Executive Summary Essay

Executive Summary Essay

Healthcare institutions face different issues and challenges from time to time. These issues may compromise care delivery, patient safety, and patient satisfaction. The issues are usually addressed through quality improvement projects and initiatives to ensure quality care, patient safety, and satisfaction. It is the responsibility of healthcare leaders to source funding to cater to quality improvement initiatives. They also garner support from the board and other relevant stakeholders. This paper presents an executive summary of a quality improvement initiative to secure funds and support from the board. The selected topic is early detection and prevention of sepsis in hospital settings.

Purpose of the Quality Improvement Initiative

The quality improvement initiative selected intends to enhance sepsis prevention and early detection across all units in the hospital. It involves creating badge buddies for nurses with signs and symptoms and SRIs of sepsis for quick recognition. Sepsis is a life-threatening complication that involves the body’s extreme response to an infection by damaging its tissues. Sepsis is a medical emergency requiring immediate action since immediate response failure may lead to extreme tissue damage, organ failure, and even death. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (n.d.), sepsis is a major health concern that claims about 350,000 deaths in adults hospitalized or discharged to hospice care. Also, every 1 in 3 patients who die in the hospital had sepsis during hospitalization (CDC.gov, n.d.). Therefore, healthcare institutions need to identify people at higher risk and the causes and symptoms of sepsis, thus enhancing prevention and early detection. Nurses are the healthcare providers that are closest to the patients. They are, therefore, best suited to detect sepsis early enough and develop care plans and interventions to address it. The quality improvement initiative will emphasize the issue to the nursing staff and thus contribute to addressing the health concern.

The Target Population/Audience

The targeted audience is the nurses. Research shows that nurses are knowledgeable in not only sepsis management but also sepsis prevention and early detection (Öztürk Birge, Karabag Aydin, & Köroğlu Çamdeviren, 2022)). Therefore, they must be prepared to address the sepsis issue at all times. By knowing the patients at high risk of sepsis and the signs and symptoms to look out for, nurses will be able to act aptly and avoid sepsis forms such as Systemic Inflammatory Response. The nursing staff, especially those working in critical settings where the prevalence of sepsis can be high, require the skills and knowledge to detect and prevent sepsis. They should also be aware of disseminated sepsis, such as Systemic Inflammatory Response, and how to handle it. The quality improvement initiative, therefore, mainly targets nurses.

Benefits of the Quality Improvement Initiative

The quality improvement initiative will benefit the nursing staff, the patients, and the healthcare institution in several ways. The nursing staff, who are the primary beneficiaries of the initiative, will have increased confidence, a sense of responsibility, and a point of reference when caring for septic patients. Having the sepsis badge buddies will increase the nurses’ confidence since they will be trained before acquiring the badges, thus quickly acting and preventing sepsis incidences. Badge buddies remind them of their responsibility in preventing and early detection of sepsis, thus allowing them to pay more emphasis on the issue (Sloane et al., 2018). In addition, the sepsis and SIRs badge will have the signs and symptoms of sepsis, thus acting as a reference for the nurses. They will also have badges while working in departments and units, thus always reminding them of their health issue.

The patients will benefit by having a better quality of care delivery, and be guaranteed patient safety, thus, better health outcomes. In addition, it will be easy for the patients to identify the nurses when they need sepsis-related help. The institution will also benefit from the reduced number of sepsis cases recorded. There will also be reduced sepsis-related costs and mortality cases due to early detection and response.

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The Interprofessional Collaboration Required to Implement the Quality Improvement Initiative

According to Delawder and Hulton (2020), successful implementation of the quality improvement initiative requires the input and collaboration of various interprofessional team members. The interprofessional team members needed for the initiative include the doctors, pharmacists, nurses, the nurse informaticist, and the nurse leaders of particular units and departments. The doctors’ and pharmacists’ input will encompass the sepsis signs and symptoms verification and the medications and interventions that should be taken when nurses detect sepsis. In addition, the interprofessional team members may have different perspectives on the health issue and the initiative selected. Therefore, they are well suited to advise on the initiative’s validity and viability. The nurse informaticist will be responsible for designing the badge buddies and following up with the printing. Their perspectives and input will therefore be considered when implementing the initiative.

Cost/Budget Justification

The quality improvement initiative requires funds for printing the badge buddies and regular updating when required. The badges will have more information, including sepsis signs and symptoms, the patients who may be at high risk of sepsis, and the immediate interventions for patients under septic shock. Thus, the cost of printing the badge buddies might be a bit higher. Each badge buddy will cost $5 for printing, and the regular updating will cost about $3. There are a total of 500 nurses. Thus, the initiative requires about $2500 and about $1500 for updating the badge buddies. The initiative, therefore, needs $2500 immediately and the remaining $1500 allocated to the nursing staff budget within the fiscal year. The prior sepsis training will not be included in this budget since the initiative mainly focuses on badge buddies. However, nurse training on sepsis will be scheduled along with the monthly nursing staff workshops before introducing the badge buddies.

The Basis Upon which the Quality Improvement Initiative will be Evaluated

The quality improvement initiative will be evaluated based on its outcomes. The outcomes include a reduction in the incidence of sepsis across all departments and units in the institution, the number of sepsis-related mortalities, and the cost of sepsis care. These outcomes will have been realized after successful prevention and early detection of sepsis and SIRs. The institution’s sepsis benchmark evaluation dashboard will be used to compare the number of recorded sepsis cases and sepsis-related mortalities before and after the introduction of the sepsis badge buddies. Nursing staff will also be expected to demonstrate relevant skills, knowledge, and awareness of sepsis early detection and prevention.

Conclusion

Sepsis is a major healthcare issue that requires immediate attention. Early detection and prevention initiatives can help reduce an institution’s sepsis incidence and sepsis-related mortalities. Nurses play a major role in facilitating and implementing these initiatives. The executive summary above validates the sepsis badge buddie’s initiative to help address the issue in the institution. Sepsis badge buddies will be a reference point for the nurses and enhance their sense of responsibility in sepsis prevention and early detection, thus improving care quality and patient safety.

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References

Delawder, J. M., & Hulton, L. (2020). An interdisciplinary code sepsis team to improve sepsis-bundle compliance: a quality improvement project. Journal of Emergency Nursing, 46(1), 91-98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jen.2019.07.001

Öztürk Birge, A., Karabag Aydin, A., & Köroğlu Çamdeviren, E. (2022). Intensive care nurses’ awareness of identification of early sepsis findings. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 31(19-20), 2886-2899. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.16116

Sloane, P. D., Ward, K., Weber, D. J., Kistler, C. E., Brown, B., Davis, K., & Zimmerman, S. (2018). Can sepsis be detected in the nursing home prior to the need for hospital transfer? Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 19(6), 492-496. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2018.02.001

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sepsis, Educational Information. https://www.cdc.gov/sepsis/what-is-sepsis.html

Assessment Description
In this assignment, you will propose a quality improvement initiative from your place of employment that could easily be implemented if approved. Assume you are presenting this program to the board for approval of funding. Write an executive summary (750-1,000 words) to present to the board, from which the board will make its decision to fund your program or project. Include the following:

The purpose of the quality improvement initiative.
The target population or audience.
The benefits of the quality improvement initiative.
The interprofessional collaboration that would be required to implement the quality improvement initiative.
The cost or budget justification.
The basis upon which the quality improvement initiative will be evaluated.
You are required to cite a minimum of three peer-reviewed sources to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years, appropriate for the assignment criteria, and relevant to nursing practice.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Class Resources if you need assistance.