Name
Capella University
FPX 6030: MSN Practicum & Capstone
Instructor’s Name
September 27th, 2024
Evaluation Plan Design
In the previous assessments, I recommended the following: The increase in the number of patients may be tackled by decreasing the number of patients per nurse, with the view to decreasing nurse burnout. There is evidence that demonstrates that this intervention has boosted satisfaction among the nurses together with better results among the patients particularly those being treated in Minnesota hospitals. There is a need to develop a good and effective evaluation plan to conclude that the intervention is enhancing the performance of the nurses and the health of the patients. Just like any other component of the project plan, the absence of a sound evaluation plan poses a major problem when it is time to evaluate the impact of the action.
Evaluation of Plan
Defining Outcomes
The intervention I am proposing is to minimize nurse burnout which is dangerous to the health of the nurses and their patients. The nurse/patient ratio is therefore the independent variable with the proposed intervention to increase the ratio to increase nurse productivity and thus the quality of the care provided. The effectiveness of decreasing burnout is another factor that enables improved attention and productivity based on the nurses’ and patients’ condition (Abbasinia et al., 2020). The advancement towards lower levels of burnout reduces the nurses’ impaired productivity and enhances quality care delivery to promote the favorable setting of the intervention’s aim, a favorable nurse-to-patient ratio.
Furthermore, patient safety will be improved because the nurses will be able to address medication errors that occur frequently patient satisfaction will improve as well (Abd et al., 2024). The other benefit of increasing the number of patients that a nurse should attend to is that any nurse will not feel stressed while working hence reducing the probability of getting diseases while working. This improvement in working conditions will have the goodness of enhancing both the hospital and the patient outcomes. Nevertheless, one effect of this intervention that deserves some attention is the tendency for salary expenses, which will see hospitals facing higher costs unless they can get extra revenue.
Creation of an Evaluation Plan
The outcomes of increasing the nurse-patient ratio (which will subsequently decrease Burnout rates amongst the nursing staff) will be assessed through self-administered questionnaires among the nurses and structured interviews with the patients or their next of kin. These assessments will entail self-administered questionnaires to capture the nurses’ health information while patients’ health results will be measured through interviews (Campbell et al., 2020). The measures that will be used for assessment will, therefore, comprise several nurses to the number of patients, nurse’s opinions, and the patient’s health conditions pre and post-intervention.
After 15 days, the collected data will be sorted according to imposed standards of analysis. For instance, the general surgery ward will target a nurse-to-patient ratio of 1:5, the emergency department 1:four, and the critical care unit 1:two. Also, new ratios will create a foundation for daily/weekly/monthly feedback sessions with the nursing staff in which some of the challenges they encounter during implementation of the new ratios will be discussed by Coelho (2020). The results from this kind of data will be complemented by quantitative data to make a comprehensive evaluation. These surveys will also be used to establish patterns in terms of the perceived quality of care by the various patients.
Underlying Assumption
The evaluation plan is premised on the idea that questionnaires will be a valid and efficient means to gather nurses’ and patients’ feedback for evaluation (Meum et al., 2020). This is because they are objective, standard, and stable measurements that enable tracking of shifts or trends in levels of nurse burnout and patient outcomes as ranked by Cathala et al., (2023). We also expect that respondents will not offer fake and biased feedback necessary for proper evaluation of the effectiveness of the intervention. The implementation of colorful dashboards is yet another inference that is thought to be compulsory to display real-time KPIs. These dashboards will allow the capacity to monitor nurse workload, patients’ satisfaction, and other healthcare milestones over time to rectify any patterns that may exist.
Discussion
Analysis of Nurse Role
The rationale for the selection of surveys as the method for data collection originates from the belief that questionnaires are valid and efficient when used with both nurses and patients. Because they can be conducted at set intervals, they are useful for tracking shifts in nurse burnout and patient status (Durkin, 2019). Aside from that, responding to the questionnaire, participants will be honest revealing the actual outcomes of the interventional approach on their performance.
Another assumption is the use of the dashboard as it is believed that reporting on KPIs in real-time is impossible without it (Ghezzi et al., 2021). These dashboards will enable a constant check of any trends or problems with the amount of work being done by the nurses, the satisfaction level of patients, and the general health outcomes of the patients, should there be any, ahead of time. In addition, it is expected that the hospital administration will cooperate fully in the evaluation process by making available the resources required for the upkeep of the dashboards and the administration of the surveys.
Effects of the Plan on Nursing and Interprofessional Collaboration
Hiring more nurses for a specific number of patients means there will be less workload for improving their performance. Working hours can be defined as some hours that a nurse does not feel overwhelmed while executing his/her duties, and thus enhancing quality care delivery (Hidayat et al., 2023). These additional staffing will benefit nurses as well as enhance cooperation to make sure that the jobs are divided among the leaders and the nurses to achieve the purpose of enhancing the overall efficiency and productivity of the healthcare organizations.
A higher level of staffing of the nurse increases patient care outcomes because it minimizes readmissions, stress, and burnout among the nurses. Hence, the competency of the nurse is promoted, and coupled with it is a higher patient satisfaction level. This also means that the hospital frees up the nurses who can then work within such conditions to promote both their welfare as well as that of the patients in order to produce the best results as regards their health and safety.
Areas of Uncertainty and Knowledge Gaps
The effects of an improved nurse staffing ratio also depend on the ways and means through which the nurse manager assigns and partitions tasks among the nurses. One of them is uncertainty where the organizational tasks will be assigned by the new grade of the nurse manager following the increase in staffing because assigning tasks in an un-ideal manner could neutralize the positive impact of the staffing up-gradations (Hidayat et al., 2023). Furthermore, the skills of personnel in a nursing unit are diverse and specialized; this creates inconvenience to the nurse managers when it comes to the deployment of duties and responsibilities that enhance the capacities of all the nurses. An issue, for instance, is the scarcity of a broad body of literature on the threats associated with skill deficits and the supply of sufficiently skilled personnel to accomplish substantial staffing management. It is often unclear to a nurse manager how to divide the tasks between a team when there are dissimilar competencies of all members and when there are no or limited guidelines or research.
Future Steps
Improvement in the Current Project
Cultural incompetency is a major problem that can be addressed by integrating it into the new intervention and would visibly improve the current project. For instance, it will be more comforting to the patients whose choices’ of the preferred nurse are American, if a trainer is awarded to an African American nurse. Increasing cultural competencies is imperative when educating the target population, of Minnesota hospital nurses (Kimani et al., 2023). Possible ways the hospital management can improve patient services include when training the workers to be culturally sensitive in aspects like language. Therefore, it may enrich the patient’s experiences, clinical status, or perceived health status.
Moreover, the intervention plan can be enhanced by the form and dashboard metrics, where the hospital’s performance and progress are evaluated. These technologies facilitate the accurate capturing of data which was Cherified to assist management in recognizing areas that would need to be enhanced in other to produce the right outcomes as envisaged above by (Krumm et al., 2022). Sophisticated solutions like Electronic Health Records (EHR) and coding tools can also prove beneficial by providing the providers and the hospital management to track patient outcomes, readmissions as well as discharge in real-time. Regarding the one-time assessment, it can be concluded that extending the number of factors analyzed at one time may lead to a miscalculation while overemphasizing incremental measurements may hamper the assessment and decision-making of the management after the intervention.
Reflection on Leading Change and Management
Impact on My Ability
The justification for operationalizing project improvement is grounded on realizing the new applicability of the technology and continuous development of the health system to accommodate increasing patient needs. As with any new implementation, there are always disadvantages but these can be managed through well-managed efforts like staff development and trying out with the people of an organization (Kranz et al., 2021). Sound technological skills, and Integration backstage and front end regarding the implementation and exploitation of these technologies will be useful to hospitals and the general athletic patient care and success of projects.
Reflection on Personal Practice
The findings accomplished in this project can be used in practice which provides me with the opportunity to clearly explain the necessity of increasing the nurse-to-patient ratio in the healthcare organization and how the management can facilitate such change (Kesten et al., 2022). It will improve my competencies in addressing the challenging tasks as are typical of the nursing leader, such as control of staff usage and staff health. The institution of this change will effectively decrease nurse burnout, better patient care, and staff satisfaction, and increase staff retention. Moreover, it will assist healthcare organizations in sustaining the excellent quality of services and fulfilling patients’ needs to increase healthcare setup resilience and operational strength.
Integration of Resources
The intervention to increase the nurse-to-patient ratio is premised on the proposition that burnout among nurses affects not only the health status of the nurses but also the quality of the care that accrues to the patients. Numerous studies have pointed positive correlation between nurse burnout to patient outcomes, thus calling for its reduction (Lucas, 2023). The following evaluation plan reflects evidence means and a dependable source of information. For instance, the use of surveys as an assessment tool is backed by previous research regarding the application of the healthcare interventions of Surveys. This plan also stresses the benefits inherent to surveying the health industry, as it allows us to receive necessary data about both employees and patients.
NURS FPX 6030 Assessment 5 Conclusion
Thus, the expected benefit of increasing the nurse-to-patient ratio is to identify a method of preventing burnout among nurses and, in turn, improve patient well-being and quality care. The effectiveness of this intervention can best be assessed using questionnaires, and other assessment instruments (Soriano, 2024). By so doing, the performance of Nurses can be enhanced and therefore build friendly working relationships to enable them to be promoted to leadership positions to enhance performance. Moreover, there is a plan to introduce such changes as improvements in cultural competency into the intervention which will also enhance the project. The body of knowledge and practical experience of this Capstone project shall prepare and equip me to lead and manage initiatives within my practice, toward creating a supportive healthcare environment.
NURS FPX 6030 Assessment 5 References
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