Your major work for this course is your change project. This first assignment will be completed in two parts: Part 1 is due this week by Sunday, 2359 EST and worth 10 percent of your course grade, and Part 2 will be due by Sunday, 2359 EST of Week 6 and worth 30 percent of your course grade.
You will spend a minimum of 28 hours to devote to the total project, Part 1 and Part 2 combined, which can include all your time spent researching and meetings. It does not include travel time or time in writing the paper. This is not practicum time in which you are required to be present in the clinical environment. This is a major project, and you are given credit for a minimum of 28 hours spent in working on this project, but much of the time may be spent at home as you put your project together. Since this project is quite time intensive, it will be helpful for you get organized by listing the steps required to create this plan for change, along with the estimated time needed, so you know how to plan your time.
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Part 1, due this week by Sunday, 2359 EST and worth 10 percent of your course grade:
In a paper 3-4 pages long, you will design a proposed change for a healthcare agency of your choice. You will identify a need of the agency with the help of your preceptor or nurse leader/manager at the agency. This may be a need observed during the practicum experience or it may be a need observed in your unit of employment. Once you have identified the need, you will present a proposal of a plan for change that will help the agency find a workable solution for the need.
The goal is to design a change project that is relatively cost neutral. This project is not about buying new equipment that might be needed or new computer software, which are capital expenditures. We want to focus on a needed change that can be done within a nursing unit without major expense. Often, through collaboration with other departments or changing a process on a unit, changes are made without requiring major expenditures.
Some ideas are improving patient satisfaction, increasing nursing staff morale, improving patient flow patterns in an ED, or a similar issue that can be improved with little cost expended. These are some examples but may not meet the needs of your particular agency. You may share these examples with your preceptor or nurse manager to help with understanding the types of issues you should consider for the change project. The cost of the project should not exceed $3000. It is entirely possible to create a change project with little to no cost at all, which is optimal. Many students have created and implemented change projects ranging from zero cost to a couple hundred dollars.
The paper must follow APA guidelines, which means it must include a cover page, an abstract, and a reference page. There must be a minimum of three references for this paper. Use headings in the paper taken from the topics in the grading rubric, with the exception of the introduction heading, which is not necessary. Include under each specific heading all the required information as detailed in the grading rubric.
This paper, due this week, Week 3, is your proposal of the change project you have chosen. Your proposal presented in Week 3 for Assignment 1 Part 1 must be approved by the instructor before proceeding with the final paper on the change project. The student will be notified if the project is approved after the proposal is submitted and graded. The details of the project will be completed in Assignment 1, Part 2, which is due in Week 6. The Week 6 Part 2 assignment will build from the Part 1 assignment after it has been approved by the instructor.
Proceed to Grading Rubric: Assignment 1, Part 1: Change Project Proposal for the grading criteria and rubric.
Last modified: Friday, November 22, 2013, 5:49 PM