The Quality and Sustainability Paper is a practice immersion assignment designed to be completed in three sections. This is part one of the assignment. Learners are required to analyze and apply quality and/or safety measures specific to contemporary nursing science.

General Guidelines:

Use the following information to ensure successful completion of the assignment:

• This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
• Doctoral learners are required to use APA style for their writing assignments. The APA Style Guide is located in the Student Success Center.
• This assignment requires that you support your position by referencing at least six to eight scholarly resources. At least three of your supporting references must be from scholarly sources other than the assigned readings.
• You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Please refer to the directions in the Student Success Center.

Directions:

Write a 1,250-1,500 word paper discussing the role of quality and/or safety in nursing science. Include the following:

1. Define quality or safety measures and describe their relationship and role in nursing science today.
2. Provide a contemporary example of how quality or safety measures are applied in nursing science.
3. Identify the quality and/or components needed to analyze a health care program’s outcomes.

Paper is a practice immersion assignment designed to be completed in three sections. This is part one of the assignment. Learners are required to analyze and apply quality and/or safety measures specific to contemporary nursing science.

General Guidelines:

Use the following information to ensure successful completion of the assignment:

• This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
• Doctoral learners are required to use APA style for their writing assignments. The APA Style Guide is located in the Student Success Center.
• This assignment requires that you support your position by referencing at least six to eight scholarly resources. At least three of your supporting references must be from scholarly sources other than the assigned readings.
• You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Please refer to the directions in the Student Success Center.

Directions:

Write a 1,250-1,500 word paper discussing the role of quality and/or safety in nursing science. Include the following:

1. Define quality or safety measures and describe their relationship and role in nursing science today.
2. Provide a contemporary example of how quality or safety measures are applied in nursing science.
3. Identify the quality and/or components needed to analyze a health care program’s outcomes.

The Topic Proposal

The purpose of this assignment is to develop a strong, working foundation for your capstone project while demonstrating the ability to target a researchable problem/issue within a broader topic. For this assignment, you will explore topics of interest, select one for your paper, and draft a topic proposal.

Recommended: Before you begin, review chapter 2 in Research Techniques for the Health Sciences.

Your topic proposal should be 2 – 3 pages and should include the following items and address the following questions.

APA formatted title page

The topic you wish to pursue. (1 paragraph)

• One paragraph describing the overall topic you wish to explore.
  • It may be somewhat broad at this point and it may imply a problem. Use the resources in your course materials to help you search for ideas.

Identify your purpose: Why are you interested in this topic? (2-3 paragraphs)

• Specifically explain what it is that fascinates you or draws you to this topic.
• Clearly describe the relevance of the topic in the field today.
• Identify a purpose for a paper on this topic:
  • What might exploration of this problem accomplish?
  • What is your intended goal?
    • To evoke change
    • To make new connections (new cause and effect)
    • To introduce a new theory, solution, idea
  • Is this goal realistic?

Define and describe your intended target audience. (1 paragraph)

• Be specific: identify age, gender, and educational, socioeconomic and cultural demographics as relevant.
• Who will benefit most from knowing about this topic? Remember, those who think differently about the topic may be the audience you need to address.
• Identify only one target audience to address in the paper. (This will help you maintain focus.)

Provide a list of 4 – 8 research questions. (list 4-8 questions)

While you have not done any formal research on the topic yet, explore databases and websites to help you identify questions that are being asked by others and to help you articulate questions of your own within the current dialog. Use the resources in your course materials to help you search.

• Identify questions that you can answer through research.
  • Questions about morality and beliefs, while worthy, are not research questions.

• Pose questions worth exploring.
• Not too narrow, not too broad.
• Keep them intellectually challenging, not too basic.

Identify a problem within the topic and draft an initial problem statement (this is your thesis). (1 sentence)

• Identify a problem from your research questions and state it as a statement.
• The problem statement should be specific in nature and indicate the focus of your paper.
  • Not too narrow, not too broad
  • Intellectually challenging

• Take special care to narrow the topic you started with by locating a very specific problem or argument within the larger scholarly discussion you have explored.

Draft a hypothesis (1 paragraph)

“A hypothesis is a logical supposition, a reasonable guess, or a suggested answer to a problem statement or research question. A hypothesis provides further direction for the research effort by setting forth a possible explanation for an occurrence.” (Research Techniques for the Health Sciences, 5th Edition, p.18)

• State your hypothesis clearly and concisely.
• Explain how it expresses a relationship between two or more variables (identify the variables).
• Suggest how it can be tested.

Write an eight- to ten-page case analysis of the following article (which can be found in the Ashford Online ProQuest database):

• Souza, M. & McCarty, B. (2007). From bottom to top: How one provider retooled its collections [Electronic version]. Healthcare Financial Management, 61(9), 67-73.

Include the following:

• Complete a summary of the case study that identifies the key problems and issues, provides background information, relevant facts, the solution employed, and the results achieved.
• Identify and explain the accounting practices California Sutter Health used in defining and solving its collection problems.
• Develop an alternative solution based on your own research using three to five academic sources from journals, professional organizations, and websites.
• State your informed opinion of the approach used by California Sutter Health, and provide support using concepts from your research and personal experience.

Writing the Final Paper

The Final Paper:

• Must be eight to ten double-spaced pages in length, not including the title page and reference page, and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
• Must include a title page with the following:
  • Title of Case Study
  • Student’s name
  • Course name and number
  • Instructor’s name
  • Date submitted
• Must begin with an introductory paragraph that has a succinct thesis statement.
• Must address the topic of the paper with critical thought.
• Must use a visual such as a chart, table, graph, or other that relates to something you have learned in the class and is relevant to the case.
• Must end with a conclusion that reaffirms your thesis.
• Must use at least three scholarly sources.
• Must document all sources in APA style, as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
• Must include a separate reference page, formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.

In nursing practice, accurate identification and application of research is essential to achieving successful outcomes. Being able to articulate the information and successfully summarize relevant peer-reviewed articles in a scholarly fashion helps to support the student’s ability and confidence to further develop and synthesize the progressively more complex assignments that constitute the components of the course change proposal capstone project.

For this assignment, the student will provide a synopsis of eight peer-reviewed articles from nursing journals using an evaluation table that determines the level and strength of evidence for each of the eight articles. The articles should be current within the last 5 years and closely relate to the PICOT statement developed earlier in this course. The articles may include quantitative research, descriptive analyses, longitudinal studies, or meta-analysis articles. A systematic review may be used to provide background information for the purpose or problem identified in the proposed capstone project. Use the “Literature Evaluation Table” resource to complete this assignment.

While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and in-text citations and references should be presented using APA documentation guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are not required to submit this assignment to Turnitin.

NRS-490-RS-LiteratureEvaluationTable.docx

Topic is on Data Management in Health Care or Health Research And Using Health Care Information Technology to Evaluate and Improve Performance

Reflect on your experience with different aspects of data management—for example, identifying the target population and relevant measures, access to data sources, strategies for data collection, coordination of data entry, and data analysis to final deliverable to stakeholders. Discuss those areas in which you feel skilled versus those areas that will require more skill development. List at least three activities in which you might engage in your current practice setting that would increase your competencies in the area of data management.

Please note in the above paragraph that the specific questions are highlighted in bold prints.

Reading

Textbook Readings

Advanced Practice Nursing: An Integrative Approach 5thEdition by A. B. Hamric et al

• Chapter 23: “Integrative Review of Outcomes and Performance Improvement Research on Advanced Practice Nursing”
• Chapter 24: “Using Health Care Information Technology to Evaluate and Improve Performance and Patient Outcomes”

After completing this chapter reading, you should be able to:

• Monitor the quality of care delivered and the outcomes achieved by APNs.
• Discuss performance indicators at two levels: the aggregate level, where evidence addresses APN role impact; and the individual level, with activities directed at the outcomes of a single APN’s practice.
• Define key terms and describe frameworks for quality and outcomes assessment.
• Perform outcome evaluation and manage health information using systems that are developing in the United States.

Research Topic Question: What are the differences in privacy protection between the US, Western Europe, and Asia?

Research Papers are should be 8-10 double-spaced pages (body of paper not counting figures, graphics, or titles, tables of contents, etc.). Please use 12-point Time Roman, 1- inch margins, and otherwise follow APA 6.0 guidelines. The paper should include the following sections:

1. Title Page

2. Abstract (This is a 300-word or less summary of your paper, including the result. It is not an introduction)

3. Introduction Page 7 of 14

4. Issue Identification (This is the most important item. The rest of your paper will be solving this problem.)

5. Issue Analysis / Develop Alternatives (This is sometimes referred to as the Literature Review. That’s because you’ll be citing examples you find in the literature to substantiate your problem and find things that have worked for other situations that could apply to your problem)

6. Evaluate Alternatives

7. Recommendation

8. Implementation Plan

9. Risks (include risks of doing as well as the risk of not taking the recommended course)

10. Conclusion

11. References must be in APA format and include a minimum of 5 references – at least 3 of them being from a “scholarly” journal or conference from a library resource such as Troy online library. Wikipedia and the textbook for the course are not acceptable references.

You will be turning your paper in to TurnItIn through Blackboard. You are allowed a TurnItIn similarity score of up to 20%, which means that TurnItIn.com found 20% duplication with previously written material in publications, on the internet, or from other student’s papers. Any duplication percentage over 20% will result in a one point reduction from your research case score. For example, a turnitin similarity score of 45% would equal a 25 point reduction from your score (45% – 20% = 25 point reduction). Be careful to make the research case your own by paraphrasing the articles you reference.

On occasion, some processes have crept into nursing and medical practice without appropriate evidence to back up their use. For example, consider tetanus shots. In the past, tetanus shots were given to patients who stepped on a rusty nail. It was assumed—at the time—that if the nail was rusty, it must have had some contact with the barnyard soil outside, which meant that it would be contaminated with bacteria. For a while this thinking made sense. As time went on, however, tetanus shots continued to be given to patients who cut themselves on rusty objects, regardless of where the rusty object had come from. And, of course, fewer and fewer people lived within close proximity to barnyards and associated contamination.

As this week’s examples highlight, not all practices that nurses engage in are tied to evidence. For this reason, clinical decision support (CDS) systems have been created. CDS systems support the decision-making tasks of nursing professionals. As the nurse inputs patient information into the CDS system, evidence-based content is provided back to the nurse. The nurse can then combine this content with their own nursing knowledge to diagnose and treat the patient. One of the most useful characteristics of CDS systems is that they are available during the point of care. No longer do nursing professionals have to consult thick research books; a great deal of information can be accessed with a few strategic clicks!.

In this Discussion, you continue to explore CDS systems. In addition, you investigate whether or not a health care practice with which you are familiar is grounded in evidence-based practice.

To prepare:

• Review this week’s Learning Resources and consider how nurses can determine if they are using evidence-based practices in patient care.
• Select one health care practice (e.g., using alcohol swabs before giving an injection) with which you are familiar. Conduct research to determine if this practice is grounded in research.
• Consider how a clinical decision support system provides evidence-based content to its users.
• What are the benefits and challenges of using CDS systems? How can this assist nurses in providing evidence-based care to their patients?

THEN

Post a description of the health care practice you selected. Explain whether the evidence you found supports or opposes the practice and whether you believe this process is grounded in evidence-based practice. Next, explain how informatics technologies, such as CDS systems, can facilitate nurses moving toward evidence-based practices. Justify your response.

References should be:

1. Saba, V. K., & McCormick, K. A. (2015). Essentials of nursing informatics (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

2. Starmer, J. M., Pinson, C. W., & Lorenzi, N. M. (2010). Informatics and evidence-based medicine: Prescription for success. Studies in Health Technology & Informatics, 160, 656–660.

You are to use only journal articles available from the online databases (which are extensive), and not editorials, news items, commentary, or opinion pieces. You must use research based articles which will generally include one or more of the following elements: an abstract, a literature review, methods, sample, findings, and a short discussion. You can also use other literature reviews which are relevant to your topic. Both kinds of articles will be found in the professional literature. Periodicals such as Time Magazine, newspapers of any kind, and websites will NOT count toward the required number of sources although you can use them as supporting references. It is important to remember these guidelines.

For this assignment you will complete the Bibliography Grid by filling out all the required information for each of your articles in your own words. Don’t just cut and paste information from the article or other sources. It is important for you to understand the article. It is acceptable if some of the statistics are arcane or beyond your statistical expertise. However, you must know what the authors were trying to accomplish, the method they used, the results, and to make an informed judgment as to the viability of their project.

For your assignment, you will need to copy and paste a new section of the grid for each of your articles into one document. You will then fill out the form, in as much detail as possible, for each article but remember all five forms will be in one document. These are articles about, or related to, your topic. Choose carefully since these articles must be used in your final paper.

Article Attachments are available below

Assignment 1 – Evaluating Organizational Change

Description:

This Assignment provides an overview of how to evaluate evidence-based practice quality improvement in a practice change.

Directions:

1. Introduce an overview of a healthcare system practice guideline, preferably where you work or have worked.
2. Discuss how different professionals in the healthcare system (nurses, pharmacists, technicians, etc.) are held to this guideline.
3. Identify the research/reference used by the system to adopt the guideline.
4. Define the evidence used to define the guideline.
5. Determine the level of evidence used in the EBP identified.
6. Provide an opinion on how well this guideline is followed by professionals in the system.
7. Conclude with a concise overview of the guideline and the discussion in the paper.
8. Write the paper in 8–10 pages, using APA format.

To view the Grading Rubric for this Assignment, please visit the Grading Rubrics section of the Course Home.

Assignment 1 Requirements:

Before finalizing your work, you should:

• be sure to read the Assignment description carefully (as displayed above)
• consult the Grading Rubric (under the Course Home) to make sure you have included everything necessary;
• utilize spelling and grammar check to minimize errors; and

Your writing Assignment should:

• follow the conventions of Standard American English (correct grammar, punctuation, etc.);
• be well ordered, logical, and unified, as well as original and insightful;
• display superior content, organization, style, and mechanics; and;
• use APA 6th edition format