Thursky, K., Lingaratnam, S., Jayarajan, J., Haeusler, G. M., Teh, B., Tew, M., Venn, G., Hiong, A., Brown, C., Leung, V., Worth, L. J., Dalziel, K., & Slavin, M. A. (2018). Implementation of a whole of hospital sepsis clinical pathway in a cancer hospital: impact on sepsis management, outcomes, and costs. BMJ open quality, 7(3), e000355. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjoq-2018-000355.
Optimizing Sepsis Care Improves Early Recognition and Outcomes
In this assignment, you will propose a quality improvement initiative from your place of employment that could easily be implemented if approved. Assume you are presenting this program to the board for approval of funding. Write an executive summary (750-1,000 words) to present to the board, from which the board will make its decision to fund your program or project. Include the following:
- The purpose of the quality improvement initiative.
- The target population or audience.
- The benefits of the quality improvement initiative.
- The interprofessional collaboration that would be required to implement the quality improvement initiative.
- The cost or budget justification.
- The basis upon which the quality improvement initiative will be evaluated.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
