Quality Improvement Initiative Evaluation Patient safety and care is the responsibility of all healthcare professionals especially those that provide direct patient care. Healthcare professionals that are highly responsible for patient safety and direct patient care in the hospital setting are registered nurses and with the increase in shortage of nurses this decreases the quality of patient care. Quality improvement initiatives help healthcare organizations improve areas of concern to reduce the potential risk of adverse events during patient hospitalization. One area of concern in different healthcare organizations including hospitals and skilled nursing facilities such as rehabilitation centers, nursing and retirement homes is the prevention of pressure ulcers during their admission or stay. “Many clinicians believe that pressure ulcer development is not simply the fault of the nursing care, but rather a failure of the entire health system” (Lyder & Ayello, 2008). Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) regional will be the focus of the analysis and evaluation of a quality improvement initiative. The aim of this paper is to analyze quality improvement initiative used at KPNC regional hospitals to reduce the prevalence of hospital acquired pressure ulcers (HAPUs) during a patient’s hospital admission. Prevention of pressure ulcers is a multidisciplinary team approach that weighs the highest responsibility on the bedside nurse. Since the bedside nurse is the healthcare professional that spends the most time with the patient, preventing pressure ulcers is one of their many responsibilities. The initiative’s framework was based on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) breakthrough collaborative model and performance improvement methods. Risk management collaborative efforts with patient care services implemented a model call Hospital and Emergency Department Reliability and Operational Excellence for Safety
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