Start reviewing and responding to the postings of your classmates as early in the week as possible. Respond to at least two of your classmates. Participate in the discussion by asking a question, providing a statement of clarification, providing a point of view with a rationale, challenging an aspect of the discussion, or indicating a relationship between two or more lines of reasoning in the discussion. Complete your participation for this assignment by the end of the week.
Reply to my peers
Discussion Question 2
Read Chapter 7 in your text Murray, E. (2017). Nursing leadership and management for patient safety and quality care. Philadelphia, PA.: F.A. Davis Company.
The following Web sites offer many resources Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Tools
http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/Tools/default.aspx
Society for Quality http://www.asq.org/learn-about-quality/quality-tools.html
Over the past 6 months, patients in the intensive care unit have experienced an increase in central line infections. The nurse leader and manager suspects that the increase is related to more central lines being inserted in the emergency department. A quality improvement (QI) team is being formed to identify the root causes of central line infections.
• Who should be on the QI team?
• What leadership theories and models would you use with this team?
• Outline the steps in the QI process to use in this situation.
• How would the QI team implement an activity to improve the infection rate, and how will the team know the activity worked?
• What Quality Improvement Tool would you use to visually display the outcomes over time to your team?
Peer 1
The Quality Improvement (QI) team would consist of both nurses and doctors in the facility. Central line infections are either caused by the wrongful placement of catheters or prolonged use of the catheters without replacement (Haddadin et al., 2020). Both doctors and nurses involved in the insertion of the central lines will be involved in the team. One of the leadership models that would be effective with the QI team is transformational leadership. The QI team need both motivation and empowerment to solve the issue. Through transformational leadership, the team would be motivated to take ownership in the placement or insertion of catheters as well as monitoring their progress. Transformational leadership will be effective in this case as it will give them the team the freedom to explore all the possible scenarios and solutions in solving the issue. In health care, transformational leadership has proven in motivating healthcare workers, giving them moral and motivation to solve some of the most intriguing health issues in health.
One of the most crucial steps in the QI process is coming up with a plan to solve the issue. The issue can be solved if nurses and doctors are properly trained on catheter use and insertion into the central line. The plan will involve a week-long training on the doctors and nurses working in the intensive care unit. It will also involve the replacement of catheters in the emergency department as well as in patients at the emergency wing. Before implementing the plan, the QI team would test the plan on randomly selected patients in intensive care. In the trial, catheters inserted into the central lines of the patients would be replaced after every 72 hours. After two weeks of the trial, the rate of central line infections would be assessed. If the rates have declined, the plan would be adopted. The Situation Background Assessment Recommendation (SBAR) tool will be utilized to communicate with the team about the outcomes of the plan. SBAR provides a forum for communication between members of the QI team.
References
Haddadin Y., Anamaraju, P., & Regunath, H. (2020). Central line associated blood stream infections (CLABSI) – StatPearls – NCBI bookshelf. National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430891/
The COVID-19 Pandemic has presented the nation and health care organizations with an unforeseen emergency. This type of situation requires all health professionals to be leaders in their communities.
1. Review this article https://gacc.nifc.gov/cism/documents/leadership.pdf
2. Review the ANA statement calling for a collaborative effort to respond to COVID-19 at this link https://www.nursingworld.org/news/news-releases/2020/american-nurses-association-calls-for-collaborative-effort-to-respond-to-the-coronavirus/
Answer these questions:
1. In your present health care organization how well prepared is the organization and the staff to respond to the pandemic?
2. What was the nursing leaders’ response to the crisis?
3. Relate the response to the theories you learned in this course and the Crisis Leadership article.
4. What else should be done to improve the response? What is the leader’s role in this improvement?
5. How are you responding to the pandemic as a health care professional and leader?
Peer 2
To say that the unexpected situation that is COCID-19 has thrown us all for loop would be an understatement. Sadly, the facility where I work was simply not prepared to handle and emergent situation of this magnitude. My department is small, and we have been less affected by the pandemic than other departments. But the organization as a whole has not reacted in an efficient manner. We lost a large number of staff because of a decrease in production and because of fear of working closely with infected patients. This led to the hospital falling into a whirl. I feel that management did not figure out a strategic plan in time to prepare us all for the waves of patients. They went with the “we will figure it out” strategy instead. And with a chaos this severe, this simply does not work well. In return, many staff members are unhappy, burnt out, and frustrated. A large number of them have gotten infected with the virus as well. In my department specifically, my leaders have been trying their best. They have communicated with us well the plan and strategies as they are calculated by administration. They have practiced delegation well. As the text explains, “the only way to manage rapidly emerging issues following a critical event is to utilize resources available to you” (). Our leaders have used their resources to help our department function better and safer by gathering doctors and other directors and creating a safe routine to get patients screened before we take them to the lab. This prevents unsafe exposure to our staff and keeps the STEMI program protected. They have also been very supportive and have maintained available to us for questions of concerns. As for the rest of the hospital and departments, they have some catching up to do and are learning as we go, making the best of the situation. But I feel they could have been more prepared to act better.
ICISMP. 2017. Crisis Leadership. Retrieved from https://gacc.nifc.gov/cism/documents/leadership.pdf
