Personal Improvement Project Topic Essay
n 2016, researchers at Johns Hopkins University published a report estimating that 250,000 people die every year due to medical errors in the United States, making it the third leading cause of death (Makary & Daniel, 2016). The report sent shock waves through not only healthcare sectors but popular media and the public as well. The 250,000 number has since been disputed by other researchers, who say that it is inflated and the result of faulty research analysis. Even if the number is indeed lower, experts agree that preventable medical errors occur daily.
The continuous quality improvement (CQI) movement was born out of the desire to both minimize everyday errors and increase healthcare quality overall, in a process-based manner. Drawing internationally from the Japanese manufacturing industry, CQI focuses on analyzing the entire system, using data to generate a solution, and implementing ongoing analysis to ensure optimal outcomes. Personal Improvement Project Topic Essay
This week, you read about CQI’s origins, reflect on your understanding of quality improvement, and then set out on an improvement project of your own.
Reference:
Makary, M. A., & Daniel, M. (2016). Medical error—the third leading cause of death in the US. BMJ, 353, 1–5. doi:10.1136/bmj.i2139
Learning Objectives
Students will:
Assess current knowledge of quality improvement in healthcare
Analyze experiences for the domains of healthcare quality
Design a project for quality improvement at the individual level
Analyze how data collection relates to a personal improvement project
Synthesize findings from a personal improvement research project*
Develop a plan for ongoing personal improvement*
Apply lessons learned at the individual level to quality improvement at the unit and organization levels*
*Assigned in Week 1 of Module 1 and submitted in Week 6 of Module 1
ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE
Learning Resources
Required Readings (click to expand/reduce)
Johnson, J. K., & Sollecito, W. A. (2020). McLaughlin & Kaluzny’s continuous quality improvement in health care (5th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett.
Foreword (pp. xiii–xvii)
Chapter 1: “The Global Evolution of Continuous Quality Improvement: From Japanese Manufacturing to Global Health Services” (pp. xviii–30)
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2018). Six domains of health care quality. Retrieved from https://www.ahrq.gov/talkingquality/measures/six-domains.html
Institute for Healthcare Improvement. (n.d.a). How to improve. Retrieved from http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/HowtoImprove/default.aspx
Neuhauser, D., Myhre, S., & Alemi, F. (2004). Personal continuous improvement workbook (7th ed.). McLean, VA: Academy for Healthcare Improvement.
Credit line: Neuhauser, D., Myhre, S., & Alemi, F. (2004). Personal continuous improvement workbook (7th ed.). Retrieved from https://qsen.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/personal_continuous_improvement_work_book-2.pdf
Required Media (click to expand/reduce)
Concepts of Quality and Patient Safety
Meet Dr. Stephen Jencks, Dr. David Nash, Dr. Donald Berwick, and Lillee Gelinas as they discuss the domains of healthcare quality and their importance in today’s healthcare climate. (15m) Personal Improvement Project Topic Essay
Accessible player
The aim of the Personal Improvement Project is to experiment with a small change that is under your personal control; collect, analyze, and interpret data; and then reflect on what you have learned from your project about the general challenge of changing something. Through this multi-week project, you will see how the quality improvement process works in general and familiarize yourself with the tools used for healthcare QI. For this Journal, you will select and describe your Personal Improvement Project topic.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
To Prepare:
Review the Neuhauser, Mhyre, and Alemi (2004) workbook in the Learning Resources. The workbook includes topic ideas, the general process to follow, and example charts.
Select an area for personal improvement. For your project, you will need to initiate a change and then collect data to see whether you have improved. Some general examples are exercise and time management. Note that in Week 3 you will share your progress on this project with colleagues in Discussion, so please choose a topic that you are comfortable sharing.
Based on the topic area, determine the aim or goal of your project. What would you like to accomplish? How will you know that you have improved?
Journal (1 page)
Describe the topic and aim of your Personal Improvement Project. Explain why this improvement area is important to you and what you expect to gain from the data you will collect
Personal Improvement Project Topic
My personal improvement project is “prevention and reduction of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs)”. The project aims to ensure that there is a significant reduction of HAIs among inpatients in the healthcare organization. This topic is important to me because HAIs pose a major threat to patient safety. HAIs are among the top causes of morbidity and death within healthcare organizations (Murni et al., 2015). According to Haque et al (2018), HAIs are associated with increased healthcare costs, prolonged hospital stay, and increased morbidity and mortality. This, therefore, indicates the importance of preventing HAIs to ensure the provision of safe and high-quality healthcare in healthcare organizations. Transmission of microbes among patients by healthcare providers and irrational use of antibiotics ate the most key preventable factors in the majority of the HAIs. (Sarani et al., 2018). For example, adherence to proper hand hygiene has been shown to significantly reduce the rate of HAIs (Murni et al., 2015).
The project will involve collecting the data to show the rate of HAIs in different units within the organization. The data will show the rate and severity of HAIs in the organization. Therefore, the collected data will help me to know the units that have the highest rate of HAIs. With such data, I will know the units that need to be prioritized during the implementation of the quality improvement project aimed to prevent and reduce the rate of HAIs. In addition, the data will help me to evaluate the efficacy of the implemented project where the baseline data will be compared with the post-project data. A reduced rate of HAIs post-project will indicate the efficacy of the project in reducing the rate of HAIs.
References
Haque, M., Sartelli, M., McKimm, J., & Abu Bakar, M. (2018). Healthcare-associated infections – an overview. Infection and drug resistance, 11, 2321–2333. https://doi.org/10.2147/IDR.S177247.
Murni, I. K., Duke, T., Kinney, S., Daley, A. J., & Soenarto, Y. (2015). Reducing hospital-acquired infections and improving the rational use of antibiotics in a developing country: an effectiveness study. Archives of disease in childhood, 100(5), 454–459. https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2014-307297.
Sarani, H., Balouchi, A., Masinaeinezhad, N., & Ebrahimitabs, E. (2016). Knowledge, attitude, and practice of nurses about standard precautions for hospital-acquired infection in teaching hospitals affiliated to Zabol University of Medical Sciences (2014). Global journal of health science, 8(3), 193.
