Introduction
Quality improvement in the healthcare domain refers to a set of practices and procedures at advanced levels to ensure quality outcomes in the hospital setting. Healthcare personnel are the most crucial resources in the hospital setting and should always be in good health. However, they are prone to infections and require appropriate vaccination. A 100% vaccination of healthcare workers is the antidote for better operations since it lowers absenteeism rates (Helms & Reinbeck, 2022). This paper will analyze the quality advancement strategy to attain higher healthcare personnel vaccination at Memorial Hospital, Sweetwater County, Wyoming, by discussing the effectiveness of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) tools.
AHRQ Toolkit
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality toolkit offers a comprehensive framework where nurses and other healthcare practitioners ameliorate outcomes in the healthcare realm. The toolkit contains recommendations and procedures meant to develop the quality of care, make healthcare more accessible, and ensure that different departments work together for better results (Helms & Reinbeck, 2022). Hospital management implementing the recommendations from the tool is likely to experience better healthcare outcomes in the discourse.
Purpose of the AHRQ Implementation Tool Kit
The primary mission of the AHRQ toolkit is to implement evidence-based practice that promotes health and makes healthcare safer, more equitable, and affordable for all patients. Further, the toolkit serves as an inventory for healthcare practitioners to select the best tool to customize their quality improvement requirements (Helms & Reinbeck, 2022). Since each hospital may have a different quality enhancement need, the toolkit is a source of solutions for customized QI needs.
Role of Interprofessional Collaboration in the Project
Teamwork and collaboration play a crucial role in the achievement of healthcare results. Since implementing the plan requires input from different professionals, the toolkit will provide collaboration to improve efficiency. For example, regarding vaccinations, the primary health workers responsible for awareness must work with nurses responsible for dispatching and distributing the vaccines and the doctors to have a seamless transition (Helms & Reinbeck, 2022). Collaboration is the key to success in the project implementation.
Single Area of Improvement
The Memorial Hospital in Sweetwater County has initiated an upgrading strategy by ensuring the staff is vaccinated to reduce vulnerability in the long run. In the Memorial Hospital in Sweetwater County, the rate of healthcare personnel vaccination is 36% lower than the set national benchmark (Rafferty & Minbashian, 2019). Vaccinations in the healthcare setting are necessary since healthcare personnel are at risk of preventable diseases. If the hospital management fails to achieve 100% vaccination, the staff will suffer from vaccine-preventable diseases, lowering the quality of care (Okes, 2019). The lower vaccination rate will increase healthcare workers’ absenteeism and consequently affect the healthcare outcome.
Literature for the Identified Concern
Healthcare workers’ vaccination is an essential preventive step that numerous hospitals take to lower absenteeism rates. Hospital workers are prone to numerous diseases, and the vulnerability can only be reduced when the staff is adequately vaccinated against all the threats in the healthcare setting. This quality enhancement project aims to increase the vaccination rate of healthcare workers by 30% in the next six months to improve the quality of care (Okes, 2019). Over 65% of the hospitals in the USA have invested in personnel awareness of vaccination and encouraged them to be vaccinated against the vulnerability (Helms & Reinbeck, 2022). Increasing awareness among healthcare personnel is a prerequisite for achieving a higher vaccination rate.
Assessment of the Facility’s Readiness to Change
Quality amendment can be implemented effectively depending on the organization’s readiness to change. When an organization is ready to change, the process becomes seamless, and the quality advancement plan is implemented. One way to assess whether the organization is ready to change is to understate the required change and set it as the top priority.
Further, the organization should be aware of the evolution and the need to change. Finally, an assessment will be completed by measuring the leader’s commitment to the proposed transition. Lewin’s change theory is the most feasible ideology for designing and implementing the change (Saleem et al., 2019). Unfreezing, changing, and refreezing are the steps taken to raise the quality of life in the discourse.
Steps Taken to Understand the Problem
The prerequisite for problem-solving is clearly understanding by breaking it down. The first step is to identify and clarify the problem of a higher percentage of unvaccinated healthcare workers in the organization. Secondly, the definition and analysis of the root causes form an essential part of quality development.
Further, the discourse states achievable goals on how the problem will be resolved. Thirdly, an action plan will be developed on the most feasible ways of solving the problem (Rafferty & Minbashian, 2019). The final step is to evaluate the quality reformation results and make the necessary amendments to rectify health outcomes.
The quality enhancement tool to be used is the root cause analysis because it explains why there are low rates of vaccinations. Elimination of the causal factors is the prerequisite for determining the solution in the long run (Okes, 2019). The problem assessment will be completed through a survey where the unvaccinated healthcare workers will be interviewed on why they failed to receive the vaccination. The reasons will then be analyzed, and appropriate measures to overcome them will be taken.
Model for Quality Improvement
Model Description and Summary
The selected model to eliminate the problem of healthcare personnel vaccination at Memorial Hospital, Sweetwater County, is the Focus, Analyze, Develop, and Execute. The quality polishing model is an acronym for focus, analyze, develop, and execute. During the focus and development stage, the problem will be defined and explained to all the stakeholders, and proposed solutions will be developed (Zuhaira & Ahmad, 2021). The analysis section involves the collection of data on the reason why some members of staff are not vaccinated. Execution is the last step, where a checklist determines whether challenges affecting the healthcare personnel are addressed.
Evidence-Based Intervention
Healthy personnel are the prerequisite for high-quality treatment in hospitals. However, when nurses and other healthcare practitioners are not vaccinated, they are prone to sicknesses. Appendix 1 shows the percentage of sepsis patients treated at Memorial Hospital, Sweetwater County. The percentage can be increased when healthcare workers are adequately vaccinated. Research by Ricciardi and Shofer (2019) proved that a higher vaccination rate significantly boosts care management. A high rate of personnel vaccination leads to high-quality service delivery.
Toolkit Used to Implement the Intervention
The AHRQ toolkit selected to increase the vaccination rate is the quality enhancement indicator for revamping healthcare quality and safety. The toolkit was updated in 2016 and is intended to advance the quality of care (Millson et al., 2019). Since vaccination significantly impacts absenteeism in the hospital, the tool will help enhance safety (Danielson et al., 2019). The toolkit involves six key stages to resolve all the challenges in the healthcare setting.
The initial step is assessing readiness to change to determine whether hospital management has a deliberate plan to change. The data collected is used to model the solutions and identify the priorities for quality revamping. Evidence-based interventions, such as increasing training and awareness, will be analyzed in the third step. The last two steps in the quality amendment are determining the return on investment and any other required resources for the development (Millson et al., 2019). An effective investment has a higher return on investment.
Associated Costs
The quality development process entails financial charges to make the change feasible. The overall costs attained by the hospital after implementing the change will increase the quality of life for patients and adjust the hospital’s revenue. Table 1 below shows the budget estimates for implementing the quality upgrade process in the organization. The main savings are the accommodation costs during training since the hospital management will conduct the awareness seminars.
Table 1. Estimated budget for the quality adjustment plan
Donabedian’s Work
Donabedian’s work is a framework used to enhance quality in the healthcare realm. The framework aligns all healthcare advancements as either structural, process, or outcome measures. Each measure is intercalated with another, and the success of one is affected by the other.
The structural measurements for quality elevation are the area of the facility, vaccination centers, and personnel. On the other hand, process measures are the specific steps taken for the success of the vaccination exercise. Outcome measures provide a score achieved after implementing the QI plan, such as the number of successfully vaccinated staff (LoPorto, 2020). Qualitative measurements are used to determine the traits and causes of an action. The data is usually gathered through surveys and interviews to determine the cause of a given phenomenon.
The quantitative measurements, key for statistical analysis, are presented in numerical digits, such as the number of healthcare workers who will show up for the vaccination. A higher number shows success in the quality amendment initiative (Rafferty & Minbashian, 2019). The qualitative outcomes will contribute to the success of the project plans through the generation of policies to overcome the reasons for the low vaccination rate.
Visual Displays for Reporting
A visual display is essential to communication and reporting in the corporate domain. A graph documents the quality amendment to determine the project’s success. The bar graph is the first visual aid that can be used to determine the outcome. Bar graphs are easy to observe and show the deviation. A pie chart will be the second visual aid since it will categorize the reasons for failure to take the vaccination, making it easier for policymakers to determine solutions (Riedel et al., 2022). Effective displays are key in achieving quality sharpening objectives since they help monitor progress.
Conclusion
Healthcare workers are the most critical human capital in the hospital, and their well-being directly impacts the quality of care. The personnel have a higher vulnerability to preventable diseases and should be vaccinated. However, failure to attain a 100% vaccination increases absenteeism, lowering the quality of care. The quality refining plan aims to increase vaccination and rectify the quality of health. Donabedian’s work offers a framework for measuring the action plan for effective outcomes. Following the quality recuperating plan will likely refine the outcome of vaccinating all the personnel at Memorial Hospital, Sweetwater County, in Wyoming.
References
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