Capella 4020 Assessment 3

Capella 4020 Assessment 3 Improvement Plan in Service Presentation

Name

Capella University

NURS-FPX 4020 Improving Quality of Care and Patient Safety

Prof. Name

Date

Improvement Plan In-Service Presentation

Good morning, everyone. My name is ________. I am pleased to welcome you to this in-service session on the quality and patient safety of inadequate patient education. This session aims to enlighten nurses about the outcomes of inadequate patient education, describe the proposed safety improvement plan, and create buy-in to minimize the issue in Miami Valley Hospital. 

Agenda and Outcomes 

The intended outcomes of the presentation are as follows:

1. Describe the quality and safety issue of inadequate patient education and its consequences on patient safety and quality of care. 
2. Elaborate on the need to address inadequate patient education. 
3. Discuss the proposed safety improvement plan for the organization. 
4. Enhance understanding of nurses’ role in addressing quality and safety issues and the importance of a successful improvement plan.
5. Lastly, analyze case studies in groups to improve understanding and skills related to the importance of patient education. 

Inadequate Patient Education and its Poor Consequences

Patient education is an essential component of healthcare practices. It is described as a process that influences patients’ behaviors to improve their health and well-being using different teaching methods. Inadequate patient education is one of the most significant healthcare challenges related to patient safety and quality of care. A study identifies that lack of education is a systemic healthcare issue and must be addressed holistically, as patients reported that healthcare professionals lack education related to medication and treatment plans (Zhang et al., 2019). Several consequences occur due to inadequate patient education, such as inappropriate patient behaviors related to health, increased risks of disease aggravation, augmented healthcare costs, and poor patient outcomes (Johnson et al., 2023). 

Safety Improvement Plan

Our proposed safety improvement plan for Miami Valley Hospital (MVH) is evidence-based and includes best practices to ensure the team integrates comprehensive patient education into their nursing practices. This two-pronged plan includes developing a patient-centered communication model and establishing Electronic Health Records (EHR)-integrated patient portals. 

Patient-centered Communication Model

The patient-centered communication model impacts nurse-patient communication, eventually improving patient education. This model aims to train healthcare professionals, especially nurses, in patient-centeredness that includes respect, active listening, and cultural competence. These aspects are essential to build therapeutic communication between nurses and providers to ensure adequate information exchange related to patients’ health conditions (Kwame & Petrucka, 2021). 

Secondly, dedicated protocols should be introduced into nursing practice to develop individualized patient educational materials, especially for discharge education (Banzon, 2023). This plan intends to reduce errors and prevent health complications. Providing an in-depth understanding of health conditions, their management, medication regimens, and complications to look for will empower patients to manage their health and avoid preventable harm adequately. For the implementation, we have set a timeline of six months where the plan is initially to train nursing staff and then establish discharge education materials and policy. 

Integrated EHR Patient Portals

Another approach to this safety improvement plan is to establish EHR-integrated patient portals. These patient-friendly portals allow patients to access their health information, disease processes, medication regimens, diagnostic testing, and other applicable healthcare services, ensuring a holistic educational approach. Through these portals, healthcare professionals can also set appointments and medication reminders, providing ongoing support to the patients throughout their healthcare journey (Bhattad & Pacifico, 2022). For this purpose, integrating educational materials in the EHR system and healthcare providers’ training is crucial. Organizations must develop standardized educational materials to reinforce knowledge exchange and treatment compliance. Additionally, providers’ training should include the basics of EHR utilization, educational materials integration, and content modification according to patient’s needs (Hodgson et al., 2022). Simultaneously, it is essential to train providers to address potential glitches and challenges with the system. 

These comprehensive EHR-integrated patient portals aim to make healthcare information accessible to individuals and communities. The timeline suggested for implementing EHR patient portals is 4-6 months. The team will gather information and formulate various educational materials in the initial phase. Then, the organization’s stakeholders will coordinate with information technology teams to develop a portal and integrate educational materials. They must ensure that patients have access to the portals and they are secure to transfer critical information. 

Need for Safety Improvement Plan in the Organization

The incident of a medication error, where a patient named Mary accidentally administered an extra dose of insulin unit due to poor knowledge about the utilization of insulin pens, advocated the need to address the safety concern of inadequate patient education in MVH through a safety improvement plan. This is paramount for several reasons. Inadequate patient education directly risks patient safety as a lack of understanding about medical conditions, medication administration, and treatment plans may lead to adverse events, complications, and preventable harm (Kirimlioğlu, 2018). Secondly, the need for addressing the issue is to improve the quality of care in the organization. Effective patient education and quality of nursing care are interconnected as nurses can provide patient-centered care, enhance patient engagement in healthcare, better health outcomes, and improve patient experiences with care (Gröndahl et al., 2019). Lastly, it is essential for the organization to comply with regulatory standards established about mandatory patient education to maintain accreditation, safeguarding the organization’s position in the healthcare sector. 

Nurses’ Role and Importance of a Successful Safety Improvement Plan

So, this part of the presentation is crucial for you as a registered nurse. Nurses play a significant role in making the safety improvement plan successful, aiming at addressing inadequate patient education. 

1. Direct Patient Interaction: As frontline healthcare workers, nurses have a prime position in interacting with patients. This nurse-patient interaction aids in assessing patients’ literacy levels, identifying educational needs, and enhancing patient engagement in decision-making. This effective relationship ensures that nurses can develop personalized educational interventions and effectively communicate them through patient-centered communication, ultimately improving patient outcomes (Kwame & Petrucka, 2021).
2. Collaboration with Interdisciplinary Teams: Bendowska and Baum (2023) claim that patient safety is directly proportional to effective interdisciplinary collaboration. Nurses can actively coordinate with interdisciplinary teams to ensure that patients receive holistic education about their health condition and treatment and medication plans to fulfill the goals of the safety improvement plan.
3. Patient Advocacy: Nurses can play an essential role as patient advocates to improve patient safety and quality of care by protecting their rights and backing their educational needs (Nsiah et al., 2019). Advocating for comprehensive and tailored patient education plans helps address individualized educational needs, enhance understanding, and improve patient outcomes. 

Capella 4020 Assessment 3

These nursing actions are essential for the success of our safety improvement plan. This success is vital as it results in positive patient outcomes, improved organizational reputation, cost-effectiveness, and financial stability. Additionally, regulatory compliance and accreditation are maintained, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and encouraging staff to deliver high-quality, patient-centered care. 

New Process and Skills Practice

Coming to the last part of our in-service session, I hope you all understand the quality and safety issue of inadequate patient education in healthcare settings and our safety improvement plan. It’s time to make three groups and discuss some case studies of inadequate patient education. Through these case studies, you will understand the importance of patient education and integrate effective strategies into your clinical practices to improve patient education. Here are some of the case studies for each group to analyze and answer the following questions below: 

Questions 

1. What exactly happened?
2. What were the risk factors associated with poor patient outcomes?
3. What could’ve been done to minimize the patient safety risk? 

Case Study # 1: Cardiovascular Medication Mismanagement

Mrs. Johnson, a 65-year-old woman with hypertension, is prescribed a new antihypertensive medication. She has a history of limited health literacy and is a language barrier patient who relies on her daughter for translation. Although her daughter was unavailable during the discharge, the assigned nurse explained Mrs. Johnson’s prescribed medication routine for home, claiming that she had other patients to look after and couldn’t wait for her daughter to join. Mrs. Johnson, misunderstanding the medication instructions, takes the new medication irregularly. This leads to uncontrolled blood pressure, resulting in a hypertensive crisis and subsequent hospitalization. These poor complications increased healthcare costs and compromised Mrs. Johnson’s overall well-being.

Case Study # 2: Diabetes Self-Management Challenges

Mr. Rodriguez is a 55-year-old man recently diagnosed with diabetes. He works long hours and struggles with finances to manage his disease. He has poor educational background and lives in a community with a lack of healthcare access. During his recent visit to the hospital, doctors have asked him to switch from oral medicines to insulin administration. The patient is not instructed on how to administer insulin. Mr. Rodriguez, due to long working hours and a busy schedule, faces difficulties managing his diet and insulin administration, experiencing dynamic blood sugar levels. This has resulted in recurrent emergency visits due to hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia and has increased treatment costs.

Case Study # 3: Post-Surgical Complications

John, a 40-year-old man undergoing elective knee surgery, has a history of anxiety. He receives minimal pre-operative education due to a high nurse-to-patient ratio and is not provided with written instructions. After discharge, John experienced serious complications at home due to improper wound care and a lack of rehabilitation exercises. This results in a surgical site infection and delayed recovery, contributing to increased length of hospital stay, augmented healthcare costs, and diminished patient satisfaction. 

Conclusion

To conclude my presentation, I want to reinforce that inadequate patient education is a significant healthcare challenge and must be addressed comprehensively. For this purpose, we have developed a safety improvement plan to integrate EHR patient portals and a patient-centered communication model. As registered nurses, audiences play a crucial role in understanding patients’ educational needs, tailoring educational interventions according to those needs, advocating for patient education, and collaborating with interdisciplinary teams to provide effective and adequate education to patients, ensuring the sustainability and success of safety improvement plans. 

References

Banzon, C. (2023). Discharge education protocol to improve patient satisfaction. South Dakota State University. https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1185&context=con_dnp 

Bendowska, A., & Baum, E. (2023). The significance of cooperation in interdisciplinary health care teams as perceived by Polish medical students. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(2), 954. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20020954 

Bhattad, P. B., & Pacifico, L. (2022). Empowering patients: Promoting patient education and health literacy. Cureus, 14(7), e27336. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.27336

Gröndahl, W., Muurinen, H., Katajisto, J., Suhonen, R., & Leino-Kilpi, H. (2019). Perceived quality of nursing care and patient education: A cross-sectional study of hospitalised surgical patients in Finland. BMJ Open, 9(4), e023108. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-023108 

Capella 4020 Assessment 3

Hodgson, J., Welch, M., Tucker, E., Forbes, T., & Pye, J. (2022). Utilization of EHR to improve support person engagement in health care for patients with chronic conditions. Journal of Patient Experience, 9, 237437352210775. https://doi.org/10.1177/23743735221077528 

Johnson, A. M., Brimhall, A. S., Johnson, E. T., Hodgson, J., Didericksen, K., Pye, J., Harmon, G. J. C., & Sewell, K. B. (2023). A systematic review of the effectiveness of patient education through patient portals. JAMIA Open, 6(1), ooac085. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamiaopen/ooac085 

Kirimlioğlu, N. (2018). Patient education and its importance in terms of patient safety. International Journal of Research -GRANTHAALAYAH, 6(12), 109–120. https://doi.org/10.29121/granthaalayah.v6.i12.2018.1090 

Kwame, A., & Petrucka, P. M. (2021). A literature-based study of patient-centered care and communication in nurse-patient interactions: Barriers, facilitators, and the way forward. BMC Nursing, 20(1), 158. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-021-00684-2

Capella 4020 Assessment 3

Nsiah, C., Siakwa, M., & Ninnoni, J. P. K. (2019). Registered Nurses’ description of patient advocacy in the clinical setting. Nursing Open, 6(3), 1124–1132. https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.307 

Zhang, L., Luan, W., Geng, S., Ye, S., Wang, X., Qian, L., Ding, Y., Li, T., & Jiang, A. (2019). Lack of patient education is risk factor of disease flare in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus in China. BMC Health Services Research, 19(1), 378. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4206-y