Quality Improvement Project ideas

TC3200 · Aug 27, 2014

Quality improvement for whom?

The student nurse: Actually DO the work and the pt. assessments. Do NOT make up things and chart them like they are gospel truth. Chart only what you actually test / observe. Don't cheat.

The RN: If you have a pt. in isolation, then you use the thermometer, stethoscope, and other dedicated instruments in the pt.'s room to take vitals. You do not take the unit's carts into the room, use them on an iso pt., then go around the unit on the rest of your rounds. (You've contaminated the cart by taking it into the iso room.

Surgery: If you are in the OR scrubbed and gowned for surgery, you don't pull your cell phone outta your pocket with your gloved hand, step out in the hall, take your call on your phone in your surgical garb, then return to the OR and resume working in the OR without re-scrubbing and getting new sterile gown & gloves, etc.

Surgery: It's probably wise to scrub the OR floor at least daily with a disinfectant. I was in the same OR for two days to observe surgery such as heart valve replacement. No lie, there was a piece of paper on the floor in the sterile field on Day 1, and it was still there in the same place, all day, on Day 2. Now, that means that the floor didn't even get dust-mopped every night, right?

Housekeeping: If you are summoned to clean up blood off the floor in a pt.'s bathroom, clean and disinfect using proper biohazard methods. You DON'T just wipe up the blood with a paper towel and leave.

These are all actual true examples of stuff I witnessed while on clinicals at the hospital-based diploma school. And the public wonders why hospitals have such difficulty preventing nosocomial infections. Sad, isn't it.