HCA 620 Assignment Capstone Project Proposal: Executive Summary

Hospital X looks to develop an evidence-based solution to the issue of hospital falls since its prevalence has become a concern. Available literature suggests that patient falls cause substantial losses to the hospital while it also negatively impacts patient satisfaction. Consequently, the hospital requires evidence-based interventions in order to reduce and if possible eliminate instances of patient falls. As such, capstone project will study the effectiveness of both nursing rounds and call lights in the prevention of this event. Given that call lights is riddled with disadvantages such as forgetfulness, nursing rounds will be prioritized as a better intervention. Therefore, the present paper will provide an executive summary of the capstone project related to reduction of patient falls by capturing all the pertinent facets of the proposal as well as the preferred research support.

Proposal: Executive Summary

Problem Statement

Hospital falls are prevalent complications of hospital care with devastating consequences. These falls particularly affect the elderly population in a hospital. According to studies on the epidemiology of hospital falls, the prevalence of falls occurs in 3–5 per 1000 bed-days rate, while other statistics by the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (2019) approximates that between 700 000 to 1 million falls occur annually amongst hospitalized patients. Further statistics reveal that nearly 800 000 of the 16. Million patients in nursing homes in the United States experience falls annually (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2019). Health care facility falls result in among other things significant injuries to the victims. Indeed, circa one third of in-hospital falls lead to the development of serious injuries such as head trauma and fractures to the victims. The falls that result in a health care facility are not reimbursed by the Medicare and Medicaid Services since they are regarded as a never event. Further, even falls that are not associated with injuries can still be fatal. These falls can lead to such issues as anxiety and distress to the family, patient, and health care personnel and may usher in a negative cycle where a fall-phobia results to a person restricting their activities, which may consequently result in loss of independence and strength (Growdon, Shorr, & Inouye, 2017). Therefore, due to the risk for injury, financial consequences, and the psychosocial impact of patient falls, my present paper is focused on comparing the effectiveness of nursing rounds to call lights to prevent incidences of patient falls.

Nature of Capstone Project

The author’s capstone project will be based on the following PICOT: “For adult inpatients in medical surgical unit, does the use of nursing rounds reduce the future risk of falls when compared with call lights?” The question will guide the capstone project in order to determine the more effective intervention as regards the risk of falls between nursing rounds and call lights. The project will be biased towards nursing rounds being more effective while also examining the impact of call rounds on the same. In order to succeed, the project will need to facilitate a change of organizational culture at the facility to ensure that the results of this evidence-based project are adopted by personnel.

Click here to ORDER an A++ paper from our Verified MASTERS and DOCTORATE WRITERS HCA 620 Assignment Capstone Project Proposal: Executive Summary:

Solution Description

The solution for the capstone project will entail the provision of an effective intervention in the prevention of patient falls. According to Stephenson et al. (2015), assessing patients for fall risks and adopting strategies such as nursing rounds and call lights have proven effective in managing patient falls. However, the fundamental tenet of the present project is to provide a more effective solution, which is nursing rounds. Therefore, the project will seek to support the assertion that nursing rounds should be adopted by hospitals to reduce patient falls.

HCA 620 Assignment Capstone Project Proposal Executive Summary

Change Model

Instituting the results of this project at the hospital will depend on the culture of nursing personnel. To this end, the project will employ the usage of Rogers Diffusion Theory of Innovation. The five frameworks of the change model will be used to ensure that the above solution gains momentum and then becomes diffused into the hospital system (Leggott et al., 2016). Various undertakings such as training, education, and dissemination will occur to achieve this objective.

Implementation Plan

The implementation of the solution that will be proffered from the present capstone project will occur in a strategic manner. The results of the project will be disseminated to the nurses and relevant stakeholders to make certain that they acquire a culture of change. The workability of the proposed change will be pursued within the DOI framework with the identification of the health care personnel also occurring (Fahy, 2017). Secondly, the advantages of the solutions as relates to its reduction of patient falls will be addressed for purposes of motivating employees to accept the change. Stage three of the plan will see the hospital making a decision to accept the evidence-based solution provided by the project. Further, phase four of the plan will see the actual adoption of nursing rounds as a patient falls preventative strategy. In stage five, further support for nursing rounds such as increasing the frequencies of rounds though reduction of hours will be explored to make the solution even more effective (Plum & Khuntia, 2019). Thus, the implementation plan for this project will be predicated upon the Diffusion Theory of Innovation as posited by Rogers.

Evaluation

After implementing the project, it will be incumbent upon the researchers to evaluate the progress of the proposed solution alongside its adoption at the hospital. Data on the prevalence of hospital falls before and after the implementation of the proposed evidence based solution will be collected. An analysis of the two datasets will occur to determine the effectiveness of the solution. This evaluation will occur three months after the implementation of the results of the capstone project.

Research Support for the Project

Evidence from the literature will be instrumental in ensuring that the capstone project achieves its objectives. During the project, the author will scour various database sources for peer-reviewed valid literature materials touching on both nursing rounds and call lights vis-à-vis the prevention of falls. In order to achieve this, the project will employ both qualitative and quantitative studies. In other words, the capstone project is going to be a mixed methods capstone project wherein both quantitative and qualitative data will be collected concurrently, undergo separate analysis and then merged (Peetom et al., 2016). In quantitative research, the project will use comparative research design to assess data collected between nursing rounds and call lights in relation to patient falls. On the other hand, a qualitative semi-structured interview will be conducted though the performance of an analysis of existing interventions at other hospitals to explore the effectiveness of either solution.

Conclusion

In summary, the capstone project will look to study the effect of nursing rounds and call rounds on patient falls. Rogers Theory of Innovation will be used to facilitate the change process from initiation to implementation. Also, a mixed methods research design will form the basis of the project.

References

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2019, September). Patient safety primers | AHRQ patient safety network. Retrieved from https://psnet.ahrq.gov/Primers

Fahy, N. (2017). Incorporating psychological theory into the model of diffusion of innovations in healthcare (Doctoral dissertation, University of Oxford).

Growdon, M. E., Shorr, R. I., & Inouye, S. K. (2017). The tension between promoting mobility and preventing falls in the hospital. JAMA internal medicine, 177(6), 759-760.

Leggott, K. T., Martin, M., Sklar, D., Helitzer, D., Rosett, R., Crandall, C., … & Mercer, D. (2016, September). Transformation of anesthesia for ambulatory orthopedic surgery: A mixed-methods study of a diffusion of innovation in healthcare. In Healthcare (Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 181-187). Elsevier.

Peetoom, K. K., Lexis, M. A., Joore, M., Dirksen, C. D., & De Witte, L. P. (2016). The perceived burden of informal caregivers of independently living elderly and their ideas about possible solutions. A mixed methods approach. Technology and Disability, 28(1, 2), 19-29.

Plum, A., & Khuntia, J. (2019, January). An Innovation Platform for Diffusing Public Health Practices across a Global Network. In Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Stephenson, M., Mcarthur, A., Giles, K., Lockwood, C., Aromataris, E., & Pearson, A. (2015). Prevention of falls in acute hospital settings: a multi-site audit and best practice implementation project. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 28(1), 92-98.

HCA 620 Assignment Capstone Project Proposal: Executive Summary