8037NRS - Evaluating Practice for Quality and Safety Improvement

This essay reflects on improving quality and safety in healthcare practices, focusing on infection control and clinical handover. It discusses the importance of infection control in preventing the spread of diseases, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and emphasizes the need for workplace health and safety measures. The essay explores strategies for improving infection control, such as surveillance programs, routine barrier practices, and antimicrobial therapy, as well as practical steps like hand hygiene and the use of PPE kits. It also highlights the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDSA) model as a method for enhancing infection control practices and clinical handover, emphasizing the importance of communication and standardized handover models like SHARED and ISBAR to prevent adverse events and improve patient safety. The document is available on Desklib, a platform offering study tools and resources for students.

Written project Practice evaluation and
improvement FOR QUALITY AND
SAFETY IMPROVEMENT IN
HEALTHCARE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
REFLECTION.................................................................................................................................3
Strategies which can be used to improve infection control.............................................................5
Ways in which infection control practices can be implemented and improved within an acute
setting...............................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Today, the healthcare industry is growing and developing in daily lifestyle where it is the
important part to be considered by the government and society. Accordingly, the infection
control is a process where it helps and prevents the spread of infectious disease in health
care industry. The healthcare industry adopts this process to stop the spreading of the
infection which can harm the human body in wider manner and provides the unhealthy and
side effects of the infectious disease (Brueggemann, van Rensburg, Shaw, and et.al., 2021).
It is important to control the infection where in recent pandemic Covid19, it is also an
infectious disease which harms the human body and wellness and makes them to obtain side
effects and symptoms such as weakness, headache, breathing problem and such more.
Prevention of the infectious diseases will lead the human body to improve their health and
wellbeing where it is important to understand and adopt the healthcare measures to not get
affected by this infectious disease. Precaution is better which can help and support an
individual to stay fit and healthy. It becomes important to understand and implement some
health and safety measures at the workplace from where the employee working in an
organisation can be able to get protected and secured by the infectious disease (Lam,
Kwong, Hung, and Chien, 2020). Today, the current issue the healthcare industry is facing
to prevent the infectious disease is lack of staff turnover, no proper knowledge and
education and such more where it is affecting the entire world. The health service provider is
limited to achieve their set goals and targets where they faced less time to do any initiative
in safety programs where they educate about the healthcare standards such as hand hygiene,
reduce transmission of drugs, decrease of antibiotic resistance and such more. However, the
aim of conducting this report is to evaluate and describe the current workplace measures and
standards and a proper training programs which help them to educate the employee in regard
to infection disease prevention. Also, it includes the reflection on the evidence based
literature and provides the recommendation to improve the healthcare quality standards. At
last, a brief discussion has been mentioned with the PDSA cycle for improvement in the
particular subject.
REFLECTION
After the investigation, it has been founded that at the workplace it is important to
understand and implement the workplace health and safety where it becomes significant to

adopt the measures to prevent from infectious diseases. At the workplace, people are getting
very much affected by the communicable disease from where they are not able to maintain
their health in definite manner and providing them to take number of leaves which is
affecting the organisation work and productivity (Yuan, Gong and et.al., 2021). It is
important to consider and implement the prevention of the infectious disease at the
workplace from where the people can be able to stay fit and can live a healthy and well-
being life. However, the recent pandemic Covid19 has impacted the people at worldwide
and make them to suffer from disease and pain where the government of the Australia also
had to take an action in regard to infectious spreading of disease and announced the
lockdown and restriction to go out and necessary to wear mask and other safety precaution.
Thus, at the workplace also the employee and staff members are getting infected and sick
due to these excommunicable diseases where it becomes important to follow and implement
the prevention measures at the workplace. It is important to improve the healthcare services
and clinical practices form where the human body and people cannot be get affected by
these disease in wider population and can reduces the statistic of sick and infectious people
in the society and at workplace as well. Due to this, there are different countries who are
getting impacted by this communicable disease and leads them to be on bed rest for longer
period whereas, it directly affecting the workplace productivity and outcome (Kuitunen,
Artama, Mäkelä, Backman, and et.al., 2020). Through the research, it has been founded that
the gap in clinical practice is nurses faces the intertwined with the environment issues and
cannot have the proper resources of communication and support of the healthcare industry
which is impacting the people in wider manner. The workflow issue make the nurses to get
tackle in providing the services where it becomes difficult to provide the appropriate clinical
services to the patient. Also, the lack of advices form the senior service provider is also a
gap between the clinical practices where the nurses are not able to treat and cure the patient
in the definite manner. However, it is important to become aware of this issue where the
organisation and workplaces should adopt some measures at the organisation which will
help to overcome and reduce the spreading of the infectious disease in definite manner.
Thus, the clinical communication should be adopted by the workplaces from where they can
be able to prevent the infectious disease in the internal surrounding of the company (Al
Maskari, Al Blushi, Khamis, and et.al., 2021). Clinical communication simply defines where

a program is organised to introduce and increase the patient centred communication where
each and individual employee can be able to share thoughts and feeling which an employee
is suffering from and can provide the proper knowledge to the service provider of healthcare
industry. Also, the workplaces should adopt and understand the concept of clinical indicator
which will help the indicators to assess the health process and structure of the patient and
can provide the definite outcome (Lee, Song, Kim, and et.al., 2021). From these mentioned
recommendation awareness processes the organisation and any workplace can provide the
best quality improvement areas and measures and can prevent the infectious and
communicable disease in rapid manner. In other term, the proper communication between
the patient and service provider is important to understand the issue and what measures can
be implement by the patient and workplace to reduce and overcome the spreading of the
infectious disease at the internal surrounding of the company (Zelner, Trangucci,
Naraharisetti, and et.al., 2021). Thus, the spreading of the communicable disease enable the
patient and employee to get affected easily and makes them to affect their healthy lifestyle
where at workplace it becomes necessary and important to adopt some precautions and
clinical practices which will help and support to not get infected easily at the workplaces.
Strategies which can be used to improve infection control
Infection control is quite necessary in healthcare sector as it has been determined that
there are several diseases which are spread from one person to another and results in
development of new health problems within an individual. With the help of implementation of
different types infection control practices, the healthcare sector can easily stop the spread of
infection of from one person to another and therefore, safeguard the patient from getting attacked
by diseases. Similarly, an acute setting involves patients that belongs to emergency care,
cardiology department, intensive care units, coronary care units and many more patients that
needs proper precaution from getting attacked by infection (Yu, and et,al 2020). The health care
sectors must implement the use different type of strategies in order to safeguard their patients
includes surveillance programs, outbreak investigation and control, routine barrier practices,
prophylactic antimicrobial therapy, molecular typing of organisms for epidemiological analysis.
The clinicians use antimicrobial prophylaxis in order to control the spread of infectious
diseases within an acute setting. It includes preventing the spread of herpes simplex infection,
rheumatic fever, recurrent cellulitis, urinary tract infections in women and other types of

bacterial infection with an acute setting. Moreover, the clinicians in acute settings should use
certain precautionary steps the restricts the spread of infections within an acute setting. These
strategies include hand hygiene, respiratory hygiene, cough etiquette, use of PPE kits, keeping
the environment and surroundings clean, sterilising the equipment, safe injecting practices. Use
these practices within an acute setting is very important within the health care sector as it helps
the healthcare setting in restricting the spread of infections and worsening the condition of the
patients within the acute setting.
Washing hands and keeping the hands clean before operating a patient or taking care of a
patient, is very important within an acute setting. As unwashed and dirty hands might lead to
passing of infection from patient to another. Keeping the hands clean within the health care
setting helps the clinicians in ensuring the health and safety of both the patients as well as the
doctors within the hospitals. The clinicians, doctors and nurses should make use of use soap or
anti-bacterial lotions or alcohol based solutions to keep the hands clean. And for conducting any
kind of surgical procedures or taking care of the patients, the health care professional should use
gloves. It helps the health care professional in ensuring health and safety within an acute setting.
Similarly, in order to restrict the spread of infections such as coronary disease, the health care
professionals should implement the use of PPE kits (Emmanuel, Osondu, and Kalu, 2020). The
PPE kits refers to equipment which includes the surgical uniform for the health care
professionals for the purpose of stopping the spread of any kind of infection or any type of
contagious disease. It can safeguard the health and safety of the professional as well as the
patients. The PPE kit safeguards the clinician where they get in contact with the patient where
treatment might include blood, mucous or any kind of infectious substance which might affect
the health of the patient or the health care professional.
The Clinicians and health care professional should be aware of the respiratory hygiene
and cough etiquette as it will help them in restricting the spread of air borne diseases and then
affecting the patients as well as the individuals working within the health care set up. If the
clinicians are already aware of the air borne diseases and the person who is suffering from this,
they should implement the use of masks within the acute setting. The clinicians should use the
masks at all times they can also get infection of different types from the patients and might pass
on the disease to other unknowingly. Therefore, it is essential for the doctors and Health Care

Professionals to takes to keep these strategies in mind and implement its use within the acute
setting in order safeguard themselves as well as the patients within the acute setting.
Ways in which infection control practices can be implemented and improved
within an acute setting
There are certain ways through which health care professionals can implement infection
control practices and work towards improving its effectiveness within an acute setting, they are:
Plan- Do – Check - Act Model
The Plan- Do- Check- Act Model is an approach used by heath care professionals within
their departments and hospitals in order to improve their practices and increase its effectiveness
within the hospitals (Chiarini, 2020). It is constant loop which involves planning, doing, studying
or checking and acting in order to enhance the workplace practices. The same model can new
found helpful to the health care professionals in enhancing the practices of infection control and
restricts the same from spreading and affecting other individuals. In order to implement change
and bring effectiveness within the practices of infection control, it is essential for the clinicians to
determine the issues that exists within the hospitals with respect to the spreading of infection
within the hospitals and acute settings such as spreading of fever from one patient to another,
bacterial infections, urinary tract infection and many more. Then, the clinicians should determine
the actions in order to stop the spread which includes keeping the hands clean, using gloves for
restricting the spread of diseases which can infect other from touching, use of masks in order to
avoid transmission of air borne diseases and Use of PPE kits by the professionals for stopping
the infections that can be transmitted from saliva, blood or any other substance (Magnan, 2021).
Then, after implementing the use of these standard measures, the doctors and the staff should
keep a check on the progress by observing the number of cases reduced in the list of infectious
diseases within the acute setting and continuously taking measures in order to solve the issues.
Total Quality Improvement
The total quality improvement is a technique used by the health care professionals in
order to constantly work on the improvement of practises within the healthcare settings. With
respect to the total quality management practice, the health care professionals constantly work
towards improving the practices of Infection control. According to the TQM approach, the health
care professionals implement different types of standard measures which can help the
professionals in restricting the spread of contagious diseases from one person to another and

thus, will be helpful in enhancing the satisfaction of the patients and help them cure faster. It also
helps the health care professionals in easing the process of implementing the practices within the
health care department (Green, and et.al 2018). The TQM involves the use technology within the
healthcare departments in order to bring the effectiveness within the hospital regions. The
Healthcare professionals can also implement the use screenings within the hospital before
entering and also timely checking the temperature of existing patients in order to determine their
health conditions or if they are suffering from fever, the other patients can be prevented from
them. Also, in order to improve the condition of the patients or restricting the staff from getting
affected from any kind of infectious disease, the staff should be vaccinated timely. This will save
the staff and the doctors from getting infected from any kind of contagious diseases. And, in
order to ensure, that the patients are safe from being infected from other patients or do not
develop any kind of infections within themselves on their own, it is essential for the staff to
ensure that they do not over dose the patient with excessive antibiotics.
CONCLUSION
The above mentioned report has summarised the importance of health and safety at the
workplace from where the employee can be able to stay healthy and do not get affected by the
communicable diseases. It includes the brief description about the prevention of the infectious
diseases and its impact on the human body and workplaces as well. Also, it has included the
literature base description in regard to the control and prevention of communicable disease and
provides the recommendation. However, a reflection is also mentioned in regard to particular
mentioned subject and describes the importance and improvement which is needed. Also, it has
identified the gap between the clinical practise and current research evidence. In addition, the
report has also included the brief and critical discussion on the clinical practice and provided
some relevant recommendations to improve the clinical practices at the workplace from where
the appropriate result and outcome can be obtained by the healthcare industry and also delivered
the definite result to the workplace. However, it is important to understand and improve the
quality healthcare services from where the organisation and people can get the appropriate result
and outcome respectively

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Al Maskari, Z., Al Blushi, A., Khamis, and et.al., 2021. Characteristics of healthcare workers
infected with COVID-19: A cross-sectional observational study. International Journal of
Infectious Diseases, 102, pp.32-36.
Brueggemann, A.B., van Rensburg, M.J.J., Shaw, and et.al., 2021. Changes in the incidence of
invasive disease due to Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, and
Neisseria meningitidis during the COVID-19 pandemic in 26 countries and territories in
the Invasive Respiratory Infection Surveillance Initiative: a prospective analysis of
surveillance data. The Lancet Digital Health. 3(6), pp.e360-e370.
Chiarini, A., 2020. Industry 4.0, quality management and TQM world. A systematic literature
review and a proposed agenda for further research. The TQM Journal.
Emmanuel, U., Osondu, E.D. and Kalu, K.C., 2020. Architectural design strategies for infection
prevention and control (IPC) in health-care facilities: towards curbing the spread of
Covid-19. Journal of Environmental Health Science and Engineering. 18(2). pp.1699-
1707.
Green, K.W., and et.al 2018. Impact of JIT, TQM and green supply chain practices on
environmental sustainability. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management.
Kuitunen, I., Artama, M., Mäkelä, L., Backman, and et.al., 2020. Effect of social distancing due
to the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of viral respiratory tract infections in
children in Finland during early 2020. The Pediatric infectious disease journal. 39(12),
pp.e423-e427.
Lam, S.K.K., Kwong, E.W.Y., Hung, M.S.Y. and Chien, W.T., 2020. Emergency nurses’
perceptions regarding the risks appraisal of the threat of the emerging infectious disease
situation in emergency departments. International journal of qualitative studies on health
and well-being, 15(1), p.1718468.
Lee, H., Lee, H., Song, K.H., Kim, and et.al., 2021. Impact of public health interventions on
seasonal influenza activity during the COVID-19 outbreak in Korea. Clinical Infectious
Diseases, 73(1), pp.e132-e140.
Magnan, S., 2021. Social Determinants of Health 201 for Health Care: Plan, Do, Study,
Act. NAM perspectives, 2021.
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Yu, T., and et,al 2020. Circumventing antimicrobial-resistance and preventing its development in
novel, bacterial infection-control strategies. Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery. 17(8).
pp.1151-1164.
Yuan, K., Gong, Y.M., and et.al., 2021. Prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder after
infectious disease pandemics in the twenty-first century, including COVID-19: a meta-
analysis and systematic review. Molecular psychiatry.26(9), pp.4982-4998.
Zelner, J., Trangucci, R., Naraharisetti, R., and et.al., 2021. Racial disparities in coronavirus
disease 2019 (COVID-19) mortality are driven by unequal infection risks. Clinical
Infectious Diseases, 72(5), pp.e88-e95.
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