Quality Of Healthcare and Nursing

Quality Of Healthcare Provided By NPs

There has been a rise in the need for nurse practitioners’ services in the emergency department units in recent years. These individuals offer services that complement the seemingly fewer doctors and other specialists who cannot always be there for patients. The patients to doctors ratio is very high hence the need for nurse practitioners to step in and support them. For this reason, there is a need to recognize and appreciate the efforts made by these individuals. It gives the need to create evaluation and assessment criteria for the services offered by nurse practitioners at an emergency department. Several lives are at stake since those who visit the emergency department need critical care, hence describing the quality standards for the services rendered. It is for this reason that this paper is written. The evaluation question will be based on the patient’s period of stay, patient satisfaction, and time is taken to see the provider. The paper will further explain the criteria for the variables chosen, research styles, and relevance in answering the evaluation questions, data collection, and data analysis techniques.

Period of stay.

This question refers to the amount of time taken from admission to discharge of the patient. The period of stay is determined by the quality of healthcare provided and the progress of the patient’s health. (Woo et al., 2017)

Variables and indicators.

For this evaluation question, the indicators would be the time taken in the hospital, patient progress, and subsequently the patient’s state when they leave the emergency unit.

Data collection and interpretation

For this question, data will be collected using questionnaires and the patient treatment charts in which their progress is noted down. The quality of care offered will also be factored in the questionnaire. The quality assurance team members will conduct this exercise and protect patient identity; patient names will not be disclosed.

On the questionnaire, patients will be asked to rate on a scale of 0 to 10 their condition at the time of discharge, with 0 being the poorest and 10 representing the best level of health. Mortality would mean poor services offered by the nurse practitioners.

Patient satisfaction.

This criterion would measure whether the patient is pleased by their services and whether they would recommend the emergency department to any patient in need or themselves should they find themselves in similar situations. (Woo et al., 2017)

Variables and indicators

For this criterion, the variables would be services levels. It is the services provided to patients that determine the level of satisfaction. Patients need to be treated with the respect and dignity that should be accorded to any human being without discrimination or compromise on any basis.

Data collection and interpretation

On the questionnaire, patients will be required to rate the availability of the nurses and nature of the services provided on a scale of 0 to ten, with 0 interpreted as the lowest level and ten being the highest. Feedback with high low levels would mean a critically examine the action of nurse conducts and population for betterment of services in the future.

Complaint forms will also be availed at every bed/cubicle to allow patients to give their critiques on the level of services provided, complaints against individual nurse practitioners together with the improvements they would like to be made going forward. The questionnaires would be given out to the nurses and collected by the quality assurance team members, who then process, analyze, and give feedback to the nurse practitioners at the emergency department.

Patient-provider time

This evaluation question is concerned with the time taken for a patient to be attended to by the nurse practitioner. The quality of time spent with the practitioner is also of the essence. High patient-provider time is linked to high morbidity among the populations and subsequent increased mortality. (Donelan et al., 2021)

Variables and indicators

The emergency department needs serious and prompt services to patients. Patients coming into the emergency department, as the name suggests, are in critical condition hence the need for immediate attendance. Therefore, it is essential to incorporate teamwork and a sufficient workforce to avert the effects of high waiting times. (Donelan et al., 2021) The variables in this evaluation question are the waiting time and follow-up time should the patients call for the practitioners or on a regular check-up routine that should be well coordinated to meet the needs of the patients.

Data collection, interpretation, and analysis

Patients in the emergency department are usually not patients hence the technicality of assessing this criterion. This lot demand to be treated with urgency accordingly, the reason they sign in into the emergency department and not the regular physician’s offices.

Patients should gain access to treatment within the first 5 minutes of arrival; else, these service levels do not meet the efficiency levels required. Patients in critical care should also have a nurse on-site who can answer their needs as soon as they need them and with the highest level of care and patience. A routine check-up should be available every 2 to 3 hours during patients’ stay in the emergency department.