Quality Improvement

[McBx3]

Hello all!

I am working toward my MSN Admin degree and am required to do a quality improvement project in my current workplace. I'm a school nurse in a small, rural district (K-12 with about 800 students) and am struggling to come up with a topic, so I thought I'd bounce the idea off of you guys :)

In the past, I've done projects over office visits (i.e. reducing unnecessary visits, etc.) and improving immunization compliance rates. Anyone have any ideas, or have examples of QI they have completed in their schools?

Thanks!

[pedi_nurse]

Maybe improving students' handwashing somehow? Implementing short handwashing lessons for the younger kids, establishing a routine for teachers to take kids to wash their hands before lunch, or arranging for hand sanitizer to be set up outside the cafeteria? It gives me the heebie jeebies to think about my middle schoolers' lack of hand hygiene. I can barely manage to keep soap in the bathrooms though.

[pedi_nurse]

Oh, also, you could work on QI for parent contact/communication. Like reviewing care plans with parents, checking in with parents on chronic kids, follow up calls, etc.

[JenTheSchoolRN, BSN, RN]

What about looking at your school's emergency plans? What is the health emergency plan in case of mass casualty incident (MCI)? That is my QI for next school year.

[McBx3]

Thank you for the ideas, these are all great!

[LikeTheDeadSea, MSN, RN]

Honestly, almost all of my big papers are done on concussions. There is SO MUCH recent research that can be cited easily and tailored for school nursing. My strategy with paper writing has almost always been:

1. Jot down some ideas.

2. Quick searches in the data bases.

3. Pick the one with the most applicable articles.

I tried to do a topic that I thought I would like and be interested in once and found like 2 articles after hours of searching and decided that I needed to change my plan.