Nursing Project Executive Summary

Quality Improvement Initiative Project The purpose the project is to improve patient satisfaction, reduce errors, and improve healthcare by focusing on communication. A brief literature review was performed to find evidence-based best practices that have shown promise for promoting effective communication. The project that is proposed will be a bedside handoff from nurses in the hospital during shift changes. Such an organizational strategy has proven effective in different situations and has actually saved many lives (Federwisch, 2007).

There are many advantages to this system that have been documented over the course of many studies. The primary advantages is that it improves the ability to communicate and allows the hospital staff a better perspective from which they can gain a comprehensive overview of the patients status and prevents a staff member from making critical errors or missing patients' needs.

Furthermore, there are already programs developed that have been developed on best practices related to hand-off communications problems, identified their specific causes for failures and barriers to improvement, and then identified, implemented and validated solutions that improved their performance which would make project implementation easier (Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare, N.d.). Target Population The target population that would be ideal to integrate such a project first would be the nursing staff in the critical care unit.

The pace in this department is quick and the need for accurate and efficient communication transfer is high. Benefits To provide the highest quality of care possible, the latest research should be constantly consulted and the bedside handoff has shown to be an effective addition to critical care management. Not only does it improve the quality of care that we will be able to provide, it also can improve communication and the way our team in general interacts on a daily basis.

An effective handoff supports the transition of critical information and continuity of care and treatment; however, the literature continues to highlight the effects of ineffective handoffs: adverse events and patient safety risks (Friesen, White, & Byers, 2008). Budget The budget will consist of mainly planning and training functions which will be based solely on human resources. Although there are some modern software tools that have been designed for the bedside handoff, they are not entirely necessary.

The first phase will be the planning phase and will consider many sources that follow evidence-based practices and have implemented such programs so that these programs can serve as a benchmark. It is estimated that twenty hours' worth of research is needed to identify these system and practices. The next phase will include designing the system for the specific circumstances in which it will be implemented and will require roughly 10 hours.

The third phase will be training and will consist of the nurses being trained on the new system and the benefits that the system is expected to bring. Collectively this will take roughly 40 hours (4 hours x 10 nurses).