Planning Your Project
The nature of the problem is that in the clinical setting there are a large number of issues, such as falls, pressure ulcers, and these lead to lower levels of customer satisfaction and negative patient outcomes. There are ways to improve both customer service and to help the patients. So this is the problem that needs to be tackled.
The setting is in a clinic, where patients are in rooms, and there is sometimes a relatively minimal level of nursing supervision. The patients are sometimes able to move freely around their rooms, and this creates the conditions where the patient might fall or otherwise injure themselves, and there is no way for anybody to know that this has happened. The clinic needs to institute evidence-based practice in order to improve the patient outcomes and the service levels that the nurses are providing.
The impact of the problem is significant. Particularly for things like falls, when people fall it not only creates injuries but it runs the risk of making other problems worse. Furthermore, when the fall is not detected, that reflects poorly on the facility, and on the nurses who work at the facility. Customer service scores go down, patients and their families become more upset and the reputation of the clinic becomes worse. So there are many outcomes for the current problem, and none of them are good for the clinic.
The gravity of the problem is relatively minor in most cases, but there are instances when somebody is injured and when they are not helped right away they have negative outcomes. So there needs to be systems in place that will allow for faster response to such issues. The work environment also suffers from this problem. The nurses do not have the resources that they need to deliver...
Patients and their families are also angrier because of the negative patient outcomes, and this is something that can create stress-related health outcomes for the health care providers who have to deal with this situation. There are really no winners.
The significance of this problem to the nursing profession is that this is an area where nurses can play a better role in helping patients. The structure of the nursing job can help to deliver better patient outcomes, for example, and that is something that should be encouraged. There appears to be data with respect to solutions, and potential solutions, from different health care facilities. Thus, there is an opportunity to form evidence-based policy that takes into account the interests of all of the relevant stakeholders. The nurses are most definitely an important stakeholder, as they are often at the front line of care for patients, and the response time for nurses to things like falls will improve patient outcomes significantly.
Proposed Solution
The proposed solution to the problem is a call button that can be used to signal a nurse when there is a problem, similar to what they have on airplanes when you want to call a stewardess over. In this clinic, there are no such call buttons. However, it is important to have this sort of button in order to ensure that the nursing staff can respond quickly when there is a need. This solution is relatively simple, but it also gives the patients more control over their own situations, and puts the nurses in a better position with respect to being able to deliver better service.
Another possible solution is to recognize that somebody who may not be conscious needs assistance, too, and that nurses should…
