Quality and Safety Gap Analysis Professional Context

Instructions

As a nurse leader, you must be able to assess your organization’s ability to deliver safe, high-quality patient care. In so doing, you may be required to perform a gap analysis of a quality or safety issue as the first step in improving outcomes. Failure to meet benchmarks for safe and effective patient care can have reimbursement, regulatory, and legal consequences.

This assignment provides an opportunity to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to successfully implement changes that improve patient outcomes by:

Evaluating the current culture of an organization.
Performing an outcomes gap analysis.
Determining what changes are needed to bridge the gap.
Examining current thinking on this topic contained in the literature.

Scenario

As a nurse leader, you are fully aware of the hazardous nature of health care and that organizations must continually work to improve the quality and safety of the care they provide to patients. For this assignment, you will identify a systemic problem in your organization, practice setting, or area of interest, that is associated with adverse quality and safety outcomes (for example, an increase in the incidence of falls or medical errors). You will then analyze the gap between current and desired performance.

Your gap analysis will provide the basis for the remaining assignments in this course.
Instructions

Perform a quality and safety gap analysis.

The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the Quality and Safety Gap Analysis Scoring Guide, so be sure to address each point. You may also want to review the performance level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed. Additionally, the Guiding Questions: Quality and Safety Gap Analysis document, linked in the Resources, provides additional considerations that may be helpful in completing your assignment.
Note: Remember that you can submit all, or a portion, of your draft analysis to Smarthinking for feedback, before you submit the final version for this assignment. However, be mindful of the turnaround time of 24–48 hours for receiving feedback if you plan on using this free service.
Writing and Supporting Evidence

Communicate analysis data and information clearly and accurately, using correct grammar and mechanics.
Integrate relevant and credible sources of evidence to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style. Use 3–4 scholarly or professional sources.

Conducting the Gap Analysis

Identify a systemic problem in your organization, practice setting, or area of interest that contributes to adverse quality and safety outcomes.
Propose specific practice changes that will improve quality and safety outcomes and bridge the gap between current and desired performance.
Prioritize proposed practice changes.
Determine how proposed practice changes will foster a culture of quality and safety.
Determine how a particular organizational culture or hierarchy might affect quality and safety outcomes.
Justify necessary changes with respect to functions, processes, or behaviors specific to your organization that correct or mitigate adverse quality and safety outcomes.

Submission Requirements

Format your document using APA style.

Use the APA Style Paper Template, linked in the Resources. An APA Style Paper Tutorial is also provided in the Resources to help you in writing and formatting your analysis. Be sure to include:
A title page and reference page. An abstract is not required.
A running head on all pages.
Appropriate section headings.
Properly-formatted citations and references.
Your analysis should be 4–5 pages in length, not including the title page and reference page.
Only use sources 2015 to today and .org, .edu and .net
In case you need Information about me.
(I am a Director of Nursing in a home health agency in South Florida we are a grandfather agency that only has inspection thru AHCA, I worked 2 years bedside in a community hospital and 13 years as a Home health nurse)