NURS FPX 4020 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety

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Capella university

NURS-FPX 4020 Improving Quality of Care and Patient Safety

Prof. Name

Date

Enhancing Quality and Safety

Inadequate pain management in healthcare settings is a quality and safety issue of great importance. This issue is interlinked with substantial healthcare costs, leading to healthcare disparities. This assessment focuses on analyzing a specific quality and safety issue in a healthcare setting and elaborating on evidence-based best practices to address the risk factors leading to the concern. Moreover, the paper discusses how nurses play an influential role in maintaining care coordination in such situations by collaborating with various stakeholders. 

Factors Leading to the Safety Problem

To better understand inadequate pain management as a quality and safety issue, the case study of a particular healthcare setting presented below delves into the factors that lead to the safety problem, requiring prompt interventions. This scenario is from AdventHealth, Winter Park, where Ms. Johnson was admitted for her hip replacement surgery, which was deemed necessary due to severe osteoarthritis. Her condition required emergency surgery as it was affecting her mobility and overall quality of life. Through collaborative and expert efforts from the surgeons, the surgical procedure was successful, and Ms. Johnson was transferred to the postoperative care unit for recovery.

However, the surgeon didn’t adequately communicate postoperative orders for pain management with the nursing staff. Upon arrival in the postoperative care unit, Ms. Johnson was kept under the care of a novice nurse. A few hours later, the patient reported significant pain, scoring it at an 8 out of 10 on the pain scale. Lack of expertise in pain evaluation led to an incomplete and inaccurate pain assessment. This improper assessment, along with poor communication about post-op pain management orders, resulted in delayed pain management. Moreover, the patient received her pain medication late as the nursing staff faced challenges with coordinating the pharmacy, resulting in prolonged discomfort and, overall, a stressful situation for the patient. 

Several factors lead to inadequate pain management in healthcare settings. Lack of adequate training and inappropriate pain assessment, as highlighted in the scenario, may directly impact pain management in healthcare settings. Insufficient knowledge and training related to pain assessment and management may contribute to a lack of pain identification, leading to delayed administration of analgesics and suboptimal use of non-pharmacological pain management strategies (Cao & Hull, 2021; Hämäläinen et al., 2022). Other factors identified in the case scenario are lack of communication and coordination among healthcare professionals. Poor coordination leads to delayed implementation of pain management plans. The literature claims that a multidisciplinary approach is fundamental for developing and implementing individualized pain management plans to address patients’ needs adequately. This approach requires adequate communication and collaborative efforts among healthcare professionals (Atthayasai et al., 2023). 

Evidenced-based and Best-practice Interventions

Post-operative pain and discomfort are common in approximately 47% of individuals worldwide. This pain has significant consequences on patients’ emotional well-being, leading to emotional distress, depression, and stress. Additionally, pain impacts patients’ daily routines and capabilities, leading to poor quality of life (Gao et al., 2023). Effective pain management is correlated with patient satisfaction. Thus, adequate pain management is essential to improve patient safety, quality of life, and patient satisfaction to increase patients’ trust in healthcare providers and improve their treatment adherence. Comprehensive staff training programs and implementation of Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems are effective evidence-based and best practice solutions to address inadequate pain management as a patient safety and quality issue. 

Comprehensive Training Programs

Training programs for healthcare professionals related to effective pain management should cover various topics, including standardized pain assessment techniques, understanding the usage of analgesics, effective use of non-pharmacological strategies, and patient communication methods (Evans, 2021). Ongoing sessions will enhance their abilities to address the subjective nature of pain and tailor interventions accordingly, preserving patient safety and reducing the risks of errors and oversights. Additionally, well-trained professionals are more likely to follow evidence-based practices, which results in optimized outcomes and reduced complications. Hence, minimizing the costs associated with prolonged hospital stays and unnecessary interventions.

EHR Implementation

An effective way to streamline healthcare information and improve communication between healthcare providers is to implement an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system. This involves integrating digital systems to enable healthcare providers to access comprehensive patient records, including details about patient history, recent procedures, medication, and other treatments. Such an approach is valuable for improving healthcare providers’ collaboration and preventing communication gaps through coordinated information sharing (Vos et al., 2020). EHRs improve accuracy in documenting pain assessments, medication administration, and patient responses, improving patient safety through a centralized information-sharing platform. From a cost perspective, EHRs streamline communication to provide safe care, ultimately reducing the economic burden of treating complications and readmissions related to ineffective pain management. 

Nurses Role in Care Coordination to Enhance Safety and Reduce Costs

As frontline workers, nurses are crucial in coordinating care to maintain patient safety and reduce healthcare complications, eventually lowering healthcare costs. In the context of inadequate pain management, as a patient safety and quality risk, an essential aspect is comprehensive pain assessment. Nurses can conduct in-depth pain assessments using standardized and methodological approaches (Melile Mengesha et al., 2022). By documenting correct information in the EHR systems, nurses contribute to sharing information among the healthcare team, fostering collaboration and a shared approach to pain management. Additionally, nurses can facilitate transparent communication about patients’ pain experiences with other healthcare professionals, advocating to tailor interventions based on patients’ needs and preferences. This collaborative approach enhances patient safety and respects autonomy (Abbasinia et al., 2020), resulting in a more cohesive and well-coordinated pain management plan. 

Furthermore, education is a crucial component of nurse-led care coordination. Nurses leading patient education programs about pain management, which include pain management plans, impending side effects of medications, and non-pharmacological pain relief methods, enhance patient satisfaction and encourage them to participate in their care actively. These results increase patients’ adherence to prescribed treatments, contributing to safer and more cost-effective pain management (Germossa et al., 2022). These efforts contribute to an all-inclusive and coordinated approach to pain management, ultimately improving outcomes and mitigating potential complications that could increase healthcare costs.

Nurses’ Coordination with Stakeholders

In addressing the issue of inadequate pain management, nurses need to collaborate with various stakeholders to drive quality and safety enhancements. Healthcare providers within the interdisciplinary team, such as physicians, surgeons, anesthesiologists, and pharmacists, play a crucial role as physicians are essential to ensuring appropriate drug prescription and timely modifications to treatment plans (Kaseweter et al., 2023). While surgeons play a fundamental role in establishing postoperative pain management plans and providing valuable insights into the patient’s surgical history, anesthesiologists contribute through their expertise to use diverse pain control methods, helping to tailor interventions according to individual patients. Finally, pharmacists provide helpful guidance on drug dosage, potential complications, and alternative options. 

Additionally, practical coordination with the organization’s administrators is imperative as their support is substantial for allocating adequate resources such as staffing, logistics and materials, and finances to implement training programs and integrate EHR systems (Aguirre et al., 2019). For this purpose, nurses should also coordinate with healthcare educators and researchers to contribute to the ongoing development of evidence-based training curricula, helping nurses stay informed about the latest advancements and best practices in pain management. Moreover, collaboration with IT professionals is imperative for the smooth implementation of EHR systems, ensuring patient data is adequately secured using robust measures. IT professionals are crucial in providing ongoing technical support with digital tools and software (Aguirre et al., 2019). 

Conclusion 

In conclusion, inadequate pain management is a pertinent quality and safety issue in healthcare settings, which leads to adverse patient outcomes, decreased patient well-being, and increased healthcare complications and costs. Through a case scenario, we identified that poor staff education, incomplete pain assessments, ineffective communication, and collaboration are the leading factors for this quality and safety issue. Thus, through the literature support, we identified comprehensive training programs and implementation of Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems as the best practice solutions to address the issue promptly. Nurses are crucial in coordinating patient care through effective collaboration with other stakeholders to ensure patients receive quality care, maintain patient safety, and minimize healthcare costs to improve patient well-being and quality of life. 

References

Abbasinia, M., Ahmadi, F., & Kazemnejad, A. (2020). Patient advocacy in nursing: A concept analysis. Nursing Ethics, 27(1), 141–151. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733019832950 

Aguirre, R. R., Suarez, O., Fuentes, M., & Sanchez-Gonzalez, M. A. (2019). Electronic health record implementation: A review of resources and tools. Cureus, 11(9), e5649. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.5649 

Atthayasai, J., Chatchumni, M., Eriksson, H., & Mazaheri, M. (2023). Surgical nurses’ perceptions of strategies to enhance pain management proficiency: A qualitative study. Nursing Reports, 13(2), 923–933. https://doi.org/10.3390/nursrep13020081 

NURS FPX 4020 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety

Cao, L., & Hull, S. Z. (2021). Effectiveness of educating health care professionals in managing chronic pain patients through a supervised student inter-professional pain clinic. Medical Science Educator, 31(2), 479–488. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-020-01189-4

Evans, K. (2021). Staff education to improve pain management in skilled nursing patients. Doctoral dissertation, Walden University. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=12062&context=dissertations 

Gao, L., Mu, H., Lin, Y., Wen, Q., & Gao, P. (2023). Review of the current situation of postoperative pain and causes of inadequate pain management in Africa. Journal of Pain Research, 16, 1767–1778. https://doi.org/10.2147/JPR.S405574 

Germossa, G. N., Sjetne, I. S., Småstuen, M. C., & Hellesø, R. (2022). Patient satisfaction with a nurse-led pain management program: A quasi-experimental study in Ethiopia. SAGE Open Nursing, 8, 237796082211412. https://doi.org/10.1177/23779608221141237 

Hämäläinen, J., Kvist, T., & Kankkunen, P. (2022). Acute pain assessment inadequacy in the emergency department: Patients’ perspective. Journal of Patient Experience, 9, 237437352110496. https://doi.org/10.1177/23743735211049677 

NURS FPX 4020 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety

Kaseweter, K., Nazemi, M., Gregoire, N., Louw, W. F., Walsh, Z., & Holtzman, S. (2023). Physician perspectives on chronic pain management: Barriers and the use of eHealth in the COVID-19 era. BMC Health Services Research, 23(1), 1131. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-10157-8 

Melile Mengesha, B., Moga Lencha, F., & Ena Digesa, L. (2022). Pain assessment practice and associated factors among nurses working at adult care units in public hospitals in Wolaita Zone, Southern Ethiopia, 2021. BMC Nursing, 21, 115. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-022-00892-4 

Vos, J. F. J., Boonstra, A., Kooistra, A., Seelen, M., & van Offenbeek, M. (2020). The influence of electronic health record use on collaboration among medical specialties. BMC Health Services Research, 20(1), 676. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05542-6