Assignment Guidelines for Leading a Quality Improvement Project
This project can be a group of no more than three students or an individual project.
Topic Examples: (PICK ONE TOPIC)
• Pain Assessment, Management (ex. acute, post-operative pain vs. versus chronic Pain)
• Falls prevention in the hospital and patient centered care
• Medication errors and medication reconciliation increase safety
• Nursing Report and handoffs including nursing and physician SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation) Communication
• Hand hygiene use of antimicrobial soap versus alcohol-based hand rubs- best evidence-based practice
• Preventing Pressure Ulcers and Turning Practices to enhance quality improvement
• Quiet hours and noise level on patient units and patient centered care
• Electronic documentation at the bedside and bar code scanning. How does it improve nursing care and patient safety?
• Infection of central line and blood stream best evidence base practice.
• Social Media dangers and (Facebook, email, Twitter) impact of HIPPA and safety of patient information.
Purpose: Identify, describe, communicate and apply concepts from quality improvement theories to enhance the role of the nurse as change agent, client advocate and advocate for the profession.
Course Objective:
• Understand continuous quality improvement principles and applications.
Activity: Make a visit to a clinical or health care setting and identify an evidence-base practice quality improvement issue.
• The issues can be a current issue that the organization is working on or an issue you can address in the short time frame.
• Review the literature to further identify the evidence to support best clinical nursing practice.
• Identify interventions to improve the process of care based on evidence-based practice.
• Application of this knowledge will be demonstrated by developing a Quality Improvement plan, evaluating the plan through measurement and communicating the results from data collected.
To complete this assignment, EACH student will:
1. Using Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA), complete a Quality Improvement Plan
a. Complete the PDSA Plan Tool found in Moodle and copy and paste onto
b. Select and describe your topic and patient/client population.
c. Select a clinical problem to evaluate against the most current evidence-based practice in the literature.
d. Identify and provide a short description of a behavioral change theory that could be used.
e. Support your problem with the signs and symptoms and support with measurement data.
f. Identify the strategies used or recommended to make improvements in quality of care using evidence-based practice.
g. Develop Measurable Goals – SMART goals. A S.M.A.R.T. goal is defined as one that is specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound. Goals should be simple and clearly defined.
h. Assess the literature to further identify the evidence to support best clinical nursing practice.
i.
2. Analyze the Problem:
a. Collect existing data, summarize and present this data. Because of the short time frame for this class only the collection of pre-data will be expected.
b. Support your problem with the signs and symptoms
3. Develop Interventions :
a. List the interventions in your presentation and document them on the PDSA Tool
b. Identify the strategies used or recommended to make improvements in quality of care using evidence-based practice
c. Identify the role and actions (interventions) of nursing as a change agent.
4. Evaluation and analyze to support your conclusions:
a. Evaluate the Quality Improvement outcomes. What was benefit of this change to the population? Use rationale.
b. What is leaderships role and involvement in Quality Improvement?
c. What was benefit in terms of your own experience, focusing on your nursing role.
5. Communicating Results :
a. Identify how you would or will communicate your results
6. Review of literature:
Provide a short summary of how each of the studies selected supported your project.
Using the literature identify the evidence to support best clinical nursing practice changes. You must use at least 6 references written in APA style. These references must be recent no more than five years old.
Of the six references that direct content, use of a minimum of four recent professional references outside of textbooks; ONE nursing research study is required.
7. Quality improvement activity and emphasizing lessons learned. It must stand alone and convey the steps of the process without a person narrating it. Students must also demonstrate the integration of quality improvement and evidence-based practice to promote a more patient-centered environment.
