Assignment: Evidence-Based Practice and the Quadruple Aim
Healthcare organizations continually seek to optimize healthcare performance. For years, this approach was a three-pronged one known as the Triple Aim, with efforts focused on improved population health, enhanced patient experience, and lower healthcare costs.
More recently, this approach has evolved to a Quadruple Aim by including a focus on improving the work life of healthcare providers. Each of these measures are impacted by decisions made at the organizational level, and organizations have increasingly turned to EBP to inform and justify these decisions.
To Prepare:
Read the articles by Sikka, Morath, & Leape (2015); Crabtree, Brennan, Davis, & Coyle (2016); and Kim et al. (2016) provided in the Resources.
Reflect on how EBP might impact (or not impact) the Quadruple Aim in healthcare.
Consider the impact that EBP may have on factors impacting these quadruple aim elements, such as preventable medical errors or healthcare delivery.
To Complete:
Homework help – Write a brief analysis (no longer than 2 pages) of the connection between EBP and the Quadruple Aim.
Your analysis should address how EBP might (or might not) help reach the Quadruple Aim, including each of the four measures of:
Patient experience
Population health
Costs
Work life of healthcare providers
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Homework help – Write a brief analysis of the connection between EBP and the Quadruple Aim
Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is an approach to healthcare delivery that integrates clinical expertise, patient’s values and preferences with the best evidence from reliable studies. The primary goal of any given healthcare organization is to optimize healthcare performance and impact patients outcome. And for many years, the three-pronged approach known as the “Triple Aim” proposed by Donald Berwick and colleagues in 2008, has been used. The three overarching goals of approach are to improve population health, enhance the patient experience, and lower healthcare costs.
However, over the years, the framework evolved to include a fourth goal of improving the work life and experience of healthcare providers. Sikka, Morath and Leape (2015) propose the extension of the 2008 Triple Aim approach to acknowledge and appreciate the role played by health care providers in finding meaning in their work. Besides enhancing the three main goals of the Triple Aim model, EBP also impacts the newly introduced fourth goal of improving group cohesion and promoting job satisfaction among healthcare providers.
EBP and patient experience
Evidence-based practice allows clinicians to access and integrate findings of research into clinical practice. Through this, nurses and physicians are able to use their knowledge, skills and experience to effectively apply the existing scientific knowledge into clinical practice based on every patient’s health needs. This has played a significant role in improving the quality of services delivered to patients.
EBP and populations health
Another fundamental role of EBP in healthcare is educating people regarding various health determinants, benefits and limitations of different treatment options, and the cultural and health practices. EBP also allows researchers to classify populations based on their specific needs, economic status, distribution, which allows for the appropriate health promotion and allocation of resources.
EBP and healthcare costs
Among the major challenges experienced by healthcare organizations is measuring per capita costs of healthcare. The process involves capturing all the expenditures, establishing the actual costs, and indexing them to the healthcare system. Most facilities employ the discount and pricing approach to measure the actual cost of healthcare which makes it very crucial for them to provide quality healthcare services and lower costs. In the process of improving efficiency and delivery through EBP, quality of care increases, reducing the costs of operations.
EBP and job satisfaction of healthcare providers
The productivity of health providers is dependent on the conduciveness of the work environment. In healthcare, a conducive working environment should, among many things, support interprofessional collaboration. According to existing evidence, interprofessional al collaboration fosters satisfaction among healthcare providers which in turn improves patient’s health outcomes. It also eliminates worker burnout and turnover rate, increasing the performance of each provider.
Melnyk, B. M. (2017). Igniting and Sustaining Evidence-based Practice to Meet the Quadruple Aim in Healthcare.
Melnyk, B. M., & Gallagher-Ford, L. (2019). Achieving the Quadruple Aim in Healthcare With Evidence-Based Practice: A Necessary Leadership Strategy for Improving Quality, Safety, Patient Outcomes, and Cost Reductions. Evidence-Based Leadership, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Nursing and Healthcare: A Practical Guide to Success.
Gallagher‐Ford, L., Koshy Thomas, B., Connor, L., Sinnott, L. T., & Melnyk, B. M. (2020). The Effects of an Intensive Evidence‐Based Practice Educational and Skills Building Program on EBP Competency and Attributes. Worldviews on Evidence‐Based Nursing, 17(1), 71-81.
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