Executive Summary Week 3 Assignment Paper

Executive Summary Week 3 Assignment Paper

Executive Summary Week 3 Assignment Paper

Executive Summary

Quality improvement initiatives allow healthcare organizations and their executive management to implement new programs aimed at monitoring, analyzing and enhancing quality practices and better healthcare outcomes (Coles et al., 2020). Behavioral health nurses encounter challenges in the medication processes, from wait time to patient experience and need to reduce emergency room visits while enhancing overall revenue. As such, quality improvement initiatives aimed at streamlining organizational processes are essential to delivery of quality care. The purpose of this paper or executive summary is to propose a quality improvement initiative to improve processes in the facility where behavioral health nurses work, especially in the emergency department

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Purpose of Quality Initiative

Quality improvement entails a systematic approach based on data to enhance the quality and safety of healthcare delivery. According to Puri et al. (2022), the core purpose of quality improvement initiatives is to better the institution-specific processes. The interventions involve systematic investigation to offer knowledge that improves processes in organizations; making them more efficient and effective in care delivery. In this case, the proposed quality improvement initiative is setting up a separate behavioral health area within the emergency department to cater to patients during their assessment.

Target Population or Audience

The target population or audience for this quality improvement intervention are behavioral health patients, their families and behavioral health nurses who offer care. The area will be dedicated to individuals presenting in the emergency department or room with mental health conditions or as part of the overall patient assessment protocol are required (Coles et al., 2020). The population will get sufficient assessment and information concerning any behavioral health issues while in the emergency department during such visits.

Benefits of the Quality Improvement Initiative

Treating behavioral health patients like any other patient presenting in the emergency department is vital to reducing psychiatric hospitalizations and increased cost of care. These patients have certain needs but the processes for treating them, protecting their privacy and managing their flow through the emergency department (ED) to inpatient units should not differ from any other medical or surgical patients. In their study, Nordstrom et al. (2019) observe that while many mentally ill patients visit emergency departments to access care, these units have not been designed to accommodate their needs and help behavioral health providers offer effective care to them. Setting up such units in ED should be a priority for any health facility or hospital to improve processes for these patients and their effective assessments.

Crowding in the ED affects their confidentiality and privacy while behavioral health professionals find no sufficient space to offer quality and personalized care to such patients (LeMasters et al., 2022). Having the unit in the ED will provide a host of benefits for the patients and even the behavioral health nurses, especially psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners (PMHNPs). The area or unit will improve wait time by ensuring that patients do not take long time to see the providers, will lead to access to sufficient resources and benefits for the patients like better interactions and overall experience (The Joint Commission, 2021). Through this initiative, behavioral health patients and providers will feel more comfortable and develop sufficient approaches to deal with the patients.

Inter-professional Collaboration for the Quality Improvement Initiative

Inter-professional collaboration is essential as it ensures that providers in a healthcare organization focus on delivery of a common goal based on a shared approach and vision. The delivery of behavioral health interventions requires collaboration among different professionals and the management. In this case, the team will comprise social workers, behavioral health nurses like PMHNPs, and nurses as well as physicians who will evaluate the patient when presenting in the emergency department based on their symptoms (Coles et al., 2020). The team will work collaboratively by being on site 24 hours, so that patients presenting in the ED can be examined or assessed comprehensively based on their stated symptoms. The behavioral area in the ED will also have sufficient resources set aside by the management and be monitored through a selected team led by the head of behavioral health unit in the facility.

Cost or Budget Justification

The cost of setting up this unit or area will not be astronomical as the team will draw up a friendly budget for the management to consider based on collected data about the missed treatment for patients presenting with mental health and other associated behavioral health issues. The organization will spend about $ 20,000 to set up the area within the ED. Additional costs will also entail employing more behavioral health providers to cater to patients within the 24-hour period based on their shifts.

Evaluation of the Quality Improvement Initiative

The evaluation of this initiative will focus on determining changes and effects of the separate behavioral area in the ED for these patients. The quality improvement will be evaluated by a decrease in the wait time for these patients, a reduction in emergency room visits and improved patient care experience (The Joint Commission, 2021). Again, the program will ensure that patients access care and have better outcomes while the organization will have increased revenue based on the patients accessing care from the unit. With increased recognition of the role of such units within the ED, the organization will improve the level of its quality care.

Conclusion

Quality improvement initiatives are vital to enhancing quality care and patient experience in healthcare settings. The current intervention focused on building a separate behavioral health unit in the ED will enhance overall access to care and ensure that patients have better outcomes. The initiative will also improve interactions between patients and the mental health workers, including developing personalized care plans.

References

Coles, E., Anderson, J., Maxwell, M., Harris, F. M., Gray, N. M., Milner, G., & MacGillivray, S.

(2020). The influence of contextual factors on healthcare quality improvement initiatives: a realist review. Systematic reviews, 9, 1-22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-020-01344-3

LeMasters, K., Cox, M. E., Fliss, M., Seibert, J., Brown, C., & Proescholdbell, S. (2022). Mental

health emergency department visits: An exploration of case definitions in North Carolina. The American journal of emergency medicine, 57, 103-106. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajem.2022.04.053.

Nordstrom, K., Berlin, J. S., Nash, S. S., Shah, S. B., Schmelzer, N. A., & Worley, L. L. (2019).

Boarding of mentally ill patients in emergency departments: American Psychiatric Association resource document. Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, 20(5), 690. DOI: 10.5811/westjem.2019.6.42422

Puri, I. & Tadi, P. (2022). Quality Improvement.

            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK556097/

The Joint Commission (2021). Quick Safety 19: ED boarding of psychiatric patients – a

continuing problem. https://www.jointcommission.org/resources/news-and-multimedia/newsletters/newsletters/quick-safety/quick-safety–issue-19-alleviating-ed-boarding-of-psychiatric-patients/alleviating-ed-boarding-of-psychiatric-patients/

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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 specific details about how to implement the program and actual/potential itemized cost to implement the program. The program must include an Itemized Cost in detail and cite literature to support the cost. The purpose of presenting to the Board is to request funding. Also include specific details regarding how the program will be evaluated.

Include the following:

1.The purpose of the quality improvement initiative.

*I would like to propose incorporating a separate behavioral health area within the emergency department.

2.The target population or audience.

*Behavioral health patients -vs- medical patients

3.The benefits of the quality improvement initiative.

*This new area will improve wait times, more resources and benefits for behavioral patients and overall patient experience.

4.The interprofessional collaboration that would be required to implement the quality improvement initiative.

*An interprofessional collaboration with 24 hour on site social workers, behavior health specific nurses.

5.The cost or budget justification.

*24 hour social/case worker, specific behavioral health nurses

6.The basis upon which the quality improvement initiative will be evaluated.

*The quality improvement will be seen in the wait time, patient experience, decrease in emergency room visits and increase in revenue.