Improving efficiency within a trauma nurse practitioner team.

Background: Clinicians, including nurse practitioners (NPs), face a number of challenges in delivering high-quality care including frequent interruptions that can potentially compromise patient safety and job satisfaction.

Local Problem: Trauma NPs voiced frustration with their efforts to provide efficient, high-quality care with frequent interruptions, most commonly pager alerts. The purpose of this quality improvement (QI) initiative was to increase trauma NPs' perceptions of patient safety and improve NPs' job satisfaction by reducing workflow interruptions.

Evaluation of Telemetry Utilization on Medical-Surgical Units.

Alarm fatigue is the most common contributing factor in alarm-related sentinel events. Researchers have demonstrated a 35% overuse of telemetry, a key factor in alarm fatigue. This project evaluates practice patterns for the ordering and discontinuation of telemetry on medical-surgical units.

Preventing Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infections in the Intensive Care Unit: Application of High-Reliability Principles.

This department column highlights translation of research into healthcare quality practice. Achieving the highest quality in healthcare requires organizations to understand care delivery and to proactively mitigate risks in care delivery processes. The purpose of this article is to describe a quality initiative that used principles of high reliability to develop a zero tolerance culture for central line-associated bloodstream infections in an intensive care unit at an independent, nonprofit acute care community hospital.

Integration of Clinical Pharmacist Services into an Underserved Primary Care Clinic Utilizing an Interprofessional Collaborative Practice Model.

This report describes the role of a clinical pharmacist serving onsite in an interprofessional collaborative practice care model at an urban underserved primary care clinic. It also overviews current health care legislative policy as it relates to expanding pharmacists roles as an integrated team member in medically underserved, vulnerable populations.

Chart It to Stop It: A Quality Improvement Study to Increase the Reporting of Workplace Aggression.

A multicomponent intervention was attempted in a pediatric emergency department to increase reporting of workplace aggression committed by patients and visitors. Overall reporting decreased from 53% to 47% (P = .06).

Evidence-Guided Integration of Interprofessional Collaborative Practice into Nurse Managed Health Centers.

The Division of Nursing, Bureau of Health Workforce, has spearheaded a 3-year effort to increase the skills of nurses to lead interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP) teams. Since 2012, the Nurse Education, Practice, Quality and Retention program has funded 53 sites engaged in this work. The purposes of this report are to describe the IPCP framework undergirding implementation at one such site, describe the evaluation components and approach, describe how health professions students are integrated into this model, and discuss implications of IPCP for future nurse-managed/nurse-led initiatives within an evolving health care environment.

Improving diabetic retinopathy screening ratios using telemedicine-based digital retinal imaging technology: the Vine Hill study.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of a telemedicine, digital retinal imaging strategy on diabetic retinopathy screening rates in an inner-city primary care clinic.

Research Design And Methods: This retrospective cohort study included all diabetic patients aged > or = 18 years (n = 495) seen at Vine Hill Community Clinic between 1 September 2003 and 31 August 2004. Patients were offered ophthalmology referral or digital screening.