Category: Nursing

Healing Hands Task Force

Using your instructor’s and peers’ feedback and suggestions from Week 4, complete your final draft of the Key Assignment, Report to the Future of Healing Hands Task Force. Add the following analysis to complete your paper from Week 4 and then submit the entire paper including the analysis for this assignment:

Mr. Magone and the senior leadership of Healing Hands Hospital understand the importance of evaluating operational performance in the healthcare industry and its impact not only on patient satisfaction but also maintaining sound financial management. This is increasingly important in the era of value-based care including Medicare’s Quality Payment Program. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis of data related to patient care is needed. This data includes average length of stay, readmission rates, mortality rates and compliance with standard of care guidelines.

In addition, Healing Hands Hospital is preparing financially for the many different reimbursement changes associated with Medicare Advantage Plans and the need to demonstrate improved quality of care delivered to the hospital’s patients. As part of the Task Force you have been asked to research and analyze data regarding 1) length of stay and 2) hospital acquired infections and the impact of both metrics on the hospital budget and reimbursement. As reimbursement payments become increasingly linked to quality of care, it is important for Healing Hands Hospital to continue to improve in these areas. You have been asked to help the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Nursing Officer evaluate these aspects of patient care as part of your report to Mr. Magone and the Task Force. Submit a 7-10 page paper incorporating your unit 1-4 Individual Project topics including the analysis of how Healing Hands Hospital compares to other hospitals in the nation, state and region in:

Average length of stay

Hospital acquired infection rate

Describe how these statistics impact the organization’s budget and reimbursement opportunities in the future. Be sure to include how Medicare reimbursement will be impacted.

For your research, remember to use the hospital that you chose to represent Healing Hands Hospital and use data for the same state and region for comparison in your analysis. Put your data for comparison in a table or graph in your paper.

For the final paper reference list, be sure to include a minimum of 3 reference sources besides the textbook identifying where you found your data on hospital statistics and add this to your references for the other sections of your final paper from the previous week’s assignments. Document your references using APA format.

Part 2:

Being asked to be part of the Task Force was recognition of your abilities and value to Healing Hands Hospital. When you started to work on the Task Force, you were not an expert in all of the aspects of the healthcare industry on which you were asked to report. Your manager, Ms. Woods, the Chief Operating Officer, recognizes this and that you had not previously had the opportunity to present to the Chief Executive Officer and other members of the executive team. She tells you that this is a good opportunity to develop skills as a professional and expand your expertise level in the healthcare field. She is curious about how you feel about the opportunity and what skills you feel you already had and those that you developed in this process. She also would like to know what skills you feel you still need to develop to continue to advance in your healthcare management career. Write a 2-3 paragraph memo to Ms. Woods that answers her questions and reflect on your professional development through the work that you did for the Task Force (as a part of this course) and how you will continue to maintain your acquired skills and knowledge base.

Politically Active Nurse

Letter to legislators About health care issues

Draft a letter to Florida or National legislator concerning a current legislature or issue in health care.

Identify the topic using a search for “health care” bills on https://www.congress.gov

Identify the State (Florida) leaders to address them specifically

Write a professional letter using the details from the attached
Politically active nurse
PowerPoint.

PICOT Question – Foreground and Background Information

Define and Describe Your Foreground and Background Information 


In Unit 1 you identified a PICOT question. Using the same question, rewrite the question for your peers and define the difference between foreground and background information as it relates to your PICOT question. Also, provide a general overview on what evidence is available.
See the Discussion Board grading rubric on the Course Resources.

Epidemiological studies

Read the required reading. Epidemiological studies can evaluate risks of disease and protections from disease.

Discuss risks and how epidemiological studies impact interventions to reduce risks. Include some types of studies and specific risk examples in your response. How does this apply to evidence based medicine?

Please review the Discussion Board Participation grading rubric under Course Resources in the Grading Rubrics section.

This is important information that will ensure that you earn maximum points. Your postings should be qualitative and provide substantive depth that advances the discussion.

Clinical Epidemiology

In this Unit, you have discussion and a large point assignment. Please be sure to listen to the seminar archive and also do the learning activities in both Unit 1 and Unit 2. These relate to the assignment directly.

I look forward to our discussion and your research one on the options for preventive screening in the assignment directions.

Melody

Course Outcome(s) practiced in this unit:

MN505-1: Interpret epidemiological data on morbidity and mortality related to acute and chronic disease states.

Unit 2 Introduction

Clinical Epidemiology: Risk

There are a number of statistics used in epidemiology to describe health status, quantify the extent of disease, and estimate the risk for developing disease or injury. It is essential that nurses be able to locate and interpret these statistics because this information is used to plan and evaluate health services and guide health policy.

Characteristics that result in increased chances of disease or injury are known as risk factors. Some are not changeable, such as age or sex, or perhaps geographic location in certain instances. However, many can be altered. Recognizing risk, and risk calculations is an important part of epidemiology. Concepts in risk include, exposure, time, causal and non-causal factors, and risk prediction or stratification.

Hospital Research

A hospital marketing director at a very large hospital in an urban setting has several research projects to undertake this quarter. The hospital is continuing to expand its offerings in the metropolitan area and ensure a strong relationship with the top physicians in the community.

The 3 current projects that he is currently researching include the following:

The hospital urology department wants to establish a sexual dysfunction clinic. The department head wants to get an estimate of the number of men ages 35 to 60 in the community suffering with some form of sexual dysfunction.

A primary care medical group is trying to determine whether patients are being greeted and serviced appropriately by the billing and admitting departments.

An MCO is trying to determine what concerns physicians have in agreeing to become part of its panel of physicians who will treat its subscribers.

He has asked you to assist by developing a report analyzing how each of these 3 projects would help the hospital improve its relationship with the public. Given that the projects would be presented to the hospital’s Board of Trustees, the marketing director indicated that your report needs to include a critique of current literature (scholarly references) to support a position on each.

The body of the resultant report should be 5-7 pages and include at least 5 relevant peer-reviewed academic or professional references published within the past 5 years.

Community-Based patient Advocacy and Accrediting Agencies

You are working for a community-based patient advocacy group. Your boss sends you an email asking for publicly available information that your organization can compile for consumers. Your boss wants to know about accrediting agencies and provider report cards that exist for various types of public and private healthcare institutions (hospitals, managed care plans, long term care facilities, etc.).

Reply to your boss with a one page email that describes the types of accrediting agencies and provider report cards that currently exist. Be sure to include examples and hot links so that your boss can readily follow up on this information if she so chooses.

Process Flow Analysis

Have you ever encountered a process that had too many steps or was overly complicated? Perhaps you examined the process and looked for areas where you could remove steps or simplify its flow. If you did, you were conducting a process flow analysis. Process analysis is an important step in determining the financial well-being of an organization and pinpointing areas where changes could help improve the bottom line. In this Assignment, you will create a process flow analysis (also known as workflow diagramming) for an activity in your own organization (or one with which you are familiar).

To prepare:

Review the information in the Learning Resources (including the Media) for this week dealing with how to perform a process flow analysis.

Identify a process that is completed on a consistent basis in your organization (or one with which you are familiar). Examples of a process include such things as how a patient is moved through the system, or what must occur to prepare an examination room or hospital room for the next patient.

Create a simple flow analysis map detailing the process using Microsoft Word using one of the methods below:

Select SmartArt from the Insert menu and select a diagram that matches the flowchart structure you would like to use.

Select Shapes from theInsert menu and select the shape that matches the flowchart piece you would like to use. Continue inserting shapes and connect them using the arrow shapes.

Reflect on the ease or difficulty of obtaining the necessary information to create your flow analysis map.

Identify “white space” as defined in the article, “Hospital Operating System: Unleashing Throughput Potential” found in the Learning Resources for this week.

Determine strategies for improving the process flow.

Reflect on the role of the process flow analysis in financial decision making and how it can have positive impacts on the process. Attach your Flow Analysis Map to your Discussion post.

Describe the process you analyzed and how you went about gathering the necessary information to create your flow analysis map. Identify specific areas of white space that need to be addressed and propose strategies for improving the process. Analyze how process flow analysis can be a useful tool in financial decision making and the ramifications of not using it. Be sure and include your flow analysis map when you turn in your paper.

Reminder: This Discussion assignment serves as your Portfolio Assignment for this course. Be sure to save this Discussion Assignment on both your hard drive and on an external drive.

By Day 3

Describe the process you analyzed and how you went about gathering the necessary information to create your flow analysis map. Identify specific areas of white space and propose strategies for improving the process. Analyze how process flow analysis can be a useful tool in financial decision making and the ramifications of not using it. Be sure and include your flow analysis map as part of your post.

Ethical Dilemma in Nursing Practice

Discuss an ethical dilemma that you have encountered in your nursing practice, or one that another nurse has encountered that you have heard about. Explain why it is an ethical dilemma. Analyze the situation step-by- step using Catalano’s (2009) ethical decision making algorithm. Catalano’s ethical decision making algorithm is discussed in Chapter 4 of your textbook. Illustrate possible solutions and how the dilemma was actually resolved. The paper should be no more than 4 pages in length, not including the reference and title pages, and in APA format. Grading Rubric Criteria Comments Possible Score Student Score 1. Describe the ethical situation, and why it is an ethical dilemma. 4 2. Analyze situation using Catalano’s ethical decision making algorithm. 16 3. Illustrate various solutions to the dilemma. 8 4. Discuss how the dilemma was actually resolved. 4 5. Writing Skillsgrammar, format, spelling, APA 8 Possible Score 40 Once you have completed the paper and saved as a Word document, you must submit the paper to your instructor via Turnitin

Statistics in Nursing

1. What are basic service classifications and how can understanding these classifications be important to data collection and statistics?

a. endometriosis

b. hemophilia

c. ventricular tachycardia

Your response should be at least 200 words in length.

2. What is the importance of Government Data Collection? What departments might be associated in the gathering of public data?

Your response should be at least 200 words in length.

3. What is ambulatory care and how does it differ from traditional residential care? Why are current trends in ambulatory care important to statistically monitor and evaluate? Please provide examples.

Your response should be at least 200 words in length.

4. What are descriptive statistics and inferential statistics? How do they compare and contrast? Provide examples of descriptive statistics and inferential statistics under Statistics in Nursing.

Your response should be at least 200 words in length.