Nursing Leadership and Management Report: Continuous Improvement

This report focuses on nursing leadership and management, particularly emphasizing continuous quality improvement (CQI) in healthcare settings. It highlights the importance of CQI in enhancing patient care and reducing costs. The report explores key strategies such as the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Model for Improvement, Lean principles for operational efficiency, the Six Sigma Model, and the Baldrige Quality Award Criteria. It explains how these strategies can be implemented to address specific problems, improve processes, and achieve quantifiable improvements in safety and cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, it outlines a six-step process for implementing CQI, including identifying improvement opportunities, analyzing root causes, implementing actions, evaluating results, maintaining improvements, and planning for the future. The report references relevant literature to support its findings.

Running head:NURSING LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
NURSING LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
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Continuous Quality Improvement is an evident approach in delivering quality care to
the patients and is widely accepted by the nurse managers to improve healthcare service in
the health system. Continuous Quality Improvement on the people, process and technology of
the current state enhance the future state by improving patient care, population health, along
with the reduced cost. The leading strategies in the healthcare system that can be
implemented in the healthcare system are The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
Model for Improvement, Lean Principle for Operational Efficiency, Six Sigma Model and
Baldrige Quality Award Criteria.
IHI Model for Improvement- In this model, the Plan-Do-Study-Act methodology is used to
establish the aim, identify the problem and measures of success and test them systematically
in short, rapid cycles. This strategy can be implemented with other strategies. This approach
is best for a particular problem, emphasises on the process and outcome and is ideal for
achieving small targets by identifying best practices.
Lean principle for operational efficiency reduces the inconsistency and overburden existing
the process by eliminating redundancy, waste and unnecessary efforts (Modi & Thakkar,
2014). Implementation of this principle will lead to simplification of overcomplicated process
and will emphasize on the process. This method works best for known problems with known
system change solution.
Six Sigma Model emphasizes on identifying and eradicating the cause of errors and reduces
variability in manufacturing and business processes. This model uses statistical methods for
analysis and can be combined with Lean-to gain quality and efficiency. This model is ideal
for quantifying improvements in safety and cost-effectiveness.
Baldrige Award Criteria emphasize the organizational structure and outcomes by
identifying the issues and setting up teams that can take ownership of those issues.
The Continuous Improvement Process involves six steps of implementation:

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Identifying Improvement Opportunity by evaluation and selecting a challenge that
needs to be rectified. The second step is to analyse the root cause of the detected problem.
After proper planning, correct action needs to be implemented that will work against the
problem. Then the results are evaluated to confirm the action taken. Then it is important to
maintain the improved level (Mĺkva et al., 2016). The last step includes a plan for future and
evaluation of the team’s effectiveness.

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References
Mĺkva, M., Prajová, V., Yakimovich, B., Korshunov, A., & Tyurin, I. (2016).
Standardization–one of the tools of continuous improvement. Procedia
Engineering, 149, 329-332.
Modi, D. B., & Thakkar, H. (2014). Lean thinking: reduction of waste, lead time, cost
through lean manufacturing tools and technique. International journal of emerging
technology and advanced engineering, 4(3), 339-334.