Capella 4900 Assessment 2 Assessing the Problem: Quality, Safety, and Cost Consideration NURS-FPX 4900 Capstone Project for Nursing

Introduction

In this assessment of our capstone project for Michael’s case of diabetes, we will see how diabetes impacts the quality of care, patient safety, and costs to the patient and hospital organization. The focus of this assessment is to analyze diabetes from quality, safety, and cost perspectives. Moreover, we will find the nursing practice standards and organizational or governmental policies that affect diabetes’ impact on care, safety, and cost. Lastly, we will propose some strategies that can improve the quality of care, enhance patient safety, and reduce costs to Michael and our hospital. 

Impact of Diabetes on Quality of Care, Patient Safety, and Costs

Quality of Care

Diabetes Mellitus is a chronic metabolic disorder where the body is unable to produce or respond to insulin secreted by the pancreas. This chronic ailment requires complex care treatment including continuous blood glucose monitoring, medication management, lifestyle and dietary modifications, and regular physical activity. This complex care treatment is challenging for healthcare professionals to provide effective and adequate quality care as well as for patients to maintain adherence to the care treatment (Longo et al., 2019).

Moreover, diabetes management requires interdisciplinary care such as primary care physicians, nurses, nutritionists or dieticians, and diabetes educators for effective delivery of quality of care to patients. Effective communication among these interdisciplinary team members is required which impacts the quality of care delivered to diabetic patients (Siaw & Lee, 2018). In Michael’s case of diabetes, quality of care was greatly impacted due to unavailability of interdisciplinary team members as a result of poor communication.

Furthermore, Michael’s inability to afford care treatment at our hospital affected the quality of care that his condition required. Therefore, diabetes is a disease that impacts the quality of care delivered by healthcare professionals and to mitigate this impact, effective strategies are required to employ.

 Patient Safety

Diabetes impacts patient safety in numerous ways, but the major safety concern for patients with diabetes is hypoglycemia. Diabetes is a condition in which high blood glucose level requires to be lowered within normal limits with the help of medication and dietary control. Severe hypoglycemia may take place when blood sugar levels drop too low due to various reasons such as medication, significant meal gaps, etc, posing safety risks to individuals particularly when diabetics are involved in some activities like driving or operating some machines.

Hypoglycemia leads to confusion, loss of consciousness, seizure, and coma (Nakhleh & Shehadeh, 2021). Diabetes also leads to foot complications due to peripheral neuropathy or reduced blood flow to extremities if left untreated. The foot complications include foot infections, ulcers, and a prolonged time for healing these wounds. This increases the risk of undergoing lower limb amputation to prevent the spreading of wounds impacting patient safety (Dewi & Hinchliffe, 2020). In case of Michael’s condition, his blood glucose levels were rising to a dangerous level where he was at the risk of acquiring cardiovascular problems or foot complications impacting his safety.

Costs to the System and Individual

Diabetes management requires heavy finances to adhere to the prescribed care treatment of medication, healthy eating, regular monitoring of blood glucose levels, and healthcare visits. These management areas of diabetes require ample amounts of money to procure medication and healthy food. The expenses posed to patients due to diabetes burden patients and impact their disease management.

Furthermore, diabetes-related healthcare services provided by the hospitals implicate heavy costs to the healthcare systems. The total annual cost of diabetes is $327 billion as reported by CDC. The $237 billion costs are on direct medical bills and $90 billion is spent on reduced productivity (CDC, 2020). Michael was greatly impacted by the costly care treatment and was unable to buy expensive anti-diabetic medications which led him to suffer from high glucose levels. 

The impact of diabetes on quality of care, patient safety, and costs found from the supporting evidence is consistent with what I see in my nursing practice where quality of care is affected due to unmanaged diabetes with a risk to patient safety. The heavy costs of diabetes medication, healthy food, and self-management expenses are the prime factors due to which patients are affected financially.