Will hypertensive patients who fail to follow treatment rules (noncompliance) (P) benefit from an educational protocol and counselling sessions (I) compared to noncompliant patients who do not receive these interventions (C) by increasing the adequate treatment rules (compliance) and improving blood pressure (O) within a documented one year of trending results with three-month follow-up intervals (T)?
Monitored Variables
The first variable that needs to be monitored is the characteristics of the educational and counseling sessions. These characteristics will include the frequency of delivery of the sessions, the responsiveness of the audience (assessed by the instructor), their perceived benefits (reported by the patients), and the need for additional sessions by individual patients based on the perception of the instructors. These variables will be logged on the per-session basis by the instructors who deliver the intervention, with the exception of the perceived benefits, which will be evaluated by administering surveys to participants on a bi-monthly basis. The second variable will be the compliance with treatment rules. This variable will be measured by the nurses involved in treatment of the patients and reported using surveys administered on a weekly basis. Finally, the third variable will be the blood pressure of the patients, which can be obtained from the participants’ health records, with additional measurements performed by the nurses as needed.
Impact on Healthcare Quality
Patient adherence to the treatment procedures is an important determinant of health outcomes. In some cases, patients demonstrate a significant increase in morbidity and mortality by failing to comply with the recommendations (Iuga & McGuire, 2014). Thus, the success of the intervention is expected to result in significant improvements in healthcare quality and a reduction in workload on facility’s personnel. In addition, it is possible to expect the reduction of health-related expenses both for the healthcare provider and the patients, leading to increased patient satisfaction rate.
Feedback from Stakeholders
As was mentioned in the previous sections, patient involvement is important for ensuring the effectiveness of the sessions (Kuntz et al., 2014). Therefore, it would be necessary to receive feedback on the perceived benefits of the program in order to detect potential difficulties and prevent gaps in sessions’ effectiveness.
References
Iuga, A. O., & McGuire, M. J. (2014). Adherence and health care costs. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 7, 35-44.
Kuntz, J. L., Safford, M. M., Singh, J. A., Phansalkar, S., Slight, S. P., Her, Q. L.,… Hommel, K. (2014). Patient-centered interventions to improve medication management and adherence: A qualitative review of research findings. Patient Education and Counseling, 97(3), 310-326.