Purpose/Objectives: The purpose of this quality improvement project was to evaluate the impact of a nurse discharge navigator on reducing 30-day readmissions for the heart failure and sepsis populations. Primary Practice Setting: The 238-bed community hospital in central Virginia is part of a health care system that encompasses 13 acute care facilities. Methodology and Sample: The aim of this project was to identify, implement, and evaluate the transition of care of high-risk readmission patients from January 2019 to April 2019. Inclusion criteria included patients who were 55 years and older, English speaking, diagnosed with heart failure and/or sepsis, discharged to home with or without home health, and/or consults received from case management and social services. Forty-one potential participants were identified with 28 consented. Readmission data were collected pre- and postintervention. The pre-/postanalysis consisted of descriptive statistics, readmission rates, and cost avoidance. Results: Out of the 28 participants, 7 participants were readmitted within 30 days. The heart failure readmission rates during the project implementation were as follows: January 24.05%, February 20%, March 19.75%, and April 11.11%. After the project completion the readmission rates were 22.97% for May and 26.03% for June, respectively. The potential cost avoidance with sustained gain from the project is $405,316.00. Implications for Case Management Practice: This project demonstrated that a discharge navigator had an effect on 30-day readmissions for high-risk heart failure and sepsis populations, as evident by a steady decline in overall heart failure readmission rate during project implementation. The sepsis population needs further research. The discharge navigator project added to the body of knowledge for comprehensive discharge planning, coordination, and education that is needed for these types of patient populations that have a great deal of medical complexity.
indicated a general decrease in sensitivity over an 18-month period. Nursing students with previous healthcare experience also noted decreased sensitivity to bathroom call bells and fall and safety alarms. Conclusion: Alarm fatigue was recognized among the surveyed nursing students. Nurse educators also identified a performance-based strategy to increase student awareness of alarm fatigue and evidencebased strategies to minimize desensitization to alarms in both education and practice. CLINICAL ALARMS are crucial to patient care in hospital settings. Alarms alert healthcare professionals to potential patient-care issues using an undesirable noise for increased patient safety. The reactions to this noise can be equated to noise sensitivity. 1 Alarm fatigue can be defined as a desensitization to alarm noises due to a high volume of false or nuisance alarms. 2 It consists of two components: desensitization and alarm apathy, which may result from the overuse of alarm-based devices such as telemetry monitors. This article details a study on the impact of alarm fatigue on nursing students and discusses potential solutions to improve patient safety in clinical practice. BackgroundAlarm fatigue and alarm apathy may develop as healthcare professionals become overwhelmed by the number of alarm alerts, causing desensitization. 2 Alarm desensitization can lead to delays in the
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.