Question

Scenario:

You are the director of quality in a 100-bed hospital. The organization has identified three clinical improvement opportunities: reduce surgical site infections, reduce patient falls, and improve compliance with congestive heart failure clinical guidelines.

For this assignment, select one of these clinical improvement opportunities. Your task, as sponsor and team facilitator, is to develop a robust team charter (see exhibit 7.2 in our textbook).

First, research the opportunity you selected to understand how progressive organizations have addressed the challenge.

Next, determine and justify the size of the team and identify the specific positions (to include physicians) that you would include as members. Describe the role of each member.

Then, craft a robust problem statement and team charter.

Finally, create a draft agenda and Gantt chart or timeline (select just one) for the first meeting of the team.

For reducing patients fall

Answer 1

While not every patient fall is preventable, hospitals around the country are proving that the right combination of technology, care processes and focus can reduce the number of falls significantly and, more importantly, the injuries to patients they often cause.

Framing the Issue

• Between 700,000 and 1 million patients suffer a fall — an unplanned descent to the floor with or without injury — in U.S. hospitals each year, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Between 30 and 51 percent of falls result in an injury.
• Since 2008, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services do not pay hospitals for the extra care associated with an inpatient fall and the trauma associated with it.
• While many falls can be avoided, fall prevention is complex because so many things are associated with falls. These include patient factors — including weak muscles, chronic conditions and use of a cane or walker — as well as environmental factors, such as beds not positioned at an optimal height, and process-of-care factors, such as nurses not responding promptly to call bells.
• Team composition:
• Doctor: For helping in developing of fall prevention policies
• Nurse leader : To implement the policies.
• Nurse Educator: To educate nurses to take definite measures for fall prevention and to provide health education to pateints.
• Quality personnel: For creation of policies related to safety programme.

• Prgramme framed as:

• "Transforming Care at the Bedside How-to Guide: Reducing Patient Injuries from Falls," which focuses on anticipated physiological falls.

• Time line will be one week for completion of fist meeting with meeting the responsibilities.