Introducing Positive Change
The development of nosocomial or hospital-acquired infections (HAI) poses a massive threat to the well-being of patients due to multiple complications and extended recovery time. The issue of HAI is especially problematic among patients in the medical-surgical setting, where the exposure to numerous infections becomes even more explicit (Ista et al., 2016). Therefore, addressing the threat of HAI development in inpatients should be seen as necessary.
Change Model Overview
The use of the ACE Star model should be seen as the key toward managing the instances of Hai in the medical-surgical setting. Since the proposed framework allows both revisiting nurses’ priorities and reorganizing the process of managing patients’ needs, it will allow improving the quality of care rapidly. The ACE Star model helps not only introduce a change into a particular setting but also institutionalize it and maintain active control over it (Savage et al., 2018). Thus, the instances of mismanaging patients’ needs will be avoided successfully.
Scope
When considering the challenges that a nurse has to face while handling the issue of HAI among inpatients, one must mention the huge array of factors that define the degree of the HAI threat and the propensity among patients toward developing it. Therefore, there is the need to use the existing knowledge and transform it in order to embrace the key factors and prevent an instance of HAI. The specified phenomenon justifies the design of a framework that will be flexible enough to help a nurse to handle the problem.
The issue of HAI might seem rather rare, yet it occurs rather frequently in the medical-surgical setting. According to a recent study, the presence of bacteria such as MDR complicates the process of managing patients’ needs greatly (Cornejo-Juárez et al., 2015). Thus, changes must be introduced to the current nursing environment. Moreover, the fact that HAI has a devastatingly negative effect on patients needs to be mentioned as the key argument in favor of promoting the ACE Star model. Research indicates that the use of the proposed framework promotes the concept of EBP and thus, makes the process of catering to patients’ needs more specific. Thus, the identified strategy helps a nurse to transform the existing knowledge to tailor a particular approach to patient-specific needs.
Stakeholders and Responsibilities
Patients, their family members, nurses, nursing organizations, and society, in general, can be regarded as stakeholders in the identified concern. Patients’ needs must be addressed by reducing the length of hospital stay and preventing them from acquiring HAI. Seeing that there are no specific criteria for vulnerability except for staying in a hospital for HAI development, the society, in general, can be regarded as the stakeholder as well. The responsibilities of nurses in the identified scenario will include memorizing the existing guidelines for managing the needs of patients in medical-surgical settings. Hospitals and other healthcare and nursing organizations, in turn, are responsible for providing nurses with the necessary resources and offering patients the setting in which the recovery process will occur at a faster pace.
Evidence
Numerous articles prove that the threat of HAI in a medical-surgical setting and especially for patients with central lines, has been on the rise (Cornejo-Juárez et al., 2015). Furthermore, a range of studies maintains that the setting in which nurses work, including the control and management issues, the presence of rigid guidelines, and similar issues, define the possibility of HAI contraction for patients with a central venous catheter (CVC) (Ista et al., 2016). The lack of clear and coherent standards for providing high-quality services and exerting control over the nursing staff’s performance lead to the rise in the number of chances for HAI contraction among CVC patients (Ista et al., 2016). Thus, the emphasis on improving the quality of services as it pertains to nurses’ endeavors is worth revisiting. Furthermore, studies address the lack of clearly established instructions for addressing the needs of CVC patients as one of the primary factors determining the possibility of HAI. Therefore, a reconsideration of the existing standards is overdue.
Translation
To implement the project, one will have to reconsider not only the existing guidelines but also the mechanisms of following them in a hospital environment. Specifically, the ACE Star Model will have to be deployed by changing the current guidelines for nurses in the CVC environment. Afterward, nurses will have to be provided with an opportunity to improve their skills by training and acquiring new skills and knowledge. After a steep rise in the levels of their competence, nurses will be capable of detecting threats to patients’ well-being and eliminating the located negative factors from the context of a CVC setting. The plan is expected to take approximately three months to implement. The further assessment will imply a comparison of the HAI development rates before and after the use of the ACE Star Model. The findings of the experiment will be used to improve the quality of nursing care on a statewide level by spreading the news via social networks.
Conclusion
The management of HAI in a medical-surgical environment remains difficult due to massive roadblocks associated with the management of nursing tasks. By rearranging corporate values and quality standards with the help of the ACE Star Model, one will be able to make a difference in the context of modern nursing on a nationwide and even global scale. Thus, a close focus on the problems associated with nurse-patient communication and knowledge acquisition among nurses should be maintained consistently.
References
Cornejo-Juárez, P., Vilar-Compte, D., Pérez-Jiménez, C., Namendys-Silva, S. A., Sandoval-Hernández, S., & Volkow-Fernández, P. (2015). The impact of hospital-acquired infections with multidrug-resistant bacteria in an oncology intensive care unit. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 31, 31-34. Web.
Ista, E., van der Hoven, B., Kornelisse, R. F., van der Starre, C., Vos, M. C., Boersma, E., & Helder, O. K. (2016). Effectiveness of insertion and maintenance bundles to prevent central-line-associated bloodstream infections in critically ill patients of all ages: A systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 16(6), 724-734. Web.
Savage, T., Hodge, D. E., Pickard, K., Myers, P., Powell, K., & Cayce, J. M. (2018). Sustained reduction and prevention of neonatal and pediatric central line-associated bloodstream infection following a nurse-driven quality improvement initiative in a pediatric facility. Journal of the Association for Vascular Access, 23(1), 30-41. Web.