Benchmarking

NURS 417: Nursing Informatics

 

Purpose of Assignment

The purpose of this project is to expand informatics skills by and comparing selected outcome measures from three hospitals and developing an evidence-based improvement plan for one of the areas where the state or national benchmark has not been met.

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Student Approach to Assignment

I made this assignment personal to my professional life by assessing three local hospitals that are within my region, Winchester Medical Center (where I work), INOVA Loudoun hospital, and Jefferson Medical Center. As I have previously considered these locations for work in the past, it was interesting and enlightening to view the data for how each compared to one another and the national and state levels of outcomes. I learned that Winchester Medical Center is much lower on its quality outcomes than I thought it would be, which helped me become passionate in my work to help improve those numbers.

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Reason for Inclusion of this Assignment in the Portfolio 

The reason this is included into my portfolio is because it shows how I am able to use and interpret healthcare informatics to guide nursing practice. As a professional nurse, this paper demonstrates my ability to compare and contrast quality indicators to determine what must be improved and develop a plan for improvement accordingly.

 

Domain 5: Quality and Safety 

(16) Identify sources and applications of national safety and quality standards and hospital standards of practice to guide nursing practice.

This assignment met this outcome by researching outcome measures from three local hospitals and using the data to develop an improvement plan within one of the hospitals, which ended up being my own workplace. I identified these outcome indicators through research mainly from the Medicare website, as well as from the Centers for Disease Control, and Community Indicators Dashboard. The improvement plan was centered on the quality indicator of ER wait times at Winchester Medical Center, with national and state averages as well as an evidence-based project guiding the goal for improvement.

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Domain 5: Quality and Safety &

Domain 7: Systems-based Practice 

 (29) Interpret benchmark and unit outcome data to inform individual and microsystem practice.

This paper focused entirely on interpreting benchmark data from national, state, and local hospital sources. In the portion discussing an improvement plan for one of the quality indicators (ER wait times), specific examples were suggested based on an evidence-based study conducted in an ER. These examples were realistic and applicable to inform the practice at my own ER, such as congruent registration and triage, designated rooms for specific purposes, and physician and nurse triaging together.

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Domain 8: Informatics and Healthcare Technologies

(38) Uses informatics to enhance one’s own knowledge base to provide patient centered care and support teaching.

This paper showed how I acquired benchmarking data from national, state and local levels to increase my knowledge of the standards for healthcare outcomes within hospitals. In the final segment discussing my plan of improvement, I consider ways to use this knowledge for patient centered care in the form of lower ER wait times by implementing a PSDA cycle for introducing change to the hospital system.

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Download a Word document of my Intro Page here.

Download my Benchmarking paper here.