NUR 590 Week 7 Assignment Benchmark – Evidence-Based Practice Proposal Final Paper
NUR 590 Week 7 Assignment Benchmark – Evidence-Based Practice Proposal Final Paper
NUR 590 Week 7 Assignment Benchmark – Evidence-Based Practice Proposal Final Paper
Throughout this course, you have developed a formal, evidence-based practice proposal.
The wellness of a population’s health using improved patient safety protocols implores healthcare workers (HCWs) especially nurses, to develop evidence-based practice interventions to reduce and prevent occurrence of adverse events like hospital acquired infections (HAIs) and medication administration errors (MAEs) among others. These adverse events lead to poor patient outcomes, increase the overall cost of care and disease burden, and lowers the quality of care delivered by healthcare professionals. Hospital acquired infections are some of the leading healthcare concerns that affect patient safety and quality of care. Many patients suffer from these infections that result into lengthened stays in hospitals, increased cost of care, and in extreme circumstances death.
Nurse practitioners and other healthcare professionals transmit infections to patients through poor hand hygiene measures and protocols (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017). As such, nurses and other providers should leverage evidence-based practice (EBP) interventions to reduce and prevent the occurrence of hospital acquired infections and guarantee quality care. The use of evidence-based practice interventions allows these providers to offer better services through increased quality, increased engagement of patients and their preferences, and leveraging clinical experience and expertise. The purpose of this evidence-based practice project proposal paper is to discuss how nurses in pediatric settings can integrate hand hygiene measures and protocols to reduce and prevent the occurrence of hospital acquired infections. These measures and protocols include handwashing using soap and water alongside hand sanitizers compared to handwashing with water and soap alone.
Problem Statement
Hospital acquired infections or nosocomial infections are newly acquired infections that patients contract during their stay in hospital settings or facilities. The transmission of the nosocomial infections happens through healthcare workers, patients, hospital equipment like catheters and interventional procedures that include catheterization. Studies demonstrate that healthcare workers who include nurse practitioners infect patients when they fail to adhere to effective hand hygiene measures like handwashing with soap or using alcohol-based sanitizers and hand rubs when handling and interacting with patient in the care process (Liana 2021). The use of evidence-based practice interventions using PICOT question is important in assisting nurses to implement better practices to reduce the susceptibility of patients acquiring nosocomial infections that have adverse effects on overall care delivery and quality. These infections lead to increased length of stay in hospitals, a rise in cost of healthcare and cause deaths, especially in critical care settings like pediatric units (Setty et al., 2019). Hand hygiene measures that include handwashing with soap and water alongside sanitizer will improve patient safety among healthcare workers. The implication is that healthcare workers will adhere to these measures in pediatric settings to reduce hospital acquired infections within six months’ period and improve quality outcomes.
PICOT Statement
Population- Healthcare workers in pediatric settings
Intervention-Hand Hygiene using handwashing with soap and water and sanitizer
Comparison-Handwashing with soap and water alone
Outcome- Reduced Hospital acquired infections
Time- in Six months
Refined PICOT Question
The refined PICOT question for the EBP project is “Among healthcare workers in pediatric setting (P), does hand hygiene practices that include handwashing with soap and water alongside hand sanitizer (I) compared to handwashing with soap and water alone (C) reduce hospital acquired infections (O) within six months (T)?”
Organizational Culture and Readiness
The culture of an organization is essential in implementing changes and it impacts its overall vision, mission and values and employees’ perception in embracing new ways of executing tasks. A culture entails employees with strong norms and values, management and approaches to overall way of doing things. A culture that involves employees, possesses strong values and norms, and encourages an open-door policy with decentralized approach is important in achieving set change objectives in an organization (Real et al., 2017). To effectively implement this EBP project proposal, pediatric healthcare settings and practitioners should use a decentralized organizational and leadership structure. The model is effective in enhancing motivation of subordinates and enhancing growth and increased diversification. Decentralization in healthcare organizations leads to better communication and adoption of innovative practices, ideas and strategies to improve quality of care. Through decentralization, the management leads a transformational approach to enhance agility and respond to new and best practices in care delivery.
The implementation of this EBP project proposal requires organizational culture that focuses on patient-centered care delivery. Through being patient-centered, an organization can support change programs to improve patient safety, quality and access while minimizing the occurrence of hospital acquired infections (HAIs). Increasing patient engagement and promoting inter-professional collaboration leads to a competitive advantage for healthcare organizations.
The evaluation of an organization’s readiness for change based on its culture is essential in implementing evidence-based practice projects. Readiness demonstrates the level to which organizational members are prepared to implement and embrace change, behaviorally and psychologically. Dearing (2018) opines that readiness is a psychological state of the mind that shows commitment to certain course of actions. As such, this EBP project proposal will leverage the Organizational Capacity Assessment Tool developed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) that assesses an organization’s readiness in promoting and enhancing the use of global health interventions. Through the tool, organizations identify substantive capacities and strengths that are present and the required one to attain their set objective. In this case, pediatric settings that aim to implement this EBP recommendations should demonstrate exemplary capacities in their attributes, have a superb and influential culture based on their missions, purposes and better values (De la Perrelle et al.., 2020). The capacity assessment tool looks at the various capabilities that include human resources, processes, financial resources, and systems as critical components of readiness for change implementation. Ready organizations possess sufficient strengths that include having the best skills, effective communication and adequate resources, availability of sufficient nurse workforce and effective engagement of their stakeholders.
The organizational readiness also evaluates the process and systems that require improvement to effectively implement the requisite changes (Vax et al., 2021). For instance, the improvement that pediatric care settings require include their patient handling process, the need for healthcare workers to adhere to hand hygiene measures and protocols, and delivery of patient-centered quality care. The organization will need quality improvement and collaborative approaches to enhance implementation. These organizations will also require quality data assessment tools for better and accurate analysis of their respective data (Dearing, 2018). The readiness will also include engagement of stakeholders and integration of information and communication technologies to ensure that all components to implement the project proposal are present. Using selected technologies, the project team and practitioners will pursue outcomes based on patient needs through enhanced alerts, reminders, and notifications on the need to comply with set hand hygiene protocols and measures that include effective handwashing and use of hand sanitizers to reduce hospital acquired infections in the pediatric settings.
The proposal is the plan for an evidence-based practice project designed to address a problem, issue, or concern in the professional work setting. Although several types of evidence can be used to support a proposed solution, a sufficient and compelling base of support from valid research studies is required as the major component of that evidence. Proposals must be submitted in a format suitable for obtaining formal approval in the work setting. Proposals will vary in length depending upon the problem or issue addressed (3,500 and 5,000 words). The cover sheet, abstract, references pages, and appendices are not included in the word count.
Section headings for each section component are required. Evaluation of the proposal in all sections will be based upon the extent to which the depth of content reflects graduate-level critical thinking skills.
This project contains seven formal sections:
Section A: Organizational Culture and Readiness Assessment
Section B: Proposal/Problem Statement and Literature Review
Section C: Solution Description
Section D: Change Model
Section E: Implementation Plan
Section F: Evaluation of Process
Each section (A-F) will be submitted as a separate assignment in Topics 1-6 so your instructor can provide feedback (refer to applicable topics for complete descriptions of each section).
The final paper submission in Topic 7 will consist of the completed project (with revisions to all sections), title page, abstract, compiled references list, and appendices. Appendices will include a conceptual model for the project, handouts, data and evaluation collection tools, a budget, a timeline, resource lists, and approval forms, as previously assigned in individual section assignments.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is required.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
Also Read: NUR 590 Week 6 Assignment Evidence-Based Practice Proposal – Section F: Evaluation of Process
You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. Please refer to the directions in the Student Success Center.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
