Instructions: Root-Cause Analysis and Safety Improvement Plan

• Use a supplied template to conduct a  root-cause analysis. The completed assessment will be a scholarly paper  focusing on a quality or safety issue pertaining to medication  administration in a health care setting of your choice as well as a  safety improvement plan.
• As patient safety concerns continue to be addressed in the health care  settings, nurses can play an active role in implementing safety  improvement measures and plans. Often root-cause analyses are conducted  and safety improvement plans are created to address sentinel or adverse  events such as medication errors, patient falls, wrong-site surgery  events, and hospital-acquired infections. Performing a root-cause  analysis offers a systematic approach for identifying causes of  problems, including process and system-check failures. Once the causes  of failures have been determined, a safety improvement plan can be  developed to prevent recurrences. The baccalaureate nurse’s role as a  leader is to create safety improvement plans as well as disseminate  vital information to staff nurses and other health care professionals to  protect patients and improve outcomes.
• As you prepare for this assessment, it would be an excellent choice to  complete the Quality and Safety Improvement Plan Knowledge Base activity  and to review the various assessment resources, all of which will help  you build your knowledge of key concepts and terms related to quality  and safety improvement.