NURS FPX 6212 Assessment 2 Executive Summary NURS-FPX 6212 Health Care Quality and Safety Management

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Executive Summary 

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), as identified earlier, are one of the adverse events occurring in healthcare organizations, resulting in poor outcomes in terms of quality of care and patient safety. The focus of this assessment is to provide a summary for the executives of the Vila Health organization, whereby HAIs have been identified and change strategies are proposed for improving the gap between current and desired outcomes. 

The Key Quality and Safety Outcomes Measures

Hospital-acquired infections (HAISs) refer to the illnesses that patients attain while they are admitted to any healthcare organization. These infections have several negative consequences such as increased length of stay, which comes along with financial burden for the patients as well as the organization. Additionally, escalated risks of morbidities and mortality are also observed in these patients (Stewart et al., 2021). These poor results advocate the need for measuring quality and safety outcomes related to HAIs in the organization, which are; the rate of infections, antibiotic resistance, rate of morbidities and mortality, patient safety indicators, and cost and resource utilization. 

NURS FPX 6212 Assessment 2 Executive Summary

1. Measuring the rate of infections helps the organization to track the number of infections per patient-days and per-procedure. This outcome measure helps in promoting infection control practices within the organization based on specific data and evidence (Izadi et al., 2021). 
2. HAIs are associated with the dissemination of antibiotic-resistant bacteria which are harmful for the patients. Monitoring the data related to antibiotic resistance in patients is important to identify the cases earlier and improve medication prescribing practices. 
3. Mortality and morbidity rates are important outcome measures as they help in analyzing the impact of the HAIs in the organization, thus, assisting in improving practices to reduce the rate of complications. 
4. Patient safety indicators like assessing infections associated with central lines, urinary catheters, ventilators, and surgical sites are imperative to track patients’ safety. These indicators help to incorporate interventions specific to the type of infection to mitigate the risks and improve quality (Tokareva & Romano, 2023). 
5. Monitoring the utilization of resources in terms of HAIs will provide opportunities for the healthcare organization to initiate cost-effective interventions to reduce the financial burden as indicated by the poor consequence of the HAIs. 

The strengths of these outcome measures are that they provide objective data which can be tracked over time and profound comparisons can be done to analyze the trends. Moreover, the primary focus of these quantifiable measures is to prioritize patients’ safety and improve health outcomes. On the other hand, one of the limitations is underreporting of the adverse events which can lead to inaccuracy and unreliability of the data provided. 

Strategic Value of Outcome Measures for an Organization 

The measurement of aforementioned outcomes within the healthcare organization holds strategic value in terms of improving the quality of care and promoting a safety culture within the facility. It is necessary to measure these outcomes to provide value-based care where an improved environment is fostered and best practices are adopted to improve patient safety especially in terms of hospital-acquired infections (Pantaleon, 2019). These outcome measures help healthcare organizations to analyze the effectiveness of the care provided, and the efficiency of healthcare professionals, and identify patients’ experiences, which ultimately promote the culture of safety. Outcome measures such as infection rates, antibiotic resistance, and patient safety indicators impact patient care by promoting infection control and prevention measures.

NURS FPX 6212 Assessment 2 Executive Summary

They assist healthcare providers to bring significant improvements in their practices using evidence-based guidelines, simultaneously, helping to improve the quality of care (Hansen et al., 2018).  The targeted interventions developed based on these outcome measures can also improve the utilization of resources, shorten the length of hospital stays, and reduces the financial obligation on the patients as well as the organization. The actions taken in return for these outcome measures will cultivate a culture of quality improvement and patient safety within the organization by reducing the risk of HAIs. The existing outcome measures that have been used to evaluate the infection contr