Overview
The scholarly activity I attended was the Quality Improvement Committees at the practicum organization I work for as a nurse in the urgent care setting. Quality Improvement Committee (QIC) in any healthcare organization comprises the group of people who are assigned the tasks to ensure the management and improvement activities in the care facility. This group of professionals investigates the issues related to the provision of care delivery to patients who are suffering from certain chronic diseases and also monitors the clinical outcomes. QIC group is responsible to report directly to the board members of the committee or the Chief Executive of the healthcare organization the committee works in as the officials of the organization are the primary target market. Moreover, healthcare providers such as doctors, preceptors, nurses, and volunteers are also the primary target market for the Quality Improvement Committee as they are responsible for implementing evidence-based practice in an urgent care facility. The committee’s reports to the CEO of the care facility are used by healthcare providers to help improve the safety and quality of the health services provided to the patients as well as clinical outcomes. The scholarly activity was effective for me in multifaceted ways as consultation with board members and the market professionals of the healthcare sector allowed me to see how evidence-based practice could be used for the management and prevention of Covid-19 in the urgent care facility.
Problem
People who get admitted to the hospitals in the urgent care setting need immediate and quality care and nurses require proper training and knowledge of the SOPs and guidelines for the prevention and management of Covid within the care facility. This lack of knowledge and training exposes patients to high mortality risks due to nurses not having the adequate knowledge to use resources available within care facilities as Covid and related illnesses have posed a great problem to various nations across the world. Moreover, the patient safety incidents threaten the security and safety of the patient and also risk the reputation of the care providers as well as the organization in which they are working. Therefore, the participation of a nurse who had preceptorship training in the hospital to learn the use of resources and the implementation of evidence-based practice for the management and prevention of Covid-19 in QIC activity is paramount because of its numerous advantages to the care facility. Through such an activity, a prepared nurse acquires the knowledge that may help him/her to institute effective measures within urgent care facility that may reduce the spread of Coronavirus and this would subsequently minimize the risks of mortality rate associated with the virus. Thus, the QIC activity provided the opportunity to learn solutions for reducing the devastating effects of Coronavirus.
Solution
The QIC activity provided an effective solution to the problem that healthcare providers must collect standardized data on the implementation of evidence-based practice and management guidelines regarding the management and prevention of Covid-19 under the surveillance of market professionals (Nicola et al, 2020). The statistics of the implementation of evidence-based practice (EBP) should be collected, monitored, and analyzed to trace the performance of the EBP in healthcare facilities across the country. Healthcare providers and nurses, in particular, should monitor the effectiveness of EBP in the urgent care setting such as in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for the prevention and management of Covid 19 as well as make the comparison with the SOPs and policies with national and international benchmarks across the world (Chubbs, 2020).
Opportunity
The opportunity this Quality Improvement Committee (QIC) has captured for me as a nurse is discovering ways in which policies and guidelines for the management and prevention of Covid-19 should be tracked. Besides, participating in the QIC seminar will help me get knowledge regarding the management of Covid-19 within the urgent care setting at the practicum organization site I work for and also the statistical aspects of the matter. Furthermore, my participation in the QIC activity will expose me to the best practices for the management and prevention of Covid 19 through certain specific evidence-based practices that are undertaken by numerous care facilities in the world.
Program Competencies Addressed
During the Quality Improvement Committee seminar, a number of nursing competencies were addressed by the professional members of the board that are curated as follows:
- Professional behavior of the healthcare providers especially nurses- The presentations presented in the QIC seminar placed a strong emphasis on improving the professional behavior of the nurses and other care providers on ensuring the adherence to SOPs and policies to combat Coronavirus within the urgent care facilities.
- Communication skills among preceptors, nurses, and patients were enhanced.
- Clinical decision-making was addressed in the seminar as an effective evidence-based practice with respect to the management of Covid-19.
- Members of the board of QIC seminar also addressed the effectiveness of collaboration between various workforces offering their services in the healthcare facility within an urgent care setting such as an intensive unit care setting (Sullivan et al, 2015).
- The practice of community engagement was also addressed as a fundamental component for the improvement of safety and quality care so that social responses and safety practices to Covid-19 can reach marginalized populations around the world and also for equity-informed responses (Gilmore et al, 2020).
References
Chubbs, K. (2020). Healthcare organizational design strategies to improve performance (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University).
Nicola, M., O’Neill, N., Sohrabi, C., Khan, M., Agha, M., & Agha, R. (2020). Evidence-based management guideline for the COVID-19 pandemic-Review article. International Journal of Surgery, 77, 206-216.
Sullivan, M., Kiovsky, R. D., Mason, D. J., Hill, C. D., & Dukes, C. (2015). Interprofessional collaboration and education. AJN The American Journal of Nursing, 115(3), 47-54.
Gilmore, B., Ndejjo, R., Tchetchia, A., De Claro, V., Mago, E., Lopes, C., & Bhattacharyya, S. (2020). Community engagement for COVID-19 prevention and control: a rapid evidence synthesis. BMJ global health, 5(10), e003188.
