ESSAY Remote Collaboration and Evidence-Based Care

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ESSAY Remote Collaboration and Evidence-Based Care

ESSAY Remote Collaboration and Evidence-Based Care

Introduction

One of the main aspects of a health facility’s nursing department to promote patient safety is implementing infection prevention and control methods. If infection prevention and control standards are not maintained, then the possibility of patients contracting infections in the hospital is very high, thus affecting their safety and outcome. Infection prevention and control includes having health workers free of diseases such that patients cannot pick germs from them. In St. Anthony medical center, an IPC project is being conducted that makes sure that all the patient care assistants are vaccinated against flu. The vaccination is to ensure that the facility is free of flu and that patients cannot contract the flu from the staff. This paper will provide a proposal for an evidence-based care plan to improve patient outcomes in St. Anthony medical center. It will also explain ways, in which EBP will be used to develop the care plan and identify the relevant evidence useful in making decisions. It will also identify benefits and strategies to mitigate the challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration to plan care within the context of a remote team.

Evidence-Based Care Plan

The hospital aims to improve compliance of patient care assistants in getting a flu vaccination in the facility. Compliance was about 75% last year, which was not impressive to the board and aimed to achieve about 90% compliance this year. The reasons some PCAs may not have been vaccinated last year are; some were away for Annual or maternity leave from the job. Therefore, if the facility has to attain the compliance required, then they have to consider all PCAs in and out of the facility during the vaccination period. Others assume taking the flu shots claiming that the flu is just like a cold which most of them will not even get it.

The plan to improve the patient outcome in this scenario is ensuring that almost every patient care assistant gets a flu shot in time such that the patients will not get the flu from the hospital. Whenever people are on leave, they are in places where there are medical facilitates and therefore they can get the vaccination from those facilities, but since there will be cost involved in such instances, the facility will form collaborations with other facilities in the metropolitan to facilitate the flu vaccination. All patient care assistants are registered with their facilities and have their identifications with them, and therefore, the facility will collaborate with others whereby they will vaccinate each other’s PCAs with no cost involved. The PCAs will only be required to produce their identification in the medical facilities and then receive the flu shot.

Some assume the vaccination terming the flu as just a regular cold; however, if they contract the flu and then the patient gets it from them, then this becomes an issue. Therefore, to ensure that every PCA is vaccinated, then there will be record-keeping of each PCA getting the shot to establish who got the vaccination and who did not. Those who were not treated will have to provide a satisfactory reason failure to which he or she will be liable for disciplinary action from the hospital. Health care workers are at increased exposure to flu, and the immunity of their vulnerable patients relies on the PCAs to keep them safe. Therefore, there is a need for the PCAs and other health workers to get the flu vaccination for their good and that of their patients. Besides compelling PCAs to getting flu shots, the facility will start awareness programs for the PCAs for the importance of flu vaccination among health workers. The agenda will involve participative projects for PCAs in research projects involving the need for getting flu shots as a health worker.

Using EBP Model

Evidence-Based practice model involves integrating the available research, clinical expertise, and patient needs and preferences to improve patient care. In this scenario, the interdisciplinary team was formed to identify the reasons why patient care assistants were not complying with a flu vaccination. It involved collecting and reviewing evidence from primary research, including interviews and secondary research to establish the importance of flu vaccination and methods to make more PCAs adhere to getting flu shots. After a review of the evidence, then this year will be used as a pilot year for implementing new awareness and participatory methodologies for PCAs.

Relevance of Evidence

World Health Organization recommends that flu vaccination is the most effective method to prevent the disease, and since health workers have the highest rate of contact with vulnerable patients, then their protection prevents the spread of flu. A study by Barbara et al. (2017) aimed to investigate whether onsite flu vaccination among health workers is valid with a case study of an Italian Teaching hospital. The results from the survey showed that onsite flu vaccination increased vaccination coverage in the hospital among the medical and non-medical health workers. The increase in vaccination coverage reduced cases of flu in the hospital, significantly concluding that onsite flu vaccination is an excellent example of promoting flu prevention in a hospital setting.

Another study by Corsaro et al. (2017) on fostering flu vaccination among health workers aimed at establishing different methods that could be used to increase coverage of flu vaccination among health workers. The results from the study showed that participative strategies could be used as a strategy of growing health worker’s awareness of the need for flu vaccination. These two articles selected provides adequate evidence on the importance of flu vaccination among patient care assistants and other health workers in a hospital setting. Health workers are not adequately aware of the need of getting a flu shot. Therefore involving them in activities that increase their awareness increases the coverage of flu vaccination and subsequent safety to patients who are at a higher risk of contracting the disease from their caretakers.

Benefits and Strategies in interdisciplinary collaboration

Infection Prevention and control involves the cooperation of different people, and in this scenario, flu vaccination consists of bringing together all the workers of the health facility. The situation also involved including a remote team that will contribute to making sure that there is flu vaccination compliance away from the hospital. Remote collaboration is growing in health care today, and with the advancement of technology, then things are becoming much more comfortable. The success of any partnership is effective communication among the collaborating teams such that everyone gets informed in time. Patient care assistants are always on the run, and therefore, a useful communication model on the importance of flu vaccination has to be developed. The communication model involved the use of posters in the patient units since it is the place where they spend a lot of time. They also received a mail to compliment the sign such that if one has not been in the hospital, then they are well informed. Advance technology and the internet facilitates for teleconferencing and therefore when there is a need for a meeting between partners outside the facility, the meeting was more accessible to conduct rather than trying to bring everyone under the same roof. The remote collaboration aims at improving the quality of patient care provided, and since it saves on time and resources, it improves patient safety and outcomes.

ESSAY Remote Collaboration and Evidence-Based Care