- NURS 6373 Assignment 2.1 Short Answer Assignment.
Short Answer Assignment
Hospitals must manage pressure ulcers to enhance treatment. Pressure ulcers or bedsores can cause discomfort, prolonged hospitalization, and expensive healthcare facilities (Gillespie et al., 2020). This issue requires systematic cause-and-effect investigation and effective treatment. The Cause-and-Effect Diagram and Control Chart can detect pressure ulcer causes and track therapy efficacy. These tools detect problematic areas and guarantee that remedial efforts enhance treatment over time (Slyngstad, 2021). Explore NURS 8123 Assignment 6.1 Literature Matrix for more information.
Development of the Problem
Understanding hospital pressure ulcer etiology is crucial to understanding QI challenges. Pressure ulcers and skin injury from prolonged pressure are common in patient exams and incident reports. Inadequate monitoring, training, and equipment or methods often cause these issues (Anthony Octo Forkuo-Minka et al., 2024). Understanding the issue is essential to using quality improvement methods to improve patient care.
The Solution to the QI Problem
Cause and Effect Diagram
Why Choose This Tool?
Cause-and-effect diagrams help identify pressure ulcer causes. This tool lets the team list plausible root causes for persons, processes, equipment, materials, and environment. It provides a framework for understanding the causes (Anthony Octo Forkuo-Minka et al., 2024).
How to Use It?
NURS 6373 Assignment 2.1 Short Answer Assignment
- Team Brainstorming: A meeting of the healthcare team was called, which included the nurses, doctors, and other workers in the hospital. The meeting discussed all the potential sources of pressure ulcers, such as lack of proper staff training, poor patient observation, poor facilities like beds or mattresses, and the absence of early management plans (Anthony Octo Forkuo-Minka et al., 2024).
- Diagram Creation: A fishbone diagram was drawn. The main problem, pressure ulcers, is at the head of the fish, and different categories of root causes are written on the bones. For each category, the causes, as identified by the team, are properly stated (Kumah et al., 2024).
- Analysis: The diagram was reviewed to determine the most probable sources of variation and order them for correction (Kumah et al., 2024).
Control Chart
Why Choose This Tool?
A control Chart is preferred once performance and results are regularly observed and after changes have been made (Inkelas et al., 2021). It can show the frequency of pressure ulcers over time to assess whether the changes being applied are yielding improvements.
How to Use It?
- Data Collection: The process began with compiling data on the occurrence of pressure ulcers in the course of a particular period.
- Chart Setup: This collected data was displayed on a control chart with time on the horizontal axis and the number of pressure ulcer cases on the vertical axis. The control limits were set about the amount of variation within the data (Slyngstad, 2021).
- Monitoring: As a result, the changes indicated by the Cause-and-Effect Diagram were adopted, and the data collected was plotted on the control chart. This assisted in checking whether the frequency of pressure ulcers is decreasing and within the control limits (Slyngstad, 2021).
Impact of Solution
For better patient outcomes and high-quality care, hospitals must address pressure ulcers. Bedsores, or pressure ulcers, can cause patient discomfort, lengthier hospital stays, and higher healthcare expenditures. This issue needed a holistic strategy to identify core causes and execute effective solutions. Healthcare teams assessed pressure ulcer causes and evaluated treatments using quality improvement tools like the Cause and Effect Diagram and Control Chart.
NURS 6373 Assignment 2.1 Short Answer Assignment
These techniques assisted in identifying potential difficulties and ensured that treatments improved patient care over time. As a result, these tools reduced pressure ulcers by 40% in six months. Quality improvement measures improved patient care by reducing pressure ulcers from 15% to 9% (Kumah et al., 2024). Such a decrease directly affected patient care. This methodical approach ensured that this remedy improved patient outcomes.
Conclusion
The Cause-and-Effect Diagram helps one easily identify the main causes of pressure ulcers, and the Control Chart helps one see whether the interventions are effective in the long term. This combined approach ensures that quality improvement efforts are both targeted and sustained.
References
Anthony Octo Forkuo-Minka, Kumah, A., & Afua Yeboaa Asomaning. (2024). Improving patient safety: Learning from reported hospital-acquired pressure ulcers. Global Journal on Quality and Safety in Healthcare, 7(1), 15–21. https://doi.org/10.36401/jqsh-23-25
Gillespie, B. M., Walker, R. M., Latimer, S. L., Thalib, L., Whitty, J. A., McInnes, E., & Chaboyer, W. P. (2020). Repositioning for pressure injury prevention in adults. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 6(6), 1–65. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.cd009958.pub3
Inkelas, M., Blair, C., Furukawa, D., Manuel, V. G., Malenfant, J. H., Martin, E., Emeruwa, I., Kuo, T., Arangua, L., Robles, B., & Provost, L. P. (2021). Using control charts to understand community variation in COVID-19. PLOS ONE, 16(4), e0248500. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248500
Kumah, A., Nwogu, C. N., Abdul-Razak Issah, Obot, E., Kanamitie, D. T., Jerry Selase Sifa, & Lawrencia Antoinette Aidoo. (2024). Cause-and-effect (fishbone) diagram: A tool for generating and organizing quality improvement ideas. Innovations Journals, 7(2). https://doi.org/10.36401/jqsh-23-42
Slyngstad, L. (2021). The contribution of variable control charts to quality improvement in healthcare: A literature review. Journal of Healthcare Leadership, Volume 13, 221–230. https://doi.org/10.2147/jhl.s319169