Organization’s Brief Description
My organization embraces a culture of employee empowerment and engagement to address existing and emerging issues. According to Opperman et al. (2018), education is essential in reducing infections, saving lives, decreasing the length of stay, and improving staff confidence in high-risk, low-volume procedures (p. 3). This observation justifies the importance of empowering nurses to execute their duties professionally. My organization has an influential culture empowering nurses to identify and address emerging cancer care challenges, ensuring they are ready to embrace change to improve patient experience and outcomes.
Current Problem and Opportunity for Change
Cancer patients in my organization experience unique challenges that affect their overall health outcomes. Nurses serve patients from diverse cultural backgrounds with psychological and spiritual needs. Nurses in my organization lack practical skills and the potential to address the multi-ethnic problems that affect cancer patients’ recovery. The intended change focuses on equipping nurses with skills to serve multi-ethnic patients to meet their spiritual and psychological needs and enhance their response to cancer treatments.
Nurses in my organization have an opportunity to change the organizational culture to serve patients from diverse cultural backgrounds. The mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is a suitable method for improving treatment outcomes among cancer patients (Park et al., 2020, p. 387). The MBCT allows nurses to find efficient ways to address cancer patients’ symptoms and assist them to realize better health outcomes. The nurses in my organization can use MBCT programs to identify the relationship between different factors that impact their overall health outcomes. Park et al. (2020) note that MBCT programs improve cancer patients’ psychological, physical, and spiritual well-being. Other stakeholders involved in integrating MCBT programs include hospital management, local social workers, and community leaders. However, this change program may make the nurses feel insecure and increase their tendency to fall back into old ways of handling patients.
Evidence-Based Idea for Change
The nurses will gather evidence on the effectiveness of cultural- and patient-based interventions to support the changes. McDermott et al. (2020) note that advanced care programs (ACP) are effective in improving treatment outcomes and reducing the need for intensive care (p. 1339). Nurses in my organization will gather evidence on the effectiveness of cultural-based interventions in managing cancer patient symptoms. This strategy will allow nurses to amass adequate evidence on the efficacy of the implemented changes in achieving better spiritual and psychological well-being of cancer patients.
Plan for Knowledge Transfer
Nurses in my organization will embrace shared decision-making (SDM) strategies to transfer the newly acquired knowledge. Hoffmann et al. (2014) explain that SDM initiatives allow healthcare workers to integrate evidence-based medicine with patient-centered communication skills to achieve optimal care (p. 1296). The nurses will use the SDM approach to share and disseminate the acquired knowledge and skills. This approach will support adopting new skills and implementing support programs to ensure desirable patient outcomes.
Disseminating Results
I will disseminate the project results through seminar presentations and posters. I will compile the outcomes into a report and attractive posters. I will find opportunities to present the results to different departments through seminars. Besides, I will distribute posters to various departments to ensure that nurses access the results.
Measurable Outcomes
The measurable outcomes from the study that I hope to achieve with the evidence-based change include improved symptoms and reduced psychological distress among cancer patients. The nurses will support cancer patients to achieve better spiritual outcomes, leading to better recovery. The patients will realize greater satisfaction and minimal stress due to tailored care programs that meet their core needs.
Lessons Learned
The critical appraisal of the four peer-reviewed articles revealed that ACP, mindfulness-based interventions (MBI), MBCT, and Orem’s theory are effective methods that nurses can integrate into patient care to improve outcomes. However, nurses must use evidence-based methods to determine the most appropriate intervention for each patient. Completing the evaluation table with the Critical Appraisal Tool Worksheet Template taught me the importance of analyzing peer-reviewed articles to understand their contribution. This form of evaluation effectively gathers reliable evidence required to support organizational change.
References
Hoffmann, T. C., Montori, V. M., & Del Mar, C. (2014). The connection between evidence-based medicine and shared decision-making. JAMA, 312(13), 1295–1296. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2014.10186
McDermott, C. L., Engelberg, R. A., Sibley, J., Sorror, M. L., & Curtis, J. R. (2020). The Association between chronic conditions, end-of-life health care use, and documentation of advance care planning among patients with cancer. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 23(10), 1335–1341. https://doi.org/10.1089/jpm.2019.0530
Opperman, C., Liebig, D., Bowling, J., & Johnson, C. S. (2018). Measuring return on investment for professional development activities. Journal for Nurses in Professional Development, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1097/nnd.0000000000000483
Park, S., Sato, Y., Takita, Y., Tamura, N., Ninomiya, A., Kosugi, T., Sado, M., Nakagawa, A., Takahashi, M., Hayashida, T., & Fujisawa, D. (2020). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for psychological distress, fear of cancer recurrence, fatigue, spiritual well-being, and quality of life in patients with breast cancer: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 60(2), 381–389. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2020.02.017
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