This assessment lays the foundation for the work that will carry you through your capstone experience and guide the practicum hours needed to complete the work in this course. In addition, it will enable you to do the following:
- Develop a problem statement for a patient, family, or population that’s relevant to your practice.
- Begin building a body of evidence that will inform your approach to your practicum.
- Focus on the influence of leadership, collaboration, communication, change management, and policy on the problem.
Preparation
In this assessment, you’ll assess the patient, family, or population health problem that will be the focus of your capstone project.
To prepare for the assessment, complete the following:
- Identify the patient, family, or group you want to work with. You’ll work with this patient, family, or group focusing on a specific health care problem.
- Begin surveying the scholarly and professional literature to establish your evidence and research base, inform your assessment, and meet scholarly expectations for supporting evidence.
Part 1
Define the patient, family, or population health problem that will be the focus of your capstone project. Assess the problem from a leadership, collaboration, communication, change management, and policy perspective and establish your evidence and research base to plan, implement, and share findings related to your project.
Requirements
The assessment requirements, outlined below, correspond to the scoring guide criteria, so be sure to address each main point. Read the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed. In addition, note the additional requirements for document format and length and for supporting evidence.
- Define a patient, family, or population health problem that’s relevant to your practice.
- Summarize the problem you’ll explore.
- Identify the patient, family, or group you intend to work with during your practicum.
- Provide context, data, or information that substantiates the presence of the problem and its significance and relevance to the patient, family, or population.
- Explain why this problem is relevant to your practice as a baccalaureate-prepared nurse.
- Analyze evidence from peer-reviewed literature and professional sources that describes and guides nursing actions related to the patient, family, or population problem you’ve defined.
- Note whether the authors provide supporting evidence from the literature that’s consistent with what you see in your nursing practice.
- Explain how you would know if the data are unreliable.
- Describe what the literature says about barriers to the implementation of evidence-based practice in addressing the problem you’ve defined.
- Describe research that has tested the effectiveness of nursing standards and/or policies in improving patient, family, or population outcomes for this problem.
- Describe current literature on the role of nurses in policy making to improve outcomes, prevent illness, and reduce hospital readmissions.
- Describe what the literature says about a nursing theory or conceptual framework that might frame and guide your actions during your practicum.
- Explain how state board nursing practice standards and/or organizational or governmental policies could affect the patient, family, or population problem you’ve defined.
- Describe research that has tested the effectiveness of these standards and/or policies in improving patient, family, or population outcomes for this problem.
- Describe current literature on the role of nurses in policy making to improve outcomes, prevent illness, and reduce hospital readmissions.
- Describe the effects of local, state, and federal policies or legislation on your nursing scope of practice, within the context of this problem.
- Propose leadership strategies to improve outcomes, patient-centered care, and the patient experience related to the patient, family, or population problem you’ve defined.
- Discuss research on the effectiveness of leadership strategies.
- Define the role that you anticipate leadership must play in addressing the problem.
- Describe collaboration and communication strategies that you anticipate will be needed to address the problem.
- Describe the change management strategies that you anticipate will be required to address the problem.
- Document the time spent (your practicum hours) with these individuals or group in the Core Elms Volunteer Experience Form.
- Organize content so ideas flow logically with smooth transitions.
- Apply APA style and formatting to scholarly writing.
Additional Requirements
- Supporting evidence: Cite at least five sources of scholarly or professional evidence that support your central ideas. Resources should be no more than five years old. Provide in-text citations and references in APA format.
Competencies Measured
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:
- Competency 1: Lead people and processes to improve patient, systems, and population outcomes.
- Define a patient, family, or population health problem that’s relevant to personal and professional practice.
- Competency 2: Make clinical and operational decisions based upon the best available evidence.
- Analyze evidence from peer-reviewed literature and professional sources that describes and guides nursing actions related to a defined patient, family, or population problem.
- Competency 5: Analyze the impact of health policy on quality and cost of care.
- Explain how state board nursing practice standards and/or organizational or governmental policies could affect a defined patient, family, or population problem.
- Competency 7: Implement patient-centered care to improve quality of care and the patient experience.
- Propose leadership strategies to improve outcomes, patient-centered care, and the patient experience related to a defined patient, family, or population problem and document the practicum hours spent with these individuals or group in the Core Elms Volunteer Experience Form.
