Lauren works in a small health information management (HIM) department in a sub-acute/ rehabilitation facility located in a suburb. She has an associate’s degree in business office management and a certified coding professional credential. She is also working toward a bachelor’s degree in health informatics. She is looking forward to taking the registered health information administrator (RHIA) exam as her next professional goal. She has been working at the rehabilitation facility for about two years.
The rehabilitation floor is the first floor and accommodates 30 patients; the second floor of the facility has 20 beds and houses the medically compromised patients. A variety of patients are seen for rehab: their diagnoses include cerebrovascular accident (CVA), spinal cord injury, amputations, cardiac surgery, and total joint arthroplasty. The rehab disciplines are composed of physical, occupational, and speech therapy, and a licensed clinical social worker serves as a counselor and assists with case management. The patients on the second floor are treated for serious medical conditions. The physical therapy department includes Tom as the department head, along with Joe, Karen, and April as physical therapists. The occupational department includes Dawn as the department head and Al, Phil, and Mara as occupational therapists. The speech therapy department includes Allie as the department head and Mike, Joseph, and Tina as speech therapists. Sally is the licensed clinical social worker.
There are many patients on ventilators, others recovering after open heart surgery or new amputations, and those with serious decubitus ulcers requiring wound care. The facility has a wound care team and receives patients from several local nursing homes when wounds become too advanced for nursing home staff to care for. Most of the patients on the second floor receive only nursing care or wound care, although some, as they are physically improving, receive therapies and eventually may be moved downstairs to rehab or discharged to their homes or a nursing home.
Lauren’s supervisor, Betsy, RHIA, manages the small HIM departments of this facility and three others, all owned by the facility and located within a 200-mile radius. Betsy phones in several times a week and visits Lauren twice monthly unless there are problems. Lauren likes having the responsibility of managing all the health records for this facility and has a good professional relationship with all the physicians and staff. She developed several databases in addition to her regular work, one of them for the vascular surgeon who heads the wound care team. The surgeon was looking for a way to track the length of stay of patients with certain types of wounds. The surgeon had also asked for a comparative study on numbers of patients transferred in from nursing homes. The surgeon was pleased with the results of Lauren’s work. The surgeon mentioned Lauren’s work to the chief executive officer (CEO) of the company. In a rare visit to the facility, the CEO stopped in Lauren’s office to compliment her and tell her what a great job she was doing. Lauren knew the CEO ha
Develop a quality improvement plan that is based on the scenario by doing the following:
A. Discuss how to initiate a quality improvement project for this clinical problem.
- Identify three areas of focus for quality improvement in the scenario.
a. Describe the types of quantitative and qualitative data gathered for part A1, including an example of each type of data.
b. Explain your process for gathering the data.
- Identify a quality improvement model that can be implemented.
a. Describe the steps of the quality improvement model you chose.
- Discuss the influence external agencies have on the quality improvement process.
a. Describe the focus of one organization that helps to drive quality standards for the department.
- Discuss one example of how you will use benchmarking and performance measures to monitor the progress made toward quality improvement goals.
B. Identify the team members from the scenario who would contribute to the quality improvement team.
- Describe the professional roles and responsibilities of each team member identified in part B.
- Explain how each team member contributes to the project.
- Discuss the qualities the team needs in order to facilitate project success.
C. Summarize why a quality improvement project is needed for the given scenario.
D. Create a professional memo to communicate your ideas for quality improvement project implementation to organizational leaders.
- Describe the steps you will take to implement the quality improvement project in the organization.
E. Acknowledge sources, using APA-formatted in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
F. Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission.
