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Enhancing Quality and Safety

Enhancing Quality and Safety

Educating the patient is the cornerstone of safety, quality, and outcomes in the modern healthcare setting. This level of patient education has become a critical patient safety concern that leads to nonadherence, repeat hospital readmissions, medication errors, and even lawsuits. The baccalaureate-prepared nurse takes on a role beyond clinical practice, which is to empower patients with the knowledge they require to make informed choices and follow through on treatment plans. This paper discusses the causes of poor patient education and reviews evidence-based alternatives, the nurse’s role in the management of this issue, and major players in the enhancement of this issue: Enhancing Quality and Safety.

Factors Leading to Inadequate Patient Education

There are a number of interrelated reasons for the lack of adequate patient education in health facilities. To begin with, limited education provision ability may be caused by time constraints among healthcare providers. Physicians and nurses who have chosen a fast-track environment like emergency departments or hectic clinics might focus on acute care activities rather than patient education. Zota et al. (2023) indicate that time pressure is one of the biggest obstacles to communication effectiveness in clinical settings.

Second, the problem of health literacy is still a barrier. The majority of patients are unskilled to identify medical terminology and understand complex special orders. There is an almost 90 million prevalence of adults with low health literacy in the United States, which can affect practicing self-care, as highlighted by Villani and Trivedi (2020). Third, language and cultural barriers between healthcare providers and patients create a problem in comprehension, leading to losses in communication.

Extrapolating on health information can affect compliance, given that patients have varying backgrounds. Lastly, the absence of training for medical workers on teaching methodology and communicative skills could worsen this process. Even with a high level of good intentions for enlightening patients, a lack of a proper educational tool can still lead to minimal impact.

Evidence-Based Solutions and Best Practices

The lack of proper patient education can be resolved with the help of evidence-based solutions that rely on best practices. Among the commonly accepted approaches is the teach-back method, which involves having patients repeat what they have learned using their own words as a means to establish comprehension. This approach has been known to be helpful in enhancing knowledge retention and adherence to care plans (Talevski et al., 2020).

Well-informed patients concerning discharge instructions are less inclined to skip follow-ups or get readmitted to the hospital due to avoidable issues. These results save costs of care in health facilities by minimizing cases of readmission and avoiding the cost of malpractice claims caused by miscommunication.

Moreover, multimedia learning tools such as videos, visual guides, and mobile apps could cater to various learning requirements, especially among low-literacy patients or those with language barriers. These tools enhance understanding, which consequently contributes to safer interaction in home self-management. Financially, better patient understanding can prevent expensive incidents, including medication errors, ED readmissions, and long hospital stays, which all deplete the hospital’s resources. Gonçalves-Bradley et al. (2022) found that improved discharge protocols with medication reconciliation and specific follow-up strategies reduce readmission rates, and this could lead to significant cost savings to hospitals and insurers.

In addition, electronic health record (EHR) integration with patient portals enables patients to continuously access treatment schedules, drug cues, and appointment information. This flow of information eliminates over-dependency on providers brought by many phone calls or visits due to misunderstanding. Shared decision-making is also encouraged through the use of decision aids, such as simple-language treatment comparisons, which increases patient satisfaction and reduces the possibility of dangerous overtreatment or defensive medicine (Pierce et al., 2025). Through this method, evidence-based educational practices safeguard patients and provide a high rate of returns in terms of safety and efficiency.

Nurses’ Role in Coordinating Care and Patient Education

Baccalaureate-prepared nurses are well-positioned to spearhead patient education coordination efforts and improve the safety of health services and health care cost-effectiveness. Nurses as caregivers at the frontline evaluate specific learning needs, challenges such as low literacy or linguistic discrepancy, and customize learning. Nurses ensure patient comprehension in key moments, like discharge, by employing evidence-based strategies, like the teach-back technique, to verify that patients comprehend all the care instructions/information, which will prevent re-hospitalization and erroneous prescribed medications (Flaubert et al., 2021). Failure to address these complications may lead to expensive readmission, avoidable emergency department visits, or even adverse drug events that strain healthcare facilities financially.

Besides, the role of a nurse as the center of interprofessional collaboration is congruent with reinforcing education in partnership with providers like pharmacists and case managers. This will help provide consistency in care and avoid the problem of fragmented communication, which is a factor of duplication of services and other clinical errors that can be averted. For example, a nurse coordinating with a pharmacist to provide thorough medication counseling can help prevent drug interactions that would otherwise require acute intervention or hospitalization. This kind of preventive coordination reduces the cost of facilities in emergent care and long-term hospitalization.

Nurse educator and navigator roles are expanding in rural or primary locations, where specialist access is low. They not only explicate treatment plans but also link patients to community-based services, thus lessening the interdependence on costly hospital-based care. These initiatives have the direct impact of cutting healthcare spending by encouraging prevention, strengthening self-efficacy, and decreasing acute intervention-dependency.

Moreover, nurses who grant access to EHR-integrated education materials and culturally competent communication training enhance organizational efficiency by reducing the time and resources spent re-educating patients or correcting possible errors due to misunderstanding. Therefore, coordinated nursing-led patient education is an effective, safety strategy and a sustainable cost containment mechanism in contemporary healthcare delivery.

Stakeholders Involved in Driving Improvements

Enhancing patient education requires collaboration among various stakeholders within and beyond the healthcare organization. Nurse leaders, including nurse educators and clinical nurse specialists, play a central role in designing and evaluating education initiatives. They ensure that teaching materials are evidence-based, accessible, and culturally sensitive.

Physicians are also key stakeholders, as they initiate care plans and diagnoses requiring explanation (Pellegrini & Lovati, 2025). When physicians collaborate with nurses in a team-based care model, patient education becomes more cohesive and effective.

Pharmacists are important partners, especially when addressing complex medication regimens. Their expertise in explaining drug interactions, side effects, and adherence strategies complements the education nurses provide. Health information technology (IT) teams support the integration of educational resources into EHRs and patient portals, enhancing accessibility. Additionally, case managers and social workers coordinate community resources that support patient learning at home, such as home health services or support groups.

At the organizational level, quality improvement teams and hospital administrators have cosupervisory roles over policies touching on patient education, including the obligatory use of teach-back or discharge teaching time allotment. External stakeholders consist of accreditation organizations such as The Joint Commission, which measures the quality of patient education when conducting a hospital survey, and professional associations such as QSEN, which defines core competencies in the safety and communication areas (Pellegrini & Lovati, 2025). All these stakeholders act together in a multidisciplinary network with a common mission of safe, informed, and engaged patients.

Conclusion

Low-quality patient education has long-term consequences related to the outcomes, cost, and satisfaction implications of the safety and quality of the patient. Some of the factors that contribute to the challenge are health literacy, time considerations, and cultural constraints. However, evidence-based interventions, such as the teach-back strategy, application of multimedia, uniform progression patterns, and interprofessional collaboration, are a solution.

Nurses are at the center of coordination and the delivery of patient learning since the nurses are the ones who must ensure that patients possess what is required to take care of themselves and avoid unnecessarily arising complications. Personal representatives of major stakeholders of the healthcare system should be approached in order to promote the culture of understanding patients as the key to quality and safety. This has the potential of letting the baccalaureate-prepared nurses champion the concept of education as a clinical and ethical issue, in the sense that they will be in a position to facilitate substantive transformation in healthcare provision and patient empowerment.

References

Flaubert, J. L., Menestrel, S. L., Williams, D. R., & Wakefield, M. K. (2021, May 11). The role of nurses in improving health care access and quality. The Future of Nursing 2020-2030 – NCBI Bookshelf. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK573910/

Gonçalves-Bradley, D. C., Lannin, N. A., Clemson, L., Cameron, I. D., & Shepperd, S. (2022). Discharge planning from hospital. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2022(2). https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.cd000313.pub6

Pellegrini, G., & Lovati, C. (2025). Stakeholders’ engagement for improved health outcomes: A research brief to design a tool for better communication and participation. Frontiers in Public Health, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1536753

Pierce, J. H., Weir, C., Taft, T., Richards II, W., McFarland, M. M., Kawamoto, K., Del Fiol, G., & Butler, J. M. (2025). Shared decision-making tools implemented in the electronic health record: Scoping review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 27, e59956. https://doi.org/10.2196/59956

Talevski, J., Shee, A. W., Rasmussen, B., Kemp, G., & Beauchamp, A. (2020). Teach-back: A systematic review of implementation and impacts. PLoS ONE, 15(4), e0231350. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231350

Villani, J., & Trivedi, N. (2020). Health literacy research funded by the NIH for disease prevention. HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice, 4(4), e212–e223. https://doi.org/10.3928/24748307-20200928-01

Zota, D., Diamantis, D., Katsas, K., Karnaki, P., Tsiampalis, T., Sakowski, P., Christophi, C., Ioannidou, E., Darias-Curvo, S., Batury, V., Berth, H., Zscheppang, A., Linke, M., Themistokleous, S., Veloudaki, A., & Linos, A. (2023). Essential skills for health communication, barriers, facilitators and the need for training: Perceptions of healthcare professionals from seven European countries. Healthcare, 11(14), 2058. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11142058

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Question 

Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety

For this assessment, you will develop a 3–5 page paper that examines a safety quality issue in a healthcare setting. You will analyze the issue and examine potential evidence-based and best-practice solutions from the literature as well as the role of nurses and other stakeholders in addressing the issue.

Introduction
The role of the baccalaureate nurse includes identifying and explaining specific patient risk factors, incorporating evidence-based solutions to improving patient safety and coordinating care. A solid foundation of knowledge and understanding of safety organizations such as Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN), the Institute of Medicine (IOM), and The Joint Commission and its National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) program is vital to practicing nurses with regard to providing and promoting safe and effective patient care.

You are encouraged to complete the Identifying Safety Risks and Solutions activity. This activity offers an opportunity to review a case study and practice identifying safety risks and possible solutions. We have found that learners who complete course activities and review resources are more successful with first submissions. Completing course activities is also a way to demonstrate course engagement.

References

  • Kohn, L. T., Corrigan, J., & Donaldson, M. S. (Eds.). (2000). To err is human: Building a safer health system. National Academy Press.

Overview
As a baccalaureate-prepared nurse, you will be responsible for implementing quality improvement (QI) and patient safety measures in healthcare settings. Effective quality improvement measures result in systemic and organizational change, ultimately leading to the development of a patient safety culture.

Consider the hospital-acquired conditions that are not reimbursed under Medicare/Medicaid, some of which are specific safety issues such as infections, falls, medication errors, and other concerns that could have been prevented or alleviated with the use of evidence-based guidelines.

The purpose of this assessment is to better understand the role of the baccalaureate-prepared nurse in enhancing quality improvement (QI) measures to address patient safety risk at a healthcare setting of your choice. You will do this by exploring the professional guidelines and best practices for improving and maintaining patient safety in healthcare settings from organizations such as QSEN (Quality and Safety Education for Nurses) and the IOM (Institute of Medicine).

Looking through the lens of these professional best practices to examine the current policies and procedures in place at your chosen organization and the impact on safety measures for patients, you will consider the role of the nurse in driving quality and safety improvements. You will identify stakeholders in QI improvement and safety measures as well as consider evidence-based strategies to enhance quality of care and promote safety in your chosen healthcare setting.

See Nursing Competencies for more information.

Enhancing Quality and Safety

Enhancing Quality and Safety

Instructions
Select one of the safety quality issues presented in the Assessment 01 Supplement: Enhancing Quality and Safety [PDF] resource and incorporate evidence-based strategies to support communication and ensure safe and effective care. (Inadequate Patient Education in Healthcare)

For this assessment, be sure to focus on an organizational setting. This could be a primary care office, urgent care, mobile clinic, hospital ED, rural clinic, etc. Then use the literature to support the problem and solution in the organization. Reflect on costs to that organization/setting and what nurses can do to coordinate the care within the setting. Reflect on stakeholders who may be involved.Be sure that your plan addresses the following, which corresponds to the grading criteria in the rubric. Please study the rubric carefully so you understand what is needed for a distinguished score.

  • Explain factors leading to a specific patient safety risk.
  • Explain evidence-based and best-practice solutions to improve patient safety related to a specific patient-safety risk and reduce costs.
  • Explain how nurses can help coordinate care to increase patient safety and reduce costs.
  • Identify stakeholders with whom nurses would need to coordinate to drive safety enhancements.
  • Communicate using writing that is clear, logical, and professional, with correct grammar and spelling, using current APA style.

Additional Requirements

  • Length of submission: 3–5 pages of content plus title and reference pages.
  • Number of references: Cite a minimum of 4 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that support your findings and considerations. Resources should be no more than 5 years old. Use the Capella University Library and BSN Nursing Program Library Guide as needed.
  • APA formatting: References and citations are formatted according to current APA style. See the APA Module.

Competencies Measured
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:

  • Competency 1: Analyze the elements of a successful quality improvement initiative.
    • Explain evidence-based and best-practice solutions to improve patient safety related to a specific patient safety risk and reduce costs.
  • Competency 2: Analyze factors that lead to patient safety risks.
    • Explain factors leading to a specific patient-safety risk in a healthcare setting.
  • Competency 4: Explain the nurse’s role in coordinating care to enhance quality and reduce costs.
    • Explain how nurses can help coordinate care to increase patient safety and reduce costs.
    • Identify stakeholders with whom nurses would coordinate to drive safety enhancements with a specific safety quality issue.
  • Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly, evidence-based strategies to communicate in a manner that supports safe and effective patient care.
    • Organize content so ideas flow logically with smooth transitions; contains few errors in grammar or punctuation, word choice, and spelling.
    • Apply APA formatting to in-text citations and references exhibiting nearly flawless adherence to APA format.

Scoring Guide

  • Use the scoring guide to understand how your assessment will be evaluated.
Client’s Notes:
  • Please write on Inadequate Patient Education in Healthcare