Needs further updating according to instructor comments

Project Title:

Implementation of targeted staff training on mental health care protocols on a medical surgical unit.

Doctorate Student Name:

Ramona Wilkersom

Check One:

X Herzing University Student

☐ Student not affiliated with Herzing University – list institution this project is affiliated with:

Email:

[email protected]

Primary Phone Number:

201-706-1511

Location/Sponsor:

Hudson Regional Hospital Who will your sponsor be for the project at the hospital?

Faculty Information:

Faculty Name: Colleen Bartlett

Faculty Email:[email protected]

Faculty Phone:

352-428-7472

Anticipated Start Date:

2-1-24 Change these dates as we are past this!

Anticipated Completion Date:

5-1-24

Key elements of the aim statement needed to be included:

1. What? What’s the problem or opportunity? 2. How much? By how much will you improve? Or “how good” do you want to get? 3. By when? What is the date by which you will achieve the level of improvement you’ve set out to accomplish? 4. For whom? Who is the customer or population who will benefit from the improvement? 5. Where? What are the boundaries of the process or system you’re trying to improve? Where does it begin and end?

Over the course of 8 weeks, targeted staff training on mental health protocols will be implemented in a medical-surgical unit aimed at improving staff knowledge based on common mental health issues. It will use the protocol termed Mental Health First Aid, or MHFA, which has been proven to work excellently through research and its usage in many entities. MHFA training will involve sections on the detection of developing mental health disorders, how to manage them, how to approach people who may have existing mental health disorders, and how to assist individuals in managing their symptoms in the event of a crisis. The proposition is the need to increase the effectiveness of managing mentally ill patients in an MSU in order to increase the quality of patient healthcare service delivery. Out of the $5500, the expenses to be incurred will include the type of trainers who are MHFA certified, the training material, the cost of staff hourly wages to be paid during the exercise, and to ensure adequate coverage, additional PRN staff will also be hired for the training.The hospital will hire staff for your project? This is unrealistic. You have to do everything that you write. The idea is to build a project plan that will respond to all of the objectives and will allow us to find out the level of patient satisfaction that has to be reached during the project implementation. This can be expressed in the number of adverse incidents, the percentage of staff’s compliance with mental health treatment protocols, and/or the score received for patients’ satisfaction. Pre- and post-data will be obtained before the training, after 8 weeks of the training, and two months later if the gains made will have been sustained or not. Through the use of evidence-based training considerations, it would be possible to observe assessable improvements to the quality of care offered to mentally ill patients within two months.

Everything highlight belongs somewhere else. Your aim statement should be short and sweet.

Project Overview

Please provide a summary of the proposed quality improvement or innovation project including the purpose, proposed strategy to be utilized, proposed project measures that will be utilized to evaluate outcomes, and the anticipated/desired outcomes.

Problem Identification

Mental disorders are a pressing international and domestic issue. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that mental health entails more than one-third of the global burden of disease, and current data reveal that more than 264 million people worldwide suffer from depression (Sunkel, 2020). According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in the United States, one in every five adults will suffer from a mental health disorder in any given year, which further proves the ubiquity of this problem (Spielman et al., 2021).

Specifically, within my position as a registered nurse (RN) in a medical-surgical unit, there appears to be a significant lack of adequate care provided to patients who have psychiatric disorders. Lack of staff knowledge on mental health disorders. I would not say adequate care- as that seems they are not getting the medical care that they need. Particularly, there are concerns mentioned regarding the absence of clear and comprehensive mental health processes, which result in variability in mental health plans and heightened incidents. A study conducted by Avery et al. (2020) also supports the above conclusion, stating that inadequate mental health training of medical-surgical personnel leads to unfavorable patient outcomes as well as stress among professional health care workers.

 To address the issues listed above, the purpose of the proposed project is to implement targeted education to staff using the Mental Health First Aid Protocol. By implementing this protocol staff will be able to better identify mental health risks within the medical surgical unit healthcare facilities, thus improving the general care of patients.

Proposed Strategy

The proposed strategy approach that this DNP student project will employ is implanting targeted education using the Mental Health First Aid protocol (MHFA). Needs an in text citation.This preparatory training will be run for 8 weeks and will focus on aspects that include signs and symptoms of mental illness, how to communicate with people with mental health disorders, and ways of managing a crisis. This will involve the use of theoretical lessons along with practical sessions to help the staff in the practical field.

Project Measures

 The first process measure will be a narrative discussion about the implementation of the MHFA training protocol on the medical surgical unit. recording all activities regarding implementation, schedule of training, number of participants, and any issues that may arise.

The second process measure will evaluate the level of education received by the medical-surgical unit’s staff through the knowledge test that will be conducted before and after the training.Where is this? Did it come with the protocol? These will be used to assess the extent of change in knowledge as well as the confidence level needed to manage mental health challenges. The main objective will be measured by using a post-test, which will be completed by the staff after they have gone through the training. This test will consist of MCQs and role-play simulations to assess mastery of the MHFA protocol.Does the protocol require role play?Does the protocol itself have a test?

Anticipated Outcomes

The benefits desired outcome of the project, which are expected to be achieved by the end of the project, are better qualified staff, higher patient satisfaction, and fewer adverse occurrences. It also implies that at the end of the MHFA training, the staff will be knowledgeable and skilled in identifying and handling mental health issues through the MHFA protocol (Sánchez et al., 2021). Patients are likely to report a higher level of satisfaction since there is indication that the staff is more competent and highly considerate. Furthermore, this effort will imply measurable decrease in negative events associated with the patients’ mental health, so that the staff can improve on their management and prevention.

This is the proposed nursing quality improvement plan aimed at enhancing the care of mentally ill patients who are admitted to the medical-surgical unit to; enhance improvement of patient’s quality of life. Therefore, through enlisting and training staff on mental health care policies, the project aims to attain improved patient mental health, an improvement in staff’s competency, and a decrease in unfavourable occurrences.

QI Framework

Please provide an overview of the framework that will be utilized in the proposed project (e.g. KTA, PDSA, ADKAR, Lean, Six Sigma, DMAIC, etc.).

The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) framework will be utilized for this proposed quality improvement project. The PDSA cycle is a four-step process used for continuous improvement and can effectively guide the implementation and evaluation of targeted staff training on mental health protocols in a medical-surgical unit.

PLAN

What will you try? We will conduct a small-scale, effective MHFA staff training campaign during which we will train employees during eight sessions. Some of the topics that may be covered during the training include mental health awareness, managing communication in the workplace, and using positive behavioural support approaches. It means that the programme will consist of lectures as well as some practical tasks.

When? The training will take place over eight weeks, with sessions scheduled once a week.

Who will be involved?

· Team: The project team will consist of a DNP student, nursing educators, a mental health professional, and the nursing staff of the medical-surgical unit.

· Patients: indirect involvement by providing feedback on the care received post-training.

What do you predict will happen? We predict that staff knowledge and competence in managing mental health issues will significantly improve. This will lead to better patient outcomes, including higher satisfaction levels and a reduction in adverse incidents related to mental health.

How will you evaluate how it went? The evaluation will include pre- and post-training assessments to measure changes in staff knowledge and confidence. Additionally, patient satisfaction surveys and incident reports will be reviewed to assess improvements in patient care.

Who will collect the evaluation data? The DNP students and nursing educators will collect and analyse the evaluation data. They will work together to compile and interpret the results.

What do you need to do to get ready?

· Develop training materials and schedule training sessions.

· Secure a mental health professional to assist with the training.

· Inform and schedule the nursing staff for the training sessions.

· Prepare pre- and post-training assessment tools.

· Arrange for data collection and analysis methods.

DO

Implement the training programme according to the plan. Conduct weekly training sessions and engage staff in both theoretical and practical learning activities.

STUDY

After the eight-week training period, analyse the pre- and post-training assessment data to evaluate changes in staff knowledge and competence. Review patient satisfaction surveys and incident reports to assess the impact on patient care.

ACT

Based on the findings from the "study" phase, make any necessary adjustments to the training program. If the results are positive, consider scaling up the training to include other units within the hospital. If there are areas for improvement, refine the training content and delivery methods accordingly.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Application for Quality Improvement or Innovation Project Approval

Your references belong below the desired outcomes prior to the QI framework piece of the application.

Sources

Roederer, A. (2020). Improving delirium management and compliance on a trauma/surgical universal unit. https://ir.library.louisville.edu/dnp/62/

Chou, H. J., & Tseng, K. Y. (2020). The experience of emergency nurses caring for patients with mental illness: A qualitative study. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(22), 8540. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-

4601/17/22/8540

Paredes, A. Z., Hyer, J. M., Diaz, A., Tsilimigras, D. I., & Pawlik, T. M. (2020). The impact of mental illness on postoperative outcomes among Medicare beneficiaries: a missed opportunity to help surgical patients?. Annals of surgery, 272(3), 419-425.

https://journals.lww.com/annalsofsurgery/abstract/2020/09000/the_impact_of_mental_illness_on_postoperative.9.aspx

Sunkel, C. (2020). Global burden of mental illness.  Handbook of global health, 1-27. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-05325-3_32-1

Spielman, R. M., Dumper, K., Jenkins, W., Lacombe, A., Lovett, M., & Perlmutter, M. (2021). Mental Health Treatment: Past and Present.  Introduction to Psychology (A critical approach). https://pressbooks.cuny.edu/jsevitt/chapter/mental-health-treatment-past-and-present/

Avery, J., Schreier, A., & Swanson, M. (2020). A complex population: Nurse's professional preparedness to care for medical-surgical patients with mental illness.  Applied Nursing Research,  52, 151232. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0897189719303891

Sánchez, A. M., Latimer, J. D., Scarimbolo, K., von der Embse, N. P., Suldo, S. M., & Salvatore, C. R. (2021). Youth Mental Health First Aid (Y-MHFA) trainings for educators: a systematic review.  School Mental Health,  13(1), 1-12. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12310-020-09393-8

Data Security

Please provide a description of your data security plan for both physical and electronic data that includes protected or identifying personal information. Include where the data will be stored, the security of the location or computer system, the length of retention of the data, and the method of disposition of old data.

In the data security plan about handling mental health illness in a medical-surgical unit, electronic data will be stored in a secure encrypted system accessible by only a few. Each physical document possessing information

that is supposed to be protected will be stored in a locked cabinet. This is done in controlled access to enable only authorized employees to access it.. Both electronic and physical storage locations will comply with relevant privacy regulations.

Data retention will adhere to legal requirements, and obsolete records will be securely disposed of through methods such as shredding for physical documents and secure digital deletion for electronic data (Fizur, 2020). Regular audits will be conducted to ensure ongoing compliance and identify areas for continuous improvement in data security. Audits, therefore, are going to be regular to assure high standards of data security and compliance. Such audits will allow for checking and ensuring that all practices are followed correctly and will further point out any improvements to be made. This would be proactive in approach, securing the datahandling practice from burgeoning threats, offering adaptability to the scope of legal requirements, and hence forming an integral part of comprehensive and dynamic data management. These processes are continuously monitored and improved to face up to emerging threats and modify them according to legal requirements