NURS FPX 4020 Assessment 3 Improvement Plan in Service Presentation

Name

Capella university

NURS-FPX 4020 Improving Quality of Care and Patient Safety

Prof. Name

Date

Improvement Plan In-Service Presentation

Greetings! My name is ______. In this presentation, I will address the healthcare disparities affecting the LGBTQ+ community, with a focus on the specific care needs of transgender individuals. 

Healthcare disparities in the LGBTQ+ transgender population result in unequal access to medical services, leading to poor health outcomes and experiences. Healthcare disparities affecting LGBTQ+ populations stem from various factors that hinder equitable access to care. A primary issue is that the inadequate training of healthcare experts limits their ability to meet the specific health needs of LGBTQ+ individuals (Yu et al., 2023). Furthermore, communication breakdowns and high patient loads within care teams contribute to healthcare disparities for LGBTQ+ individuals. Important data about patients’ unique needs is overlooked, leading to inadequate care. Additionally, resource limitations hinder timely support.

Cognitive biases and a lack of understanding regarding LGBTQ+ health issues result in discriminatory practices (Yu et al., 2023). The ineffective exchange of patient data contributes to fragmented care, and language barriers lead to misunderstandings between clinicians and patients, compromising care quality. Technical issues such as poor Electronic Health Record (EHR) integration, a lack of standardized protocols for LGBTQ+ transgender care, and insufficient data collection on health outcomes (Grasso et al., 2020). This presentation focuses on developing and implementing a strategy to address these gaps in LGBTQ+ healthcare delivery, illustrated by Ms. Taylor. A structured in-service program aims to improve patient safety and medical practices by enhancing the understanding and application of patient care strategies.

Agenda and Outcomes

Purpose

The in-service training session covers the identification of disparities experienced by LGBTQ+ and transgender clients, as a case presented by Ms. Taylor. It aims at developing cultural competency training interventions to enhance their understanding to address health requirements and needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) and Transexual clients (Burgwal et al., 2021). Furthermore, the session explores and facilitates an LGBTQ health history intake form to collect the data required and create tailored treatment plans.

LGBTQ + health equity is addressed by a trained healthcare team that has a set of protocols that yield reduced expenses and higher patient satisfaction. Further, there are Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) for the LGBTQ+ transgender in which guidelines reflect on the specific medical needs of the transgender scenario. However, starting community outreach programs can enhance the public’s trust in health care services and make the queer population seek services available to them (Hughes et al., 2022). Ms. Taylor is a 32-year-old lesbian.

She experienced biased treatment in the health sector when she went for emergency treatment of chest pains. The impolite words from the triage nurse required a hurried examination and prescription of an anxiety medication instead of addressing her actual situation. The nurse noticed her symptoms worsening, and eventually, she suffered a heart attack. It underlines the significance of proper and comprehensive evaluation in order to avoid similar consequences.

Goals

The goals of this session are both achievable and practical, which include:

• Improve Resource Access: The session will offer nurses easily accessible resources, such as tools for conducting patient-centered evaluations and LGBTQ+ transgender health guidelines, to enhance the quality of care.
• Enhance Cultural Competence: The in-service training will equip healthcare staff with a complete understanding of the unique health needs of LGBTQ+ individuals, enabling them to deliver culturally competent care and address disparities (Burgwal et al., 2021). 
• Utilize Technology for Better Outcomes: Following the session, nursing staff will learn to leverage EHR and CDSS tailored for LGBTQ+ individulas health to improve diagnosis accuracy and reduce care discrepancies (Hughes et al., 2022). 
• Promote Trust Through Community Outreach: This workshop will prepare healthcare experts to implement community outreach initiatives that build trust with LGBTQ+ individuals and encourage them to seek healthcare services.

Safety Improvement Plan

Need

Health disparities faced by LGBTQ+ and transgender individuals have serious consequences, including patient harm and increased healthcare costs due to delayed diagnoses and inappropriate treatments. It reduced trust in healthcare systems. In the United States, discrimination is not only one of the challenges transgender individuals encounter when seeking medical care. Approximately 49% have reported postponing treatment due to financial difficulties, while 18% have been denied care based on their transgender and gender-non-conforming status (Tanenbaum & Holden, 2023).

These disparities lead to rising costs in several ways, and delays in diagnosis can worsen health issues. It results in more complex and costly treatments, and biased care leads to inappropriate interventions. The problems of health disparities and inadequate care pose significant risks, as demonstrated by the recent case of Ms. Taylor. This case highlights gaps in meeting patient care needs and the harmful effects of discrimination in the healthcare system. It emphasizes the need to promote cultural competence to ensure safe and inclusive treatment for LGBTQ+ individuals and transgender patients (Burgwal et al., 2021). 

Process

The safety improvement plan is to improve care experiences and health outcomes for patients such as Ms. Taylor, who experience discrimination in healthcare services. This strategy also entails measures supported by research to increase patient safety. In the first two months, organizational training on cultural competence for healthcare practitioners and general awareness of health disparities among sexual and gender minorities will be introduced (Burgwal et al., 2021). In the third and fourth months of the activity implementation, the plan will launch specific activities aimed at improving patient-physician relationships by providing training on preference for the use of appropriate and inclusive language as well as effective approaches and non-discrimination of LGBTQ+ and Transgender patients.

The last two months will be devoted to the development of feedback mechanisms that allow LGBTQ+ and transgender patients to share their experiences and feedback for improvement (Weingartner et al., 2022). The collected data will be significant when assessing the effectiveness of those changes and guarantee that the healthcare setting meets the needs of LGBTQ+ and transgender patients.

NURS FPX 4020 Assessment 3 Improvement Plan in Service Presentation

By following this structured approach, discrimination can be minimized, patients’ trust can be gained, and target individuals such as Ms. Taylor receive the care they deserve. It is crucial in the healthcare setting since it aims to reduce the healthcare gap by providing better evaluation of symptoms to increase the safety of patients and improve satisfaction. The redistribution will be effective over six months in order to ensure that each formulation is effectively implemented and evaluated for the overall goal of protecting the patients.

The need to address discrimination and enhance care quality for LGBTQ+ and transgender patients is critical for several reasons. It has a direct impact on patient safety and health outcomes. In cases like Ms. Taylor’s, receiving appropriate care can prevent negative incidents and complications. Providing equitable care improves patient well-being and minimizes the demand for additional services caused by discriminatory practices.

Timely, accurate treatment reduces hospital stays and cuts costs for both patients and healthcare providers (Weingartner et al., 2022). Enhancing LGBTQ+ transgender care fosters safety, satisfaction, and trust in healthcare systems. It strengthens hospital credibility and encourages positive patient-provider interactions. By establishing clear LGBTQ+ individual health protocols, hospitals show their commitment to delivering quality care, ensuring safety, and following evidence-based guidelines (Tanenbaum & Holden, 2023). 

Audiences’ Role and Importance

The success of the LGBTQ+ and transgender care improvement plan in hospitals centers on the active involvement and commitment of key stakeholders. It includes healthcare providers, technical teams, hospital leadership, and policymakers. These individuals are essential for implementing strategies to provide equitable care access. Administrators and policymakers are responsible for developing supportive policies, securing and organizing necessary resources, and providing strong leadership throughout the process. Their engagement is crucial for aligning the plan with the hospital’s objectives. Involvement from these stakeholders is vital for the execution of evidence-based practices, ensuring improved patient safety outcomes, as seen in Ms. Taylor’s case (Bhati et al., 2023).

Organizational commitment from caregivers such as nurses, clinicians, and educators is at the core of the successful initiation of the reformed strategies and new guidelines. LGBTQ+ transgender people’s patient interactions and their care provider responsibilities make them suitable champions in the fight against patient harm. When engaging EHR, CDSS, and other information technologies, care providers are in a better position to mitigate healthcare disparities and adverse health effects (Hughes et al., 2022). Further, Quality Improvement (QI) inspectors play a key role in ongoing monitoring and validation of data pertaining to overall staff performance, as well as equipment.

NURS FPX 4020 Assessment 3 Improvement Plan in Service Presentation

At the same time, they are strictly adherent to the protocols that have been laid down. They assess the staff’s understanding of safe care practices, identifying areas where further training is required (Mossel et al., 2021). By involving interdisciplinary stakeholders and developing an extensive improvement strategy, it is possible to increase the effectiveness of healthcare workers who perform their tasks in the institution. This is due to the increased effort towards bringing more appropriate care, point of care, and timely care that would work in order to reduce the gaps that exist regarding health care, and this would help in encouraging teamwork among the professionals and also enhance safety and good results for the patients.

Engagement of stakeholders and commitment can improve group work since attentiveness, coordination, and integrated management become important for the plan (Bhati et al., 2023). An improvement plan to be adopted by nurses will be useful since it will simplify their work. The introduction of EHRs and CDSSs will decrease the number of times a nurse needs to manually write down the patient’s history, allowing the nurse increased time to evaluate the patient and give them appropriate and adequate care. Adherence to the standard LGBQT population healthcare safety protocols will help nurses reduce possible adverse events. Enhancing the competency of the nurses’ conductance of patient demographic and clinical history increases medical quality and provides equitable care access (Grasso et al., 2020). 

New Process and Skills Practice

Improvement of care quality for the target population requires new practice development and increasing amounts of knowledge regarding the health risks of sexual and gender minorities. One of them is to conduct an annual health risk assessment focused on the members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer community. It includes sexual and medical history taking whereby transgender women are assured that certain body features, HIV/AIDS among them, have definite risk factors. This way, nursing staff should receive training about these disparities so the providers can guarantee the patients receive the right precautions and screenings for those illnesses and increase representation for more people (Kaiafas & Kennedy, 2021). These assessments help identify preventive measures for various diseases and promote patients’ confidence since they feel appreciated.

NURS FPX 4020 Assessment 3 Improvement Plan in Service Presentation

The integration of cultural competence in this procedural education of health professions continues to be fundamental towards satisfactorily complementing the special needs of LGBTQ+ patients. This training ensures people get to know the experiences, the issues, and the health issues that this community has to deal with, as well as the challenges they face in accessing health care. Critical case-based drama or simulation and rehearsal are good strategies for deliberate practice in responding to concerned stakeholders with dignity (Wong et al., 2021). Such protocols are more of an evolution that allows patients to invite the provider into their lives and achieve healthcare decisions that are relevant to the patient.

These practices together help in developing a highly sensitive healthcare system of the region that particularly targets the special problems of LGBTQ+ and transgender people, along with improving the general health facility through the means of early detection and precautions (Hughes et al., 2022). Another approach to the problem is the usage of question-and-answer sessions as the most effective way to deepen the knowledge of the clinician level in connection with LGBTQ+ and transgender health.

NURS FPX 4020 Assessment 3 Improvement Plan in Service Presentation

These sessions can be literally organized as workshops, where participants will be encouraged to discuss and generate responses to essential questions in front of a rainbow audience that can respond to the specifics of the LGBTQ+ patient necessities (Martin et al., 2022). For instance, “That leaves the following question: What measures can one put in place to facilitate a favorable non-discriminatory perception of LGBTQ+ patients during their visits?” This continued inquiry requests ideas like utilizing gender-inclusive language and making sure the forms include gender identity and sexual orientation.

A similar question is, “Which approach should be used while communicating with LGBTQ+ patients to understand their health needs and concerns?” This prompt enables the attendees to practice listening to the information relayed and offering clear information digest and teaching back – or using specific strategies that ensure understanding. As a result of these impressive interactive sessions, knowledge can be improved, empathy can be invoked, and therefore, the quality of the care that is provided to the members of the LGBTQ+ and Transgender groups can be boosted.

Soliciting Feedback

The ways through which the feedback solicitation process is geared towards the enhancement of care for LGBTQ+ and transgender individuals will be done in the following manner. This will involve administering questionnaires designed to assess the perceived improvements in the reliability of the new patient diagnostic methods, especially regarding health risks. The surveys will contain specific questions concerning detection and other issues related to the situation, excluding no detailed feedback (Kirkland, 2021).

Further, feedback forms will be offered to the staff to give their input and put down their experiences and ideas about the identifying drawbacks they felt while implementing new methods such as CDSS as well as EHR. This input will be judged to detect frequent obstacles and potential for improvement so that the program can be fine-tuned as per staff reaction on a continuous basis (Kirkland, 2021). It promotes transparency and takes data from employees seriously; improvements endure as relevant and ongoing for the LGBTQ+ and trans patient population.

Conclusion

The enhancement of healthcare for LGBTQ+ and transgender populations is essential for fostering health equity and improving health outcomes. This improvement plan emphasizes the importance of increasing cultural competency among healthcare providers, promoting patient-centered communication, and building trust within the community. By implementing targeted training programs and utilizing Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS), we aim to create a more inclusive healthcare environment. Ongoing evaluation will ensure that providers are equipped to meet the unique needs of LGBTQ+ individuals, ultimately leading to safer, more effective, and accessible care for everyone.

References

Bhati, D., Deogade, M. S., & Kanyal, D. (2023). Improving patient outcomes through effective hospital administration: A comprehensive review. Cureus, 15(10), e47731. https://doi.org/10.7759%2Fcureus.47731

Burgwal, A., Gvianishvili, N., Hård, V., Kata, J., Nieto, I. G., Orre, C., Smiley, A., Vidić, J., & Motmans, J. (2021). The impact of training in transgender care on healthcare providers competence and confidence: A cross-sectional survey. Healthcare, 9(8), 967. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9080967

Grasso, C., Goldhammer, H., Brown, R. J., & Furness, B. W. (2020). Using sexual orientation and gender identity data in electronic health records to assess for disparities in preventive health screening services. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 142, 104245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2020.104245

NURS FPX 4020 Assessment 3 Improvement Plan in Service Presentation

Hughes, J. H., Woo, K. H., Keizer, R. J., & Goswami, S. (2022). Clinical decision support for precision dosing: Opportunities for enhanced equity and inclusion in health care. Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 113(3), 565–574. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpt.2799

Kaiafas, K. N., & Kennedy, T. (2021). Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer cultural competency training to improve the quality of care: An evidence-based practice project. Journal of Emergency Nursing, 47(4), 654–660. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jen.2020.12.007

Kirkland, A. (2021). Dropdown rights: Categorizing transgender discrimination in healthcare technologies. Social Science & Medicine, 289, 114348. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114348

Koch, A., Ritz, M., Morrow, A., Grier, K., & Bohler, M. J. M. (2021). Role-play simulation to teach nursing students how to provide culturally sensitive care to transgender patients. Nurse Education in Practice, 54, 103123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103123

Martin, A., Celentano, J., Olezeski, C., Halloran, J., Penque, B., Aguilar, J., & Amsalem, D. (2022). Collaborating with transgender youth to educate healthcare trainees and professionals: Randomized controlled trial of a didactic enhanced by brief videos. BioMed Central Public Health, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14791-5

Mossel, H. L., Ahaus, K., Welker, G., & Gans, R. (2021). Understanding how and why audits work in improving the quality of hospital care: A systematic realist review. Public Library of Science One, 16(3), e0248677. https://doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0248677

Tanenbaum, G. J., & Holden, L. R. (2023). A review of patient experiences and provider education to improve transgender health inequities in the USA. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(20), 6949–6949. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20206949

NURS FPX 4020 Assessment 3 Improvement Plan in Service Presentation

Weingartner, L., Noonan, E. J., Bohnert, C., Potter, J., Shaw, M. A., & Holthouser, A. (2022). Gender-affirming care with transgender and genderqueer patients: A standardized patient case. MedEd PORTAL. 

https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.11249

Yu, H., Flores, D., Bonett, S., & Bauermeister, J. A. (2023). LGBTQ + cultural competency training for health professionals: A systematic review. BioMed Central Medical Education, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-023-04373-3