Process of Producing a Quality Improvement DNP Project

By pursuing a DNP project, you are essentially preparing yourself to become an expert in the nursing field. Indeed, students who earn DNP end up becoming consultants and leaders in their respective areas of specialization. Generally, this postgraduate degree prepares students to master their nursing areas. As a graduation requirement, you will have to complete a DNP project which can be in the form of a quality improvement project. Notably, there is a specific process of producing a quality improvement project that you ought to follow while executing this task. Generally, this process begins with identifying a healthcare problem and ends with disseminating the findings after tackling such a problem through conducting research.

What exactly is a quality improvement DNP project?

Essentially, this is an academic project that DNP students complete as part of their graduation requirements. A quality improvement DNP project is unique in that one has to identify a healthcare system that can be improved. Using the gained knowledge, current relevant information and research skills, students are supposed to transform such an area with the aim of improving the outcomes in relation to the health of a target population. For this reason, it is not possible to come up with this kind of project if you do not have a good understanding of the nursing research process. However, by following a reliable quality improvement DNP project guide, you will be able to produce an acceptable project.

The process of producing a quality improvement project

Generally, this process begins with covering the necessary DNP coursework. Completing the relevant coursework before commencing this project is important because of several reasons. For starters, students get to understand different nursing concepts that they can utilize when solving a healthcare delivery problem. Secondly, DNP students get an opportunity to study research methods. Having the requisite research skills is important as this type of project involves a substantial amount of research. It is impossible to design an acceptable quality improvement project without a DNP project. You should consider hiring quality improvement DNP project tutors if you are afraid that you are yet to master research skills. It is possible to hire such experts online.

How to start a quality improvement DNP project

You should begin the process of producing a quality improvement project by looking for viable ideas. To come up with such ideas, you must start by analyzing a certain healthcare system. It is important to ensure that the aspect of the healthcare system that you opt to analyze is relevant to the nursing themes or healthcare materials covered in class. While conducting a thorough analysis of a healthcare system, your goal should be to uncover a problem hindering the effective delivery of health care. You can then use such a problem as the basis of designing your quality improvement project. In most cases, this is one of the stages that DNP students find difficult to complete. Dr Sined Millwod joins us to talk about her motivations for doing a quality improvement project, where she got her inspiration, and her overall experiences through this process.

Mistakes to avoid when beginning your quality improvement DNP project

DNP students tend to make several errors when starting their quality improvement DNP projects. It is advisable to try your level best to avoid such common mistakes highlighted below:

Choosing an overly ambitious quality improvement project. When selecting ideas for your quality improvement DNP project it is good to keep it in mind that you are a student. For this reason, you might not have enough time, finances or even expertise to produce overly complex nursing quality improvement projects.
Working without a plan. One of the main disadvantages of working without a plan while producing this kind of project is that you might end up wasting a lot of time. Consequently, you may fail to graduate on the expected date.
Ignoring the importance of consulting relevant faculty members. Undoubtedly, your faculty members and DNP project mentors can help you produce a quality project if you consult them and take their suggestions seriously. Regrettably, students who fail to consult such experts end up with substandard projects.
Failing to back a quality improvement project with empirical evidence that can be verified. You must always ensure that you conduct thorough research in order to come up with relevant evidence while writing a quality improvement DNP project.

Mapping Out Sources for DNP Projects

The next step that you ought to follow after getting ideas for a quality improvement project

After getting ideas that you can use in your quality improvement project, you should transform them into a researchable topic. There are two main ways through which you can accomplish this goal. The first strategy is consulting the relevant stakeholders. In this case, a stakeholder is anyone with a vested interest in the healthcare system that you aim at improving. Such individuals are capable of helping you better understand the impacts of the problem in the healthcare system that you are interested in. The second strategy is taking some time to read information that might be relevant to your quality improvement project. It is possible to refine DNP ideas with the help of reliable quality improvement project writers.

Crafting the objectives of your quality improvement DNP project

Once you have identified a problem in the healthcare system that you desire to improve and translated your ideas into a viable topic, you should then come up with the objectives of your quality improvement project. It is advisable to limit such objectives to between two and four. The reason behind this is that you do not want your project to be trivial yet at the same time you do want it to be too broad. Moreover, you should avoid including irrelevant objectives and those which are double-barreled. Generally, students who fully understand the process of producing a quality improvement project know how important objectives are to this type of project.

Looking for evidence to include in a quality improvement DNP project

(Insert Image) As mentioned above, your quality improvement DNP project must be based on empirical evidence. The question that then begs for an answer is exactly where can you get such evidence? The two general sources of such evidence are secondary sources and primary sources. The most popular secondary sources of information are books and academic journals. Books are considered to have valid and reliable information because of the thorough editing that they undergo before publishing. Journals in turn have reliable and valid facts since they are normally peer-reviewed prior to their publication. It is easy to use secondary information sources while writing a quality improvement DNP project as you do not have to analyze such information.

Using primary sources of information in the process of coming up with a quality improvement DNP project

Generally, primary sources of information are important for quality improvement projects. To come up with this type of information, you need to first design data collection tools. Such tools can either collect qualitative or quantitative data. The common tools that you can use to collect qualitative data are; interview schedules, interview guides, and unstructured observation schedules, among others. On the other hand, the tools that you can use to gather quantitative data are structured questionnaires and structured observation schedules. So that the collected primary data can become useful, it must be analyzed. There are professional quality improvement DNP project data analysts who can assist you with analyzing primary data.

Testing the designed quality improvement project

Once you create a quality improvement DNP project it is important to implement it. The primary purpose of implementing this project is to deal with the identified problem in the healthcare system under focus. The second reason why you should implement the quality improvement project is to test it. You need to test such a project to know the best way to improve it. After testing such a project, you should use the findings to strengthen its weaknesses so that it can deal with the problem under focus more efficiently and effectively. Regrettably, some students tend to ignore this essential stage in the process of producing a quality improvement project.

Disseminating the results of your quality improvement DNP project

Normally, sharing of scientific knowledge is highly encouraged. For this reason, you should come up with an effective way of producing the findings of your project. For instance, you can decide to publish such findings in a relevant peer-reviewed journal. Moreover, you can opt to present such findings in a seminar, workshop or conference. It is usually advisable to have a justification of preferring one mode of disseminating the results of your study over another.

How do you know if your quality improvement project is acceptable

To determine if your quality improvement project is acceptable, you need to first make sure that it is original. It is a mistake to replicate a quality improvement project without a justification. Secondly, you need to make sure that it addresses the problem in the healthcare system focused upon. For this reason, it is important to remain focused on the issue under consideration when working on this type of project. Lastly, you ought to confirm that you have strictly followed the conventional process of producing a quality improvement project.