A research result which could be utilized in the practice setting to answer the question “In severely ill or injured patients in an intensive care unit (ICU), does early mobilization therapy result in an ameliorated functional state and a decrease of ICU stay compared to non-early mobilization therapy?” is the article was written by a group of researchers, namely, The TEAM Study Investigators (2015).
This study has a decent (but not one hundred percent) fit for the given practice setting because it investigates the impact of using early mobilization therapy on the functional state of the patients (more specifically, on the degree of ICU-acquired weakness at the moment of ICU discharge, and the six-month functional recovery of the patients), although it does not place much emphasis on the length of ICU stay (The TEAM Study Investigators, 2015). This study is feasible because it is not difficult to carry out the measurements proposed in it to assess the state of ICU patients and compare the patients who underwent an early mobilization therapy to those who did not. It is appropriate for the proposed practice setting, for it studies the same phenomenon in a highly similar manner (The TEAM Study Investigators, 2015).
The PDSA plan will be as follows:
- Plan: It will be needed to identify the setting, sample selection criteria, the intervention, and the type of data to be collected. It will also be needed to choose the instruments for this data collection, and the statistical analyses appropriate for the study.
- Do: In the proposed setting, it will be required to choose the sample and assign it to the experimental and control groups; as well as implement an intervention on the experimental group, and gather the required data from both groups.
- Study: It will be necessary to process the collected data and statistically analyzed to obtain the results of the study.
- Act: it will be needed to publish the results of the study, and to implement or advocate the implementation of the method which led to better patient outcomes.
The resources needed for the implementation of this action plan will be as follows:
- Physical: one or several hospitals with ICUs where the intervention can be implemented (for instance, early mobilization may require the presence of equipment such as beds or chairs with specific functions);
- Personal: time and the ability to carry out the measurements;
- Technology: means for processing and analyzing the data (e.g., statistical software packages such as IBM SPSS, Stata, and so on.).
The main criterion for identifying whether the implementation of the research project was successful is the quality and amount of the data which will be gathered during the study, and its capability of being analyzed. The results of the analysis will be valuable regardless of whether or not the patients who will have undergone the early mobilization therapy will be found to perform significantly better than patients without such therapy (that is, a negative result will also contribute to the pool of knowledge about the subject).
Another study which could be useful for extending the knowledge about the selected project is the article written by Adler and Malone (2012). These authors performed a systematic review of literature on the topic, synthesizing the results of multiple studies to create a clear image of the outcomes of implementing the early mobilization therapy in ICUs.
References
Adler, J., & Malone, D. (2012). Early mobilization in the intensive care unit: A systematic review. Cardiopulmonary Physical Therapy Journal, 23(1), 5-13. Web.
The TEAM Study Investigators. (2015). Early mobilization and recovery in mechanically ventilated patients in the ICU: A bi-national, multi-centre, prospective cohort study. Critical Care, 19(1), 81-90. Web.