Your quality and safety gap analysis will provide the basis for the remaining assessments in this course.

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

As you prepare to complete this assessment, you may want to think about other related issues to deepen your understanding or broaden your viewpoint. You are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of your professional community. Note that these questions are for your own development and exploration and do not need to be completed or submitted as part of your assessment.

Culture and process contribute to our ability to develop and sustain quality and safety in a health care organization. By exploring these topics, you can analyze where you may have gaps in practice that affect outcomes. In addition, organizations must create benchmarks for outcomes to determine whether they are meeting quality and safety goals.RUBRIC

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:

• Competency 1: Analyze quality and safety outcomes from an administrative and systems perspective.
  • Identify a systemic problem in an organization related to adverse quality and safety outcomes.
  • Propose specific practice changes within an organization that will improve quality and safety outcomes and bridge the gap between current and desired performance.
  • Prioritize proposed practice changes.
• Competency 2: Determine how outcome measures promote quality and safety processes within an organization.
  • Determine how proposed practice changes will foster a culture of quality and safety.
• Competency 3: Determine how specific organizational functions, policies, processes, procedures, norms, and behaviors can be used to build reliable and high-performing organizations.
  • Determine how a particular organizational culture or hierarchy might affect or contribute to adverse quality and safety outcomes.
  • Justify necessary changes to particular organizational functions, processes, and behaviors that correct or mitigate adverse quality and safety outcomes.
• Competency 5: Communicate effectively with diverse audiences, in an appropriate form and style, consistent with applicable organizational, professional, and scholarly standards.
  • 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.