Our orders are delivered strictly on time without delay
Paper Formatting
Double or single-spaced
1-inch margin
12 Font Arial or Times New Roman
300 words per page
No Lateness!
Our orders are delivered strictly on time without delay
Our Guarantees
Free Unlimited revisions
Guaranteed Privacy
Money Return guarantee
Plagiarism Free Writing
Sustaining a Quality Improvement
Imagine that you work at a large Northern Midwest clinic. Your department implemented a very successful quality improvement six months ago that has reduced medication errors. The improvement requires the evidence-based practice of having two nurses review the vaccine type and dosage. The hospital's CFO has recently suggested not requiring the two-nurse process for vaccine administration for the summer, since it requires extra staffing to make sure there are enough nurses to perform the processes. In summer, especially during extended hours, it is difficult to find enough nurses for that staffing level since almost all the nurses use their vacation time during the summer. You have overheard some nurses supporting the CFO's suggestion for the summer. While the success of the new intervention was shared with the clinic director, you do not know if that major improvement was communicated with the nurses.
This discussion will help you explain how to persuade and change behaviors of various stakeholders to sustain quality improvement and identify how to persuade and generate enthusiasm to sustain an initiative.
In your initial post, address the following:
What could you do to build support and sustain the two-nurse vaccine administration quality improvement? What are some ways you could create new enthusiasm for the two-nurse vaccine administration quality improvement with nurses? If the CFO asked for your opinion on his suggestion, how would you reply?
Sample Answer
This is a classic scenario illustrating the challenges of sustaining quality improvement (QI), especially when efficiency/cost (the CFO's priority) clashes with patient safety/quality (the nursing department's priority). Your goal is to use persuasion and data to protect the successful, evidence-based intervention.
🤝 Building Support and Sustaining the Two-Nurse QI Process
To build support and sustain the two-nurse vaccine administration process, you must address the core issue: the perceived cost and staffing burden (CFO concern) and the inconvenience (some nurses' concern).
Here is a multi-pronged approach:
Reinforce the Value with Data:
Visibility Campaign: Ensure the specific results of the QI are widely known, especially the link between the new process and patient safety. Present the data clearly and visually (e.g., "Medication Errors Down 90% in the Last 6 Months"). This shifts the discussion from "extra work" to "lives improved/saved."
Share Testimonials: Collect and share positive feedback or stories from patients, families, or even nurses who avoided an error due to the new check. Personal stories are more persuasive than raw statistics.
Formalize the Process as a Standard of Care (Institutionalize):
Work with the Clinic Director and QI team to formally incorporate the two-nurse check into the clinic's permanent policy and electronic health record (EHR) documentation requirements. Once it is a mandatory, auditable step, it is harder to casually remove.
Recognize and Reward: Publicly acknowledge nurses (as individuals and as a group) for their adherence to the new, safer process. Tie compliance to performance reviews or bonuses, establishing the process as a normative behavior that is valued by the organization.
Address the Root Cause (Staffing/Efficiency):
Data-Driven Staffing Proposal: Partner with nursing leadership to use the QI success data as leverage to advocate for permanent, evidence-based staffing levels. Frame the argument as "We reduced risk by $X$; the cost of one major error is $Y$. The staffing needed to prevent $Y$ is a critical investment."
Efficiency Review: Analyze if the two-nurse process can be made more efficient without sacrificing safety. Perhaps the second check can be performed by other authorized staff (e.g., specific clinical support staff) in limited circumstances, or scheduling can be optimized to batch vaccine administration times.
✨ Creating New Enthusiasm with Nurses
The nurses who support the CFO's suggestion are likely exhausted and seeking relief from staffing pressures. You need to appeal to their professional identity and autonomy.
Appeal to Professionalism and Ownership:
Focus Group/Workshop: Hold a meeting framed not as "Why we must keep the rule," but as "Protecting Our Success: How We Maintain Zero Errors." Acknowledge their staffing difficulties and validate their feelings.
"Error Prevention Champions": Appoint and empower a group of respected nurses to be the "champions" of the process. This increases their ownership of the intervention and allows peer-to-peer reinforcement, which is often more effective than top-down mandates.