[ANSWERED 2022] In this assignment you will propose a quality improvement initiative from your place of employment that could easily be implemented if approved. Assume you are presenting this program to the board for approval of funding

Written By: Dan Palmer, RN

Edited By: Ethan Green, MSN-FNP

In this assignment you will propose a quality improvement initiative from your place of employment that could easily be implemented if approved

In this assignment you will propose a quality improvement initiative from your place of employment that could easily be implemented if approved. Assume you are presenting this program to the board for approval of funding. Write an executive summary (750-1,000 words) to present to the board, from which the board will make its decision to fund your program or project. Include the following:

The purpose of the quality improvement initiative.
The target population or audience.
The benefits of the quality improvement initiative.
The interprofessional collaboration that would be required to implement the quality improvement initiative.
The cost or budget justification.
The basis upon which the quality improvement initiative will be evaluated.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

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Expert Answer and Explanation

Quality Improvement Initiative

A quality improvement initiative focuses on monitoring, analyzing, and improving the quality practices to improve healthcare outcomes in the healthcare organization. Beran et al. (2018) said that hospitals could gather and examine data in critical areas to effectively select a project that can meet their quality requirements. Therefore, this paper proposes a pharmacist-provided Medication Therapy Management (MTM) program to an organization’s board of directors for funding.

Purpose of the quality improvement initiative

The primary purpose of pharmacist-provided Medication Therapy Management (MTM) project is to improve patients’ outcomes and reduce healthcare costs (Beran et al., 2018).

The target population or audience

The pharmacist-provided or led MTM project will target the Medicare population. The population constitutes of individuals ages 65 and above, irrespective of their income, health status, medical history, and people with long-term disability (Beran et al., 2018). These persons use a lot of medicines because of their chronic conditions, including depression, heart diseases, influenza, respiratory infections, and diabetes.

The benefits of the quality improvement initiative

The two essential advantages of the MTM project include empowering of patients and provide service value.

Empowering of patients

Pharmacist-provided Medication Therapy Management (MTM) encourages patients to participate in their healthcare actively. This is an approach of empowering patients to be responsible and be knowledgeable about their medication use and health (Henderson, Brooks, Richey & Thompson, 2019).

MTM services enable an active partnership among pharmacists, patients, physicians, and other healthcare professionals or providers for the attainment of optimum medication treatment outcomes. Henderson, Brooks, Richey, and Thompson (2019) concluded that various patients have attested that pharmacist-provided MTM services have a positive impact on their care in most states in the United States.

Provision of services value

Pharmacist-led Medication Therapy Management (MTM) services contribute to patients’ safety, appropriateness care, and effective use of drugs. These are the three ways in which this initiative will provide service value to patients. The methods are highlighted below.

One, MTM project improves the quality of patient outcomes and care. For example, MTM services usually save lives at risk. Two, the MTM program reduces healthcare spending. Spivey et al., 2019 explained that MTM services have the potential of lowering medical expenditure linked with physician visits or emergency care visits or hospitalizations. Three, MTM project also reduce medication-associated adverse events by improving patient safety (Spivey et al., 2019).

Moreover, there are various pieces of evidence indicating that improved healthcare outcomes and better management of healthcare spending result from pharmacist-provided MTM services in both the private and public health sector. For example, the Iowa Medicaid Pharmaceutical Case Management (PCM) Program. This is an MTM project that was established in 2000 to target high risks patients who use more than four medicines.

The program has improved prescribing of appropriate drugs and a significant reduction in the utilization of high-risk medications. Another example, The Diabetes Ten City Challenge. This is an MTM health benefit project instituted by groups of employers in ten communities. The initiative has resulted in savings of about $918 per worker in total healthcare expenses for the past years and a 50% reduction in employees’ absenteeism (Spivey et al., 2019).

Therefore, the value of pharmacist-provided Medication Therapy Management in clinical, humanistic, and economical is real as its results are outstanding and replicable.

The interpersonal collaboration required for the implementation of the quality improvement initiative

Enhancement of patient-centered medical care and patient outcomes, a comprehensive team-based will be necessary for the implementation of this project. In MTM project implementation, pharmacists will be prerequisite to boost medicines use that can help to improve patient outcomes.

According to the American College of Clinical Pharmacy et al. (2015), for organizations to deliver pharmacist-provided Medical Therapy Management, pharmacists are required to work together with doctors or physicians effectively. Physicians are also required to collaborate with nurses. Nurses are needed to work in partnership with patients (American College of Clinical Pharmacy et al., 2015). The three collaborations are vital for the implementation of pharmacist-led MTM.

The cost or budget justification

The table below presents different costs needed for the implementation of pharmacist-provided Medication Therapy Management (MTM) program at the organization.

Cost category	Cost in USD in million	% of total	Type of cost (USD)
Personnel	19. 21	41.32	Variable
Material and Supplies	9.25	19.90	Variable
Equipment	7.45	16.02	Fixed
Non-salary direct	10.1	21.72	Fixed
Overhead	0.48	1.03	Fixed
Total	46. 49	100%

Source (Author, 2019).

From the table above it can be deduced that the project requires a total of US$46.49 million. Variable costs in this program are will be caused by the changing cause quality and quantity of the service that the health organization will deliver (Berry, Eizenberg & Waldfogel, 2016). Fixed costs are also expenditures that dependent on the level of services that the organization will offer to its clients.

The basis upon which the quality improvement initiative will be evaluated

The pharmacist-provided MTM initiative will be evaluate on the basis of quality and costs. The quality of the end project will be compared with the value of the same program in other organizations. The quality review will help to evaluate whether the project is going to meet the standards set out in the organization quality plan or not. Additionally, the cost is another aspect that will be used to evaluate the pharmacist-led MTM project in the health facility.

The organization will compare its current spending to what it had accounted for at each point of this project. If variances exist, the project team management will be required to put its costs on track.

In conclusion, pharmacist-led MTM project is an initiative that improves patients’ health outcome as well as reducing expenditure for both patients and the organization.

References

American College of Clinical Pharmacy, McBane, S. E., Dopp, A. L., Abe, A., Benavides, S., Chester, E. A., … & Rothrock‐Christian, T. (2015). Collaborative drug therapy management and comprehensive medication management―2015. Pharmacotherapy: The Journal of Human Pharmacology and Drug Therapy, 35(4), e39-e50.

Beran, M., Asche, S. E., Bergdall, A. R., Crabtree, B., Green, B. B., Groen, S. E., … & Pawloski, P. A. (2018). Key components of success in a randomized trial of blood pressure telemonitoring with medication therapy management pharmacists. Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, 58(6), 614-621.

Berry, S., Eizenberg, A., & Waldfogel, J. (2016). Fixed Costs and the Product Market Treatment of Preference Minorities. The Journal of Industrial Economics, 64(3), 466-493.

Henderson, A., Brooks, K., Richey, J., & Thompson, V. (2019). MEDICATION THERAPY MANAGEMENT: Empowering the Patient.

Spivey, C. A., Qiao, Y., Wang, J., Shih, Y. C. T., Wan, J. Y., Dagogo‐Jack, S., … & Chisholm‐Burns, M. A. (2019). Comparative Effectiveness of Medication Therapy Management Eligibility Criteria Across Racial/Ethnic Groups. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 67(3), 581-587.

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