ANSWERED!! Read the articles by Sikka, Morath, & Leape (2015); Crabtree, Brennan, Davis, & Coyle (2016); and Kim et al. (2016) provided in the Resources.
Assignment: Evidence-Based Practice and the Quadruple Aim
Healthcare organizations continually seek to optimize healthcare performance. For years, this approach was a three-pronged one known as the Triple Aim, with efforts focused on improved population health, enhanced patient experience, and lower healthcare costs.
More recently, this approach has evolved to a Quadruple Aim by including a focus on improving the work life of healthcare providers. Each of these measures are impacted by decisions made at the organizational level, and organizations have increasingly turned to EBP to inform and justify these decisions.
To Prepare:
· Read the articles by Sikka, Morath, & Leape (2015); Crabtree, Brennan, Davis, & Coyle (2016); and Kim et al. (2016) provided in the Resources.
· Reflect on how EBP might impact (or not impact) the Quadruple Aim in healthcare.
· Consider the impact that EBP may have on factors impacting these quadruple aim elements, such as preventable medical errors or healthcare delivery.
To Complete:
Write a brief analysis (no longer than 2 pages) of the connection between EBP and the Quadruple Aim.
Your analysis should address how EBP might (or might not) help reach the Quadruple Aim, including each of the four measures of:
· Patient experience
· Population health
· Costs
· Work life of healthcare providers
SUGGESTED ANSWER
Evidence-Based Practice and the Quadruple Aim
The use of EBP in nursing practice has been a concept that has been embraced by many healthcare organizations. EBP involves the use of scientifically proven methods or information in the delivery of care to patients. However, its adoption from an organizational perspective requires a holistic approach involving both personal and organizational change of culture to succeed (Melnyk et al., 2014). With proper utilization of EBP, a positive outcome can be realized in enhancing the Quadruple Aim model of improving the overall performance in healthcare delivery.
Patient Experience
One of the key components of that Quadruple Aim model uses to improve healthcare performance is the patient experience. The initial approach of healthcare delivery was mainly focused on improving the health outcomes of patients from a diseased state to a neutral or positive state. This was done without necessarily focusing on whether the patients were satisfied with the services or not. Currently, with the privatization of many health institutions and the resultant market-led competition in the industry, a lot of emphasis has been placed on ensuring patients are satisfied with the healthcare services they receive. EBP allows the access to current information and methodology on how to handle patients with diverse characteristics and lays focus on core issues such as cultural competence in healthcare, which aims at enhancing patient satisfaction (Crabtree et al., 2016).
Population Health
The scope of healthcare delivery is not limited to only improving the health status of established patients, but to also ensure that the entire surrounding community embraces good health practices for better health outcomes. EBP, by providing current and relevant information on good health practices, and sensitizing the population on current healthcare issues, then, a positive change in the health continuum of the population is expected. EBP also helps to inform the strategies to be used in health promotion activities such as advocacy, community health education, etc., with the aim of improving the health outcome of a given population group.
Healthcare Costs
The issue of high medical costs has been a major impediment in the provision of health care services. Many patients have succumbed to their illnesses due to this issue. That is why institutions, both governmental and non-governmental, involved in the provision of healthcare services, are trying to find ways of reducing the heavy cost burden on patients. EBP can play an instrumental role in the reduction of healthcare costs through proposal of alternative methods of delivering healthcare services. EBP offers proactive approaches to improving the health status of patients, thus reducing the overall costs spent on healthcare in the long run. EBP also emphasizes on modern healthcare trends like the use of current technology in the delivery of health services.This, in the long run, reduces the medical errors and translates to a reduction in costs spent on healthcare by both the patients and the hospital (reduction of litigation costs due to preventable medical errors).
Better Working Environment for Healthcare Providers
The wellbeing and satisfaction of patients to a great extent depends on the motivation of the healthcare providers to deliver the healthcare services (Sikka, Morath & Leape, 2015). EBP calls for the adoption of modern healthcare practices, which at times necessitates improvement of skills through training, equipment upgrade, and promoting organizationalchange to be more conducive to the healthcare workers, through benchmarking on best practices used by other healthcare institutions. This ultimately has a positive impact on employee motivation
References
Sikka, R., Morath, J. M., & Leape, L. (2015). The Quadruple Aim: Care, health, cost and meaning in work. BMJ Quality & Safety, 24, 608–610. doi:10.1136/bmjqs-2015-004160. Retrieved from https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/qhc/24/10/608.full.pdf
Crabtree, E., Brennan, E., Davis, A., & Coyle, A. (2016). Improving patient care through nursing engagement in evidence-based practice. Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing, 13(2), 172–175. doi:10.1111/wvn.12126
Melnyk, B. M., Gallagher‐Ford, L., Long, L. E., & Fineout‐Overholt, E. (2014). The establishment of evidence‐based practice competencies for practicing registered nurses and advanced practice nurses in real‐world clinical settings: Proficiencies to improve healthcare quality, reliability, patient outcomes, and costs. Worldviews on Evidence‐Based Nursing, 11(1), 5-15.