Background: The quality of team-based care impacts patient post-hospitalization outcomes, yet there is a gap in our understanding of how specific team processes impact patient post-hospitalization outcomes. Shared Mental Models (SMMs) is a team process from organizational psychology; it provides an understanding of how providers coordinate complex tasks as a team. SMMs are the team members’ organized knowledge needed for effective team performance. Military research shows that teams with more convergent SMMs have higher performance and better outcomes. In healthcare, patient discharge exemplifies an activity that requires a high level of coordination among interprofessional team members. Two relevant domains of SMMs are Taskwork SMM (team assessment of patient’s readiness for hospital discharge) and Teamwork SMM (quality of day of discharge teamwork). Because of the newness of SMM to healthcare, we lack measures to understand SMMs among interprofessional discharge teams. Study Purpose & Aims: The purpose was to pilot a novel measurement approach assessing SMMs of discharge teams, and explore their relationships to patient 30-day post-hospitalization outcomes (quality of care transition and utilization of unplanned medical services). Aim 1 determined the content and degree of convergence of discharge teams’ SMMs (taskwork and teamwork). Aim 2 examined the relationship between discharge team SMMs and patient post-hospitalization outcomes. Methods: A prospective longitudinal pilot study was used to examine the SMMs of 64 unique discharge events in three inpatient units at a single hospital. Discharge team members independently completed a questionnaire measuring the Teamwork SMM (using the Shared Mental Model Scale) and the Taskwork SMM (using the Discharge Provider-Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale). Data were collected from the patient 30 days post-discharge to determine the quality of transition (using the Care Transition Measure or CTM-15) and use of unplanned utilization of medical services (unplanned readmission or ED visit). Interrater Agreement (r*wg(j)) was used to determine the SMM convergence (or level of agreement) among the discharge team. The relationship between SMMs and the quality of transition outcome (n = 42) was determined using standard regression analysis. Logistic regression was used determine the relationship of SMMs with utilization of unplanned medical services (n = 56). Results: Overall, discharge teams reported high levels of Taskwork SMMs (M = 8.46, SD =.91) and Taskwork SMM Convergence (M = .90, SD =.10), indicating that the discharge team perceived and agreed that patients had high levels of readiness for hospital discharge. Discharge teams also reported having high-quality Teamwork SMMs (M = 6.11, SD = 0.39) and Teamwork SMM Convergence (M = .85, SD = .10), suggesting that most discharge teams perceived and agreed that high quality teamwork was provided during the discharge process. Discharge events from the three inpatient units significantly differed in their Teamwork and Teamwork SMM content and convergence scores. Discharge teams’ Teamwork SMMs and Taskwork SMMs were positively associated with the CTM-15 score, while controlling for key contextual factors (t = 3.94, p = .001; t = 3.94, p = .001, respectively). Conclusion : Discharge teams’ Taskwork SMM and Teamwork SMM was positively associated with patient-reported quality of transition from the hospital. There was insufficient evidence to support that utilization of unplanned medical services is related to discharge teams’ SMMs. Measuring the SMMs of the discharge team provides a method for assessing a team process critical to safe patient discharges.

Introduktion: Dagligen utförs operationer av extremiteter som opereras i blodtomt fält vilket ger ett optimalt synfält i operationsområdet men innebär risker för patienten som kan leda till skador. Riksföreningen för operationssjukvårds riktlinjer om åtgärder vid anläggande av blodtomt fält syftar till att säkerställa en god och säker vård för patienten och riktlinjerna finns för operationsteamet att tillgå. Syfte: Syftet var att undersöka operationsteamets följsamhet till de riktlinjer som Riksföreningen för operationssjukvård tagit fram i samband med anläggande av blodtomt fält. Metod: En kvantitativ icke experimentell, strukturerad observationsstudie utfördes. 52 observationer genomfördes på två sjukhus. Inhämtad data analyserades i statistikprogrammet SPSS. Resultat: Följsamheten till riktlinjer för anläggande av blodtomt fält har visat en variation från 0 till 100 procent avseende de 18 variablerna. Hälften av variablerna visade en följsamhet på över 70 procent. Tre variabler uppvisade en statistisk signifikant skillnad mellan sjukhusen vilka var Manschettstorlek efter form och omfång, Extremiteten töms på blod med elastisk linda eller högläge >30 sek samt Dubbel elastisk skrynkelfri strumpa anpassad till extremitet. Likaså sågs en skillnad mellan grupp 1 och 2 vad gäller användandet av Dubbel elastisk skrynkelfri strumpa anpassad till extremitet. Konklusion: Då följsamheten till riktlinjer för anläggande av blodtomt fält visat sig variera mellan teamen finns ett behov av att öka kunskapen om riktlinjerna hos operationsteamen för att bidra till en säker och god vård för patienten. / Introduction: Daily surgery of extremities are performed in a blood-stained field, which provide an optimal field of view in the operation area but poses a risk that may lead to injury of the patient. The Swedish Operating Room Nurses Association guidelines on measures for the construction of blood-stained fields aim to ensure good and safe care for the patient and the guidelines are available for the team. Aim: The aim was to investigate the surgical team´s adherence with the guidelines developed by the Swedish Operating Room Nurses Association for the construction of bloodless surgical field. Method: A quantitative, non-experimental, structured observation study was performed. 52 observations at two hospitals were performed. The statistical analyses were performed with the SPSS statistic software package. Result: The adherence with guidelines for the construction of blood-stained field has shown a variation of 0 to 100 percent for the 18 variables. Half of the variables showed an adherence of over 70 percent. Three variables had a statistically significant difference between the hospitals which were Cuff size by shape and range, Limb is emptied on blood with an elastic padding or by high position > 30 sec as well as Double elastic wrinkle-free padding suited to the limb. Similary, there was a difference between the teams regarding the use of double elastic wrinkle-free padding suited to the limb. Conclusion: As the adherence with guidelines for the construction of blood-stained fields has been shown to vary between the teams, there is a need to increase knowledge about the guidelines for the operating team to contribute to safe and good care for the patient.

Objective: The objective of this study is to examine relations between patient safety culture and processes of care, specifically, how patient safety culture influences the prevention of patient falls. The purpose of this inquiry is to identify the barriers and facilitators that can advance an inpatient rehabilitation facility to become a high reliability organization and advance interdisciplinary teamwork. Method: A qualitative phenomenological approach was conducted and an interpretive phenomenological analysis explored the experiences of frontline staff with regard to patient safety culture and fall prevention. The study utilized semi-structured interviews with 24 frontline staff from three inpatient rehabilitation hospitals. Participants were selected using purposive sampling and individually interviewed. Results: Findings revealed barriers and facilitators for each dimension of patient safety culture that drive fall prevention. Teamwork within and across disciplines, such as between nursing and therapy, affect how they communicate with one another. Issues related to staffing were the most common concerns amongst nursing staff; especially the issue of staffing ratio and patient acuity. Leadership played a role in supporting the culture of safety and holding staff accountable. Conclusion: Fall prevention requires collaborative efforts between nursing and therapy in an inpatient rehabilitation setting. Dimensions of patient safety culture such as good teamwork, effective communication, adequate staffing, nonpunitive response to errors, and strong leadership support are essential in maintaining a high reliability process for adaptive learning and reliable performance.

Falls and injuries related to falls are some of the most common and costly incidents that occur in the long-term care environment. Purposeful hourly rounding is a proactive way for nursing staff to identify patient needs and demonstrate positive fall prevention outcomes. This project examined a process improvement endeavor of a long-term care unit that experienced an increase in the number of falls over 3 months. The purpose was to evaluate whether staff education and implementation of an evidence-based hourly rounding program would affect the number of patient falls. The Johns Hopkins nursing evidence-based conceptual model, Kurt Lewin's change model, and the Shewhart cycle process improvement model were used to implement the change process as well as the Studer Group best practice hourly rounding tools. A sample of 40 residents was included in a quantitative descriptive design describing the implementation of hourly rounding. Staff were educated 30 days prior to implementation. Pre and post project fall rates were retrieved from the VA fall data management system and revealed a 55% decrease over 3 months post staff education. The use of evidence-based hourly rounding measures increased over the same time period. Nurse leaders must ensure rounding programs are evidence-based, clearly defined in policies, and include robust education plans. There are limited studies on the relationship between education and hourly rounding; therefore, future studies should focus on outcomes of initial and ongoing education for program success and sustainability. Falls are a healthcare concern nurses must address at any point-of-care to promote public safety through prevention and to facilitate positive social change by providing a safe hospital environment.

The push to generate professional nurses has raised questions about the competency level of the novice nurses that are entering the workforce. Utilization of simulation laboratories is being viewed as an option for bridging the gap for the shortage of nurses, nurse educators, and clinical sites. The theory of goal attainment was used to guide this project, which aimed to develop and validate an ER simulation scenario that mimics a clinical setting as a tool for measuring nursing skills. An additional purpose, to be accomplished after graduation, will be to implement a pilot project to determine the impact of the validated simulation scenario within the nursing skills laboratories on the quality of care provided by novice nurses to patients. The validation of the ER simulation scenario was completed by having 10 local experts review the developed ER simulation scenario. The experts then completed a 5-question Likert-type scale survey. Descriptive analysis was used to evaluate the results of the survey and validate the simulation scenario tool. Results revealed that all experts strongly agreed that the ER scenario was visually appealing and had enough subject content. Most experts strongly agreed that it was easy to read and follow. Post-graduation and with the assistance of the education organization, the second part of this proposal will occur with a pilot study implementation. The significance of this project to the nursing practice is to utilize simulation as a bridge to real life practice settings. This project may contribute to the American Nurses Association Standards of best practice which works to improve patient safety as well as quality nursing care.

Nursing response to medical emergencies has been an ongoing issue in immigration detention centers. Lack of teamwork and poor communication with medical and security staff have resulted in detainees sustaining injuries during medical emergencies. This project was developed to persuade Immigration and Customs Enforcement Health Service Corps (IHSC) leaders to consider piloting the TeamSTEPPS emergency response curriculum for nurses working in the immigration detention center. Tuckman and Jensen's model of group development will provide guidance to IHSC leaders in understanding the transformational stages of forming a successful team. TeamSTEPPS will address gaps in emergency health care competency by improving collaboration, communication, and detainee outcomes. Evaluation questionnaires will be offered after each training module and several months after the conclusion of the program. Questionnaires will be distributed, analyzed, and interpreted by IHSC leadership or their designee. Implementation of the Team STEPPS curriculum may result in increased staff morale, decreased staff turnover, and improved detainee outcomes.

Improving the role the nurse plays in health care delivery should be embodied in the performance improvement initiatives to successfully improve the quality of care that is delivered. The purpose of this evidence-based practice project was to collect performance improvement data and present it to staff who, in turn, used the information to improve practice and influence patient safety outcomes. The practice-focused question addressed what would occur if a tool that allowed frequent data trending was used to measure effectiveness of care and thereby influence key outcome measures. Duffy's quality caring model provided a framework for the study to support the need for the development of a dashboard for staff and to ensure that staff were informed as they developed interventions to improve patient outcomes. Publicly available data published by the Centers for Medicare/ Medicaid (CMS) for the Quality Star Report were explored to inform the project. Workgroups, comprised of volunteers from leadership and staff providing care at the bedside, were formed to implement practice changes based on the dashboard reports. By bringing the data to the attention of nurses within the organization, improvements were made in the overall score for safety of care from below national average (25th percentile of the reported 3,647 hospitals across the nation) to the same as national average (47th percentile) as reported by CMS. Through staff involvement, social change occurred as strategies were hardwired to improve categories of the Quality Star Report and ultimately patient care. The project showed that quality improvement tools can assist in empowering staff to understand the data needed to implement process improvement strategies.

Smart infusion pump technology (SIPT) was designed to enhance safety with intravenous medication administration, but has introduced new patient safety risks and harm when nurses initiate workarounds that bypass SIPT safety features. This study sought to develop a grounded theory explaining nurses' experiences with SIPT, their perceptions of safety features, the rules and resources used in response to safety features, the actions taken in response to SIPT workflow blocks, and conditions contributing to nurse-initiated workarounds. Corbin and Strauss's (2008) grounded theory approach guided this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 nurses who used SIPT across 13 adult patient care areas in a single Midwest teaching hospital. The grounded theory Nurse-Technology Interplay was developed through constant comparison analysis of transcribed interview data. The four categories of interacting with SIPT, making meaning, taking action, and consequences, were linked through relational statements and theoretically integrated to develop the grounded theory. The grounded theory explicates the continual interplay that occurs as nurses interact with SIPT, and the cognitive and physical processes used to resolve workflow blocks in the context of care delivery. Interacting with SIPT reflected the learning curves faced by nurses, the context of patient-care unit characteristics, and encountered workflow blocks. Making meaning reflected the cognitive processes used by nurses as they encountered workflow blocks with SIPT, and was influenced by individual perspectives, as well as shared learning. Taking action often occurred simultaneously with making meaning, and represented processes of doing, such as rechecking programming activities, seeking assistance, or engaging in workarounds. Consequences of using SIPT included patient outcomes with medication administration and the impact on practice as nurses experienced disruptions in care delivery, dependency on SIPT, a loss of calculation skills, and alarm overload. The grounded theory of Nurse-Technology Interplay provides an understanding of how nurses make sense of, and respond to, workflow blocks with SIPT safety features. The study yielded valuable insights into the complexity of SIPT implementation and the challenges nurses face while providing safe, effective, patient-centered care in the midst of juggling competing priorities. The findings have implications for nursing practice and nurse leaders. Critical to moving forward is a more purposeful approach to SIPT education and training within a patient safety framework, a systematic evaluation of organizational processes that impact SIPT, optimization the SIPT drug library to facilitate nurses' work, and promotion of a learning organization that capitalizes on the lessons that can be learned from workarounds.

The recent reports by Institute of Medicine, `To Err is Human' and `Crossing Quality Chasm', revealed a large prevalence of medical errors and substandard care in US hospitals. Since then there has been a substantial increase in the efforts to measure and improve quality of care. The objective of this study was to compare the quality of care across hospitals using available performance indicators and examine the association between organizational factors and hospital performance. The main focus of this study was on important structural attributes of hospitals, namely - teaching status, location and market competition. The Nationwide Inpatient Sample for years 2003 and 2005, and the State Inpatient Database for years 2004 to 2006 were used for analyses. Two types of hospital performance indicators were examined to compare quality of care - Patient safety indicators developed by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and process of care indicators developed by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. Multivariable regression analyses were performed using generalized estimating equations and random effects regression models. Several organizational factors as well as patient characteristics were included in the multivariable models as control variables. Overall, the results from this study showed an inconsistent relationship between teaching status, location of hospitals or market competition and quality of care in hospitals. In addition, the results demonstrated that isolating potential effects of hospital structure on outcomes requires controlling for the variation in patient characteristics, such as age and comorbidities, which increase patients' risk for incurring patient safety events. The findings from this study provide useful insight into the areas where the patient safety and quality initiatives should be focused. Moreover, the results identified the organizational factors that are relevant to certain types of hospitals and which should be considered before evaluating quality of care and enacting any policies about publicly reporting of performance or payment initiatives that are relevant to these hospitals.

Prevention of in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) is critical to reducing morbidity and mortality as both the rates of return to pre-hospital functional status and overall survival after IHCAs are low. Early identification of patients at risk and prompt clinical intervention are vital patient safety strategies to reduce IHCA. One widespread strategy is the Rapid Response System (RRS), which incorporates early risk identification, expert consultation, and key clinical interventions to bedside nurses caring for patients in clinical deterioration. However, evidence of RRS effectiveness has been equivocal in the patient safety literature. This study utilized a holistic Realistic Evaluation (RE) framework to identify important clinical environment (context) and system triggers (mechanisms) to refine our understanding of an RRS to improve local patient emoutcomesem and develop a foundation for building the next level of evidence within RE research. The specific aims of the study are to describe a RRS through context, mechanism, and outcome variables; explore differences in RRS outcomes between medical and surgical settings, and identify relationships between RRS context and mechanism variables for patient outcomes. Study RRS data was collected retrospectively from a 397-bed community hospital in the Midwest; including all adult inpatient RRS events from May 2006 (2 weeks post-RRS implementation) through November 2013. RRS events were analyzed through descriptive, comparative, and proportional odds (ordinal) logistic regression analyses. The study found the majority of adult inpatient RRS events occurred in medical settings and most were activated by staff nurses. Significant differences were noted between RRS events in medical and surgical settings; including patient status changes in the preceding 12 hours, event trigger patterns, and immediate clinical outcomes. Finally, proportional odds logistic regression revealed significant relationships between context and mechanism factors with changes in the risk of increased clinical severity immediately following at RRS event. RE was utilized to structure a preliminary study to explore the complex variables and relationships surrounding RRSs and patient outcomes. Further exploration of settings, changes in clinical status, staffing and resource access, and the ways nurses use RRSs is necessary to promote the early identification of vulnerable patients and strengthen hospital patient safety strategies.