ESSAY: Driving Change

To prepare for this assessment, you will need to think about changes you feel are needed to address a problem either within nursing as a professional field or within the organization where you work. Narrow down your options by considering which change would best be undertaken by an interprofessional team. Some examples for you to consider might include:

The use of mobile and portable technology to support patients.
Using evidence-based practice (EBP) to improve patient care.
Increasing patient safety and quality of care.
The use of medical technology such as genes and stem cells, or robots in the OR.
Addressing the nursing shortage now and into the future.
Improving the work environment (providing calm, supportive spaces for nurses; improved dialog between health care professionals).
Better safety for nurses at work (violence, spreading diseases, physical injury).
Substance abuse by health care professionals.
Or you can narrow the scope to an issue within your own organization:

Developing a mobility program for an inpatient unit.
Implementing “smart” technology to assist in patient monitoring.
Creating a mentoring program to attract and retain nurses.
Implementing protocols for infection control and/or treatment of an epidemic.
Developing a plan to eliminate physical violence and verbal abuse in the workplace.
Other.
Once you have selected an issue to address, look for scholarly and professional articles that focus on the problem, the needed change, and how interprofessional teams can work together to drive change.

Requirements
Lately you have noticed the need for changes within your organization that would advance the field of nursing. You have decided to develop a proposal and submit it to executive leadership. Format this assessment as a professional proposal. You may want to look at how proposals are drafted within your organization and follow that format. You will still need a references page; follow APA guidelines for in-text citations and references.

Address the following in your proposal:

Briefly describe the problem and how it impacts the organization, patients, and/or the nursing profession.
Describe possible evidence-based interventions for the problem.
Analyze potential barriers and resistance to change that might come from the organization, patients, and/or colleagues.
Describe strategies to overcome barriers and resistance to change.
Develop a plan to implement evidence-based interventions. What steps would you take? What resources might you need?
Identify other health care professionals to enlist as team members to help drive change in the organization.
Your completed assessment should be 4–6 pages in length, not including title page and references page. Support your statements and intervention plan with references to and citations for at least four scholarly or professional resources.

Additional Requirements
Include a title page and references page.
Reference at least four current scholarly or professional resources.
Use APA format for citations and references.
Use Times New Roman font, 12 point.
Double space.
Rubric:

CRITERIA NON-PERFORMANCE BASIC PROFICIENT DISTINGUISHED
Analyze how a problem impacts an organization, patients, or the nursing profession. Does not analyze how a problem impacts an organization, patients, or the nursing profession. Describes a problem but does not analyze how it impacts an organization, patients, or the nursing profession. Analyzes how a problem impacts an organization, patients, or the nursing profession. Analyzes how a problem impacts an organization, patients, or the nursing profession, and provides examples.
Describe evidence-based solutions to a problem and develop a plan to implement these solutions. Does not describe evidence-based solutions to a problem and does not develop a plan to implement these solutions. Describes solutions to a problem but does not provide evidence to support the solutions. Develops a plan to implement solutions to a problem, but the solutions are not supported by evidence. Describes evidence-based solutions to a problem and develops a plan to implement these solutions. Describes evidence-based solutions to a problem and examines the pros and cons of the solutions. Develops a plan to implement evidence-based solutions to a problem and includes methods to evaluate how well the solutions are working.
Analyze barriers and resistance to change, and describe strategies to overcome these barriers and resistance to change from an organization, patients, or colleagues. Does not analyze barriers and resistance to change, and does not describe strategies to overcome these barriers and resistance to change from an organization, patients, or colleagues. Describes barriers and resistance to change from an organization, patients, or colleagues. Lists strategies to overcome barriers and resistance to change. Analyzes barriers and resistance to change, and describes strategies to overcome these barriers and resistance to change from an organization, patients, or colleagues. Analyzes barriers and resistance to change from an organization, patients, or colleagues and explores the consequences of not solving a problem. Analyzes strategies to overcome barriers and resistance to change.
Identify other health care professionals to enlist as members of an interprofessional team to drive change in an organization. Does not identify other health care professionals to enlist as members of an interprofessional team to drive change in an organization. Identifies other health care professionals to enlist as members of an interprofessional team, but it is not clear how the team will drive change in an organization. Identifies other health care professionals to enlist as members of an interprofessional team to drive change in an organization. Identifies other health care professionals to enlist as members of an interprofessional team to drive change in an organization and outlines how the team will drive change in an organization.

ANSWER

Driving Change – Using EBP to Improve Patient Care

Change is inevitable. To transform and scale up the way quality healthcare is to be achieved, organizations have to change the way it approaches healthcare issues. Among thefields that organizations mainly advocate for changes is the field of Nursing.Healthcare organizations lately grapple with many challenges facing nursing which if well addressed will see improvement in provision of quality care to patients (Stavor, Zedreck-Gonzalez & Hoffmann, 2017). This essay seeks to explore how evidence based practice can be used to improve patient care. The proposal also explains how the changes within the identified field will advance the field of nursing.

Briefly Describe the Problem

The nursing profession is one of the most important areas in healthcare. From having a lot of paper work to be completed to providing quality and safe patient care among many other duties which can never be ignored. Besides this, the current medical world is diverse with many innovations coming up day to day. This changes calls for nurses to have another task of undertaking research. Even though this may not be mandatory, nurses are encouraged to undertake research as a way of sharpening their skills towards quality care (Hall & Roussel, 2016). Through research, the findings can be used to find areas that needs improvement in the organization hence eventually improving patient outcomes (Stavor et al., 2017).

Cases have emerged in nursing professions where wrong diagnostic procedures are undertaken or wrong medications administered. Worse still, many new infectious diseases and chronic illnesses are coming up yet the current crop of nurses may not be in a position to handle them. These and many other challenges cannot be evaded and hence a way has to be found on how nurses can be trained to adapt to the new changes and challenges befalling the profession.

Possible Evidence-Based Interventions

The possible solution to the above described challenge facing nursing is the use of tested and approved practices as a way of improving patient care. This is critical because there is a very urgent need for nurses to stay up to date with the happenings in this sector from new illnesses that can be solved by undertaking adequate research to the latest technologies and research findings which definitely improve the quality of care given to patients (Stavor et al., 2017).

But the question is what is evidence based practice and what does it deal with? The National Council of the State Boards of Nursing defines it as “an integration of best research having clinical expertise and patient values at hand (Stevens, 2013). Most hospital organizations need this practice since it helps improves one’s own clinical knowledge, entails patient preferences as well as values and also appraises one with the most researched evidence that helps answer some critical clinical questions.  

With evidence based practice, cases of misdiagnosis, failing to embrace new technology as well as inability to interpret new medical findings will come to an end. Besides this, it also helps nurses engage in multidisciplinary methods of providing healthcare and hence improving the quality of patient care (Hall & Roussel, 2016). EBP is also very appropriate to the nursing problem as it provides …

Potential Barriers and Resistance to Change Embracing evidence based practices can receive resistance from many nurses even though majority agree that it helps improve patient care. Some of the barriers include lack of time. As already explained, there is already a lot to be accomplished by a nurse. In a very busy organization like ours, nurses hardly get time to do anything besides the hospital schedule they have which is very tight (Fertman, 2016). To engage in evidence…