TASK RATIONALE / AIM:
The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) leads and coordinates national improvements in safety and quality in health care. It has developed a framework for safe and high quality care with three core principles – that care is consumer centred, driven by information, and organised for safety (ACSQHC, 2010).
In addition to this framework, ACSQHC have developed National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards to ‘protect the public from harm and to improve the quality of health service provision’ (ACSQHC, 2017, p. 5). The Registered Nurse is integral to every standard that has been developed by the ACSQHC.
This assessment is designed to enable you to demonstrate an understanding of quality and safety in health care through the critical discussion of one of the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards. This assessment will address learning outcome 2.
TASK INSTRUCTIONS
This task requires you to write a 2,000-word assignment. Before you write your assignment, you will need to:
- Choose one of the following National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards (ACSQHC, 2017) as the topic of your assignment.
- Clinical governance (Standard 1)
- Partnering with consumers (Standard 2)
- Preventing and controlling healthcare-associated infection (Standard 3)
- Medication safety (Standard 4)
- Comprehensive care (Standard 5)
- Communicating for safety (Standard 6)
- Blood management (Standard 7)
Please note the following NSQHS standard is not included as topic choice.
- Recognising and responding to acute deterioration (Standard 8).
- Identify the type of process and outcome data that could be collected, analysed and fed back for improvements in care relevant to your chosen standard. (You may wish to refer to the article by Donabedian, 1988, as a starting point). This area for action aligns with step 2.2 of the Australian Safety and Quality Framework for Health Care (ACSQHC, 2010).
- Research the topic of quality and safety in health care in Australia then identify and analyse scholarly literature that is relevant to your assignment topic, namely your:
- chosen standard,
- a clinical care activity relevant to this standard,
- process and outcome data required to monitor outcomes/improvements relevant to the standard.
- Following these steps, write your assignment. Your assignment should include:
- An introduction or first paragraph that clearly introduces the topic, identifies the NSQHS standard (from the allocated options), outlines what will be covered in the assignment and provides a thesis statement (what to expect in the assignment).
- A critical discussion of quality and safety in the Australian health care system, supported by scholarly literature (at least five sources published after 2016).
- A critical discussion of a clinical care activity relevant to your chosen standard, including the risks or impact of low quality care and how it can be improved. Discussion is supported by scholarly literature (at least five sources published after 2016).
- A critical discussion of how process and outcome data could be collected, analysed and fed back for improvements in clinical care. Discussion is supported by scholarly literature (at least five sources published after 2016. However, you are allowed to use Donabedian’s (1988) article in this section).
- A conclusion which summarises your argument without introducing any new information.