NURS FPX 8022 Assessment 1 Sample FREE DOWNLOAD

NURS FPX 8022 Assessment 1

Using Data to Make Evidence-Based Technology Recommendations

Student Name

Capella University

NURS-FPX 8022

Professor Name

Submission Date

Using Data to Make Evidence-Based Technology Recommendations

The quality indicators data assist in evaluating the performance of the hospital. Leapfrog and Medicare Compare are two websites that could provide useful data concerning the safety and quality performance of a hospital. In the evaluation, the technology applied in the Nacogdoches Memorial Hospital (NMH) is evaluated. An important suggestion is to use the error reporting to improve patient safety (Kumah et al., 2024). The application of the technology will enable employees to report incidences, and this will result in prompt interventions and the creation of a proactive safety culture.

Evaluation of Technology in Use

The adverse event reporting system (AERS) helps to promote patient safety and promote transparency within health care settings. One of the major advantages of using the technology is to minimize the occurrences in the future. To illustrate, the technology involved allows the staff to report safety incidents in real-time, and this is beneficial to the organization because it assists in identifying risks or patterns within a short period. Therefore, the AERS can assist in implementing action as quickly as possible to improve patient safety (Kumah et al., 2024). The other important advantage of the technology is patient safety and health outcomes. The reporting of the mistake contributed to the avoidance of a longer hospital stay, as well as the improvement of the patient trust and satisfaction (Chance et al., 2024). Moreover, the employment of AERS will promote the culture of accountability as well as enhance better outcomes and minimize avoidable harm in health care, enhancing the reputation of the organization.

The systemic and organizational limitations are a barrier to optimal use of AERS. The limitations include underreporting, which is usually due to making a one-time interaction with AERS and leaving the report to be lost in the abyss and never receiving any feedback or follow-up action (Costa et al., 2023). The second obstacle is the inadequate training of the personnel who lack proper instruction on reporting procedures, or do not see the necessity to be thorough when making a report (Kaya et al., 2023). Technological barriers can also affect utilization because organizational policies on reporting, use of technology, or access to technology may be non-optimally designed in a manner that disincentivizes staff to enter information into the AERS portal.

The time cost and fear of punitive consequences are also common barriers to the use of AERS as seen through the eyes of a nurse. Nurses operate in high-stakes settings and when they have a lot to do, writing comprehensive incident reports can be a burden and not a priority (Lee & Kim, 2024). Some nurses fear that they would lose their jobs and fail to report anything despite repeated assurances that a non-punitive culture and organizational thinking would be promoted. Therefore, the fear makes it difficult to report meaningfully and the system is unable to capture the true organizational feel of safety issues.

Account of Workflow

Adverse event is where the workflow of reporting adverse event begins. A staff member logs in to the AERS portal and fills in the incident report. Then an incident report is sent to the quality assurance department. After checking the details of the incident report and knowing the relative importance, a formal review is triggered to look into the causes and contributing factors (Muzaffar et al., 2023). Based on the report, the quality assurance team then undertakes corrective measures to minimize risk, enhance processes and prevent the reoccurrence of the same in the future, and gain an understanding of accountability and culture of safety. The image of the workflow is presented in Appendix A.

Patient Safety Areas Identified

The NMH is known to be one of the largest healthcare providers in the United States and has received a number of awards on the quality of care and excellence in performance. Based on Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade (LHSG), hospitals receive A, B, C, D, F safety grades, whereby A is the highest safety/quality rating. MH has been rated as a C, which points at a number of areas that need improvement. The Leapfrog scoring system has found three areas that are critical and should be addressed: sepsis infections, patient falls, and related injuries, and preventable harm events (LHSG, 2025). NMH was rated above the optimal performance, 0.0, and had a score of 1.47 in terms of patient falls and injuries (LHSG, 2025). In the case of sepsis management, the score of 5.30 recorded by the hospital is considerably higher than that of the best performing hospital of 1.95 (LHSG, 2025). Also, in the domain of harmful events, NMH has a higher score of 1.12 compared to that of the best hospital (LHSG, 2025), which is 0.53. These findings indicate that there is a definite need to improve patient safety. In response, NMH is focusing more on technology to enhance the delivery of care and patient outcomes.

Medicare Compare

In order to compare the NMH performance, Ascension Seton Hays and Cedar Park Regional Medical Center are chosen, the closest two facilities that offer care services. NMH was found to have a patient safety score of 1, and the two hospitals to have a score of 4 (Medicare.gov, 2025). The categories that aided in evaluating the patient safety score are the timely care provision, unplanned hospital visit rate, and the mortality rate. The next metrics assisted in identifying the necessity to change the current practice at NMH to make it more effective in terms of delivering care and improving patient safety scores.

Recommended Technology Implementation

The integration of the AERS with the EHR should be implemented at NMH in order to achieve a substantial increase in the Medicare and Leapfrog scores. The combined application of technology allows the staff to report and monitor safety incidents, near misses, or preventable harm in real-time and act upon it (Kumah et al., 2024). The ability to report, monitor and work on safety incidents in real time helped improve patient safety at the practice site. AERS integration with EHR enhanced the capacity of organizations to improve patient safety by increasing their levels of reporting compliance.

In addition, the integration of technology will enable the organization to accumulate data to detect trends associated with adverse events sooner. The potential to integrate clinical surveillance algorithms was also possible with the technology integration as these algorithms can help to detect potential safety events in the clinical data, including drug discrepancies in medication administration, or prolonged bed rest time, indicating a risk of a fall (Goekcimen et al., 2022). The proactive strategy is of advantage to the scoring categories and patient safety indicators in Leapfrog, which reward those organizations that can diagnose and treat the preventable complications in a timely manner.

The story of the redesigned workflow

As a component of the existing system, adverse events are reported outside the typical workflow and via a dedicated AERS portal, which requires staff to interrupt the typical clinical workflow and complete a separate form. The use of a separate portal will result in delayed reporting, underreporting, and lost chances to intervene early by clinical staff who are time poor (Kim & Song, 2024). With the AERS-EHR integration, that process is entirely changed. When the event is identified, staff members access the integrated AERS-EHR portal and report the incident in the EHR design without having to log into a stand-alone reporting system, reducing documentation lag time in the event of a report (Muzaffar et al., 2023). The user-friendly interface to the reporting system will motivate the staff members to report the events regularly and holistically, which will enhance the accuracy of data and compliance across the facility.

After a submission is made, incident information is recorded into the EHR automatically and flagged to be analyzed prospectively. The involvement of a multidisciplinary team comprising of nursing, risk management, pharmacy, and clinical leadership to review the data collectively to evaluate the level of severity, contributing factors, and potential corrective actions (McGowan et al., 2023). The group approach process enables the full examination of the event to take place as well as encouraging learning and accountability. The effective workflow finally leads to a proactive safety culture that reduces the transmission of future risk and has a positive impact on Leapfrog and Medicare compare scores. The graphical representation of the new workflow is in Appendix B.

Conclusion

In terms of the healthcare quality measurement, the NMH was analyzed under the LHSG and Medicare Compare. The core advantages of the AERS technology indicated the favorable sides of technology. On the other hand, the obstacles indicated the problems that hindered the provision of safe care to patients. Based on the information of the LHSG and Medicare, it was seen that integration of technology was necessary to enhance quality standards of care. As such, one of the most important suggestions is to combine AERS with the EHR to better report incidents in real-time, ultimately to increase patient safety.