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Quality improvement project action plan

In United States, medical error is the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer. This is a complex problem in medicine. For a long time it has become difficult to uncover the cause many errors because most of them either goes undetected or unreported (Polnariev, 2014). Research shows that for every single medical error there are 100 or more that go unnoticed. The only solution to this problem is by developing a system that encourages voluntary reporting of errors. This information helps the health care system develop viable solutions that prevent recurrent of similar event additionally it is important in determining the effectiveness of those solutions in preventing medical errors. Every health organization should focus on establishing a system that aims at promoting a culture of safety. The Medication Error Prioritization System (MEPS) is a system that can be used by the organization to classify and prioritize medical errors. This helps the facility detect and manage them to prevent future occurrences.

In health care several stakeholders are involved in the safety management of the patients. These stakeholders are interested in financing, implementation and the results of a project.in implementation of the Medication Error Prioritization System (MEPS) is one of the most important systems in reducing the incidences of medical error. There are four main stakeholders that will be involved in this quality improvement project. First are the consumers of care, this includes the patients and their families (Cho et al., 2020). Second, are the care providers who are mainly the health care team including nurses, clinicians, pharmacists and physicians. Third is the government it involves the legislatives and accrediting agencies and finally the researchers (Cho et al., 2020). Researcher’s main role is to collect analyze reports on medical errors and come up with viable solutions. Their information is valuable and useful in decision making process.

The main resources needed to implement the quality improvement are human resources, financial resources and computers. Human resources refers to the medical staff and technicians, The Medication Error Prioritization System (MEPS) requires contribution of the people to function accurately. It depends on reports from staff who in turn feeds the information to their computers. MEP is an online system this therefore means that for it to operate well it requires computers in all the departments. The health professionals also needs to be trained on how to operate the system to ensure effectiveness. The organization will therefore spend money on computer installation and educating its staff. The most important thing in the organization is having good leadership. Leaders mediate between the management and the clinical staff and they also mobilize other staff. Since implementation of The Medication Error Prioritization System (MEPS) may be costly, the organization can get their funds from donors or the government. These funds can be used in purchasing equipment’s, installation of the systems and training of the staff. The facility should ensure that they develop a culture of voluntary reporting and recording of the medical errors which helps in tracking and coming up with viable solutions.

The main goal of the change proposal is to reduce medical errors. Some of the specific goals are to implement the Medication Error Prioritization System (MEPS) in the facility, to train the staff on how to use it and to develop a culture of voluntary reporting of medical errors. All the necessary resources and personnel need execute the change proposal should be present in the facility. Because this is a complex problem, it might take longer for change to happen. The projected time is about one year with training of employees and installation of the Medication Error Prioritization System (MEPS) happening in the first two months. The subsequent months involves reinforcing and constantly encouraging the staff to ensure that they report all the errors regardless of their cause. Some of the obstacles that may occur during the course of implementation may be failure of the staff to cooperate in reporting errors. This may occur because they fear losing their jobs.

References

Cho, I., Lee, M., & Kim, Y. (2020). What are the main patient safety concerns of healthcare stakeholders: a mixed-method study of Web-based text. International Journal Of Medical Informatics, 140, 104162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2020.104162

Polnariev, A. (2014). The Medication Error Prioritization System (MEPS): A Novel Tool in Medication Safety. PubMed Central (PMC). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4103718/.

Polnariev, A. (2016). Using the Medication Error Prioritization System To Improve Patient Safety. PubMed Central (PMC). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4699487/.