Question

The long-term care center has 225 beds and provides the highest level of patient care, according to ongoing Department of Health Services annual surveys. The Director of the long-term center has the overall responsibility of ensuring the continuing high level of quality outcomes while also concurrently keeping the facility as risk free as practical. You and the Director have just returned from an annual Long-Term Care Association symposium where you were both introduced to some new groundbreaking initiatives regarding the differences between risk management and quality improvement. Earlier in the week, the Director called for a meeting of the center’s department managers, including the Quality Assurance Nurse and the Manager of Risk Management. After briefing them on the symposium talking points, your Director asks you to come up with a working plan and strategy for how the facility will use both of the concepts you have introduced to arrive at a more centralized and standardized approach. Overall, the desired outcomes focus on adopting a new approach to higher quality with fewer risk factors for the organization. Later that week, the Manager of Risk Management, the Manager of Nursing Quality Assurance, and a representative from Human Resources met to formulate a new plan to reduce the litigation exposure while concurrently increasing the quality of patient outcomes. They set about the complex set of tasks with the expectation that you, as the Director’s designated facilitator, will be closely reviewing their final recommendations. Provide a 250-word executive summary of the research project and recommended plan of action that you will provide to the Director. Address the following: Questions: 1. What is the necessary background information needed to complete your executive summary?Who are the stakeholders? 2. How do the facility’s current Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) outcomes correspond with the current litigation prevention systems? 3. What factors within the nursing units are the most critical to consider when examining higher quality outcomes? 4. What factors within the nursing units are the most critical to consider when examining lower litigation adverse actions and operational impact? 5. What future steps must be taken to accomplish this directive?

Answer 1

1. What is the necessary background information needed to complete your executive summary?Who are the stakeholders?

• A summary about the current long term care facility
• Current practices on risk management and quality management
• Current outcomes on patient safety
• Current work force
• Understanding of oppurtunities to uplift the quality of care provided
• Medicaid , medicare and other federal programs providing funds
• Assessment tools employed currently for checking on risk management and measuring quality outcomes  

Stakeholders are state Governments, health charities in the locality, Pain & cancer and rehabilitation advocacy groups, family members & relatives of patients,nurses, physicians and allied health care professionals , Quality and risk management bodies.

How do the facility’s current Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) outcomes correspond with the current litigation prevention systems?

? By improving patient safety, aid in delivering efficient and affordable care, involving families and friends in their health,enhance communication and coordination of care, practices of advance prevention strategies, eliminating health disparities and by regular assessment of the facility's affordable care, risk resolving and elimininating programs.

3. What factors within the nursing units are the most critical to consider when examining higher quality outcomes?

• Inconsistences and limitations in existing design of the studies and practice
• Structure of nurse staffing
• Appraisal for the quality care of nurses
• Understanding of staffing outcomes relationship
• Nature of supervision of staffs
• Accuracy of care provided to patients by nurses
• Practices of potential preventable risks of the nurses

4. What factors within the nursing units are the most critical to consider when examining lower litigation adverse actions and operational impact?

Lower levels of hospital nurse staffing are associated with more adverse outcomes in the facility.Patients have higher needs but the staffs skills are less.Higher acuity patients and added responsibilities increase nurse workload which makes the nurse stressed ,confused and level of outcomes (quality care) decreases which result harmful to patients.Negative nurse-sensitive safety outcomes should be checked.

5. What future steps must be taken to accomplish this directive?

Adequate staffing, appraisal and education for staffs helps in improving level of care. Supervising them and providing more suggestions in improving the practices may help for betterment of the facility's risks.