Overcoming an Issue with the PDSA Cycle

Running head: OVERCOMING AN ISSUE WITH THE PDSA CYCLE
OVERCOMING AN ISSUE WITH THE PDSA CYCLE
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1
OVERCOMING AN ISSUE WITH THE PDSA CYCLE
Communication is one of the most important aspects that helps in providing top quality care to
the patient and ensures patient satisfaction. Researchers are of the opinion that any breakdown in the
communication procedures can lead to severe life threatening situations that may include avoidable
patient death, different types of patient complications, patient sufferings and many others. It also results
in different types of legal obligations for the healthcare professionals (Ratanawongsa et al., 2016). The
different provider-to-provider communication issues that were noticed were miscommunication among
the members regarding patient’s condition due to improper documentation, improper verbal and non-
verbal communication skills, power struggles, absence of bond and trust and others. Theses resulted in
medication errors, missing of doses duplication of doses, long waiting time for patients, inefficient
delegation and others (Saha et al., 2017). Improper provider to patient communication issues that were
seen are inadequate informed consent, unsympathetic response to the complaints of the patients,
inadequate education such as about medications, improper follow up instructions, wrong or no
information given to patients as well as miscommunication due to language barrier. Therefore, as the
leader of the improvement team, PDSA cycle would be developed in order to ensure overcoming of the
barriers and smooth flow of practice.
The PDSA cycle will mainly be comprising of four important steps. The first important step is the
planning stage where the plans would be developed to initiate or implement the changes. In this stage, the
committees will be formed who will be mainly implementing the interventions and the strategies of the
change. The main strategy would be development of training sessions. This would help them to develop
ideas about not only the verbal and communication skills but would also help in developing knowledge
through effective role-playing and practical sessions. Another training session would be based on
development of team working skills and attributes for effective team development. The leaders would be
also guiding them through proper evidence based information where they will be learning the negative
impacts that result from improper communication and accordingly develop their skills and knowledge
(Schroyen et al., 2018). The next step is the “do” step where the initiatives decided would be