NR 554 Week 1 DQ Connecting Workplace Issues with Policy.

NR 554 Week 1 DQ Connecting Workplace Issues with Policy. Connecting Workplace Issues with Policy Carole N. Bingley Chamberlain College of Nursing NR 554: Nurse Leader and Healthcare Policy March 2018 New information based on policy decisions locally, regionally, and nationally is often presented to staff by nurse leaders. Identify a recent change at your current, or most recent, workplace that was policy based. Discuss the policy and how the change supported positive patient outcomes. Week 1: Connecting Workplace Issues with Policy Blood culture contamination is a common problem in the emergency department (ED) that leads to unnecessary patient morbidity and health care costs. False-positive results in blood cultures are primarily due to contaminants. These false-positive cultures, at the microbiological laboratory level, require significant additional resources for workup. Additionally, they result in unnecessary antibiotic treatment and hospitalization days, causing needless harm to patients. Various methods have been implemented in order to reduce blood culture contaminants including the use of 2% Chlorhexidine Gluconate (CHG) Cloths. In October 2017, the Emergency Services Institute had significantly higher baseline rates of blood culture contamination from peripheral sticks than any other department. The entire emergency department went through individual mandatory blood culture training with the departments Clinical Nurse Specialist and Nurse Educator. Even after proper training the Emergency Department still has the high blood culture contamination rates from peripheral sticks. The quality improvement (QI) intervention to use CHG cloths for reducing blood culture contamination in the ED was initiated. Numerous studies have shown that Chlorhexidine bathing is effective in reducing levels of pathogens on the skin. A 2% CHG impregnated alcohol-free no-rinse cloth used for presurgical skin preparation is associated with excellent rapid reductions of bacterial counts (Edmiston, Bruden, Rucinski, Henen, Graham, & Lewis, 2013). A practice