Introduction
The delivery of quality as well as safe healthcare is among the most crucial aspects in healthcare that fosters optimal patient outcomes. A significant number of the medical errors occur as a result of faulty processes as well as systems thereby compromising the care rendered to patients (Morello et al., 2013). As such, this necessitates the need for nurse leaders to develop effective strategies to improve the overall quality of care provided to patients. In the light of this, effectively analyzing data and subsequently interpreting the obtained information is an efficient strategy that can help healthcare leaders in improving the overall quality of care. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of healthcare leaders in regard to evaluating data in order to improve the overall quality of care.
Data overview
The telemetry unit is among the key departments that is associated with a significant number of safety and quality issues. Thus, evaluating data and subsequently using the obtained information to improve the healthcare delivery in as effective approach that can help to minimize or eradicate incidences of safety as quality issues and subsequently improve the clinical outcomes of patients in the unit.
Patient falls is among the key safety and quality issues in the telemetry unit that leads to poor patient outcome. According to Krall et al. (2012), patients aged 65 years and above comprise the major population of telemetry patients and most of the patients admitted to the unit have cardiac problems. In addition, most of the patients falls recorded in the unit occur among females with statistics indicating that about 70% of falls in the telemetry unit occur among women whereby this can be attributed to higher incidences of osteoporotic fractures among women as compared to men. Moreover, at least a third of the falls reported in the unit result to physical injuries that prolong the length of hospital stay and in some incidences these injuries may result to death.
A study by Branzan (2008), found out that about 20% of the falls recorded in the telemetry unit occur as a result of medication effects and 33% are related to toileting. Additionally, the study established that about 70% of falls occur among unattended patients in the unit. Moreover, more than 70% of the falls are recorded in the day shifts while the patients were conscious and alert. On the other hand, a considerable number of falls occur as a result of ineffective rounding since most of the hospitals do not have efficient rounding programs that is crucial for effective monitoring of patients whereby this can be largely attributed to inadequate staffing especially among the nurses. More importantly, most of the units lack the suitable procedures in regard to data entry as well as interpretation that is essential for the delivery of quality care.
Quality improvement plan
Thus, in order to improve the safety as well as quality of care rendered to patients, it is necessary for healthcare leaders to come up with a comprehensive plan on quality improvement. With regard to this, healthcare leaders should develop and adopt suitable rounding programs preferably hourly rounding in order to promote effective patient monitoring and ensure that the patients’ needs are adequately met. In addition, healthcare leaders should promote collaboration as well as coordination among the nurses in order to foster optimal delivery of the healthcare services (Morello et al., 2013). Moreover, healthcare leaders should effectively evaluate the healthcare systems since most of the safety or quality issues are associated with system failures and come up with suitable strategies to address these failures. Furthermore, healthcare leaders should analyze the clinical procedures and develop information-guided operations that are customized towards the advancement of care delivery in specific care settings. More importantly, it is crucial to utilize the appropriate approaches such as the PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) in order to effectively develop a comprehensive plan for implementing the aforementioned changes so as to promote effective adoption of the changes especially by the nursing staff and foster sustainability of these changes (Taylor et al., 2014).
Leadership characteristics
With regard to this, healthcare leaders should committed and actively participate in the change process. Moreover, the leaders should provide the relevant support to the staff members so as to foster effective implementation of the relevant changes to minimize incidences of patient falls in the unit. More importantly, nurse leaders should promote coordination as well as collaboration among the nurses in order to promote the delivery of optimal care. On the other hand, leaders should empower and encourage patients to be actively involved in their individual care. In the light of this, nurse leaders should adopt the transformational leadership style of leadership in order to create positive as well as valuable changes within the unit. Additionally, the leaders should acquire the relevant knowledge in regard to the measures that can be used in quality as well as safety improvement (Morello et al., 2013).
Summary
Quality as well as safety are essential aspects that promote the delivery of optimal patient care thereby resulting to better outcomes. Typically, the process of quality improvement mainly involves effective data evaluation and utilizing the acquired information in developing the appropriate strategies that can be used to improve the safety and care aspects in care delivery (Morello et al., 2013).
Patient falls is among the key safety and quality issues in the telemetry unit. Thus, health care leaders should effectively evaluate the factors contributing to this problem and subsequently use the obtained information to develop suitable approaches to improve the overall quality of care rendered to patients in the care setting.
References
Branzan, C. (2008). The Relationship of Patient Falls to Prevention Policies in Hospitals: A Case Study. Master in Public Administration Theses, 4.
Krall, E., Close, J., Parker, J., Sudak, M., Lampert, S., & Colonnelli, K. (2012). Innovation Pilot Study: Acute Care for Elderly (ACE) Unit—Promoting Patient-Centric Care. HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal, 5(3), 90-98.
Morello, R. T., Lowthian, J. A., Barker, A. L., McGinnes, R., Dunt, D., & Brand, C. (2013). Strategies for improving patient safety culture in hospitals: a systematic review. BMJ quality & safety, 22(1), 11-18.
Taylor, M. J., McNicholas, C., Nicolay, C., Darzi, A., Bell, D., & Reed, J. E. (2014). Systematic review of the application of the plan–do–study–act method to improve quality in healthcare. BMJ quality & safety, 23(4), 290-298.
