Quality Improvement Plan for an At-Risk Student

Educations is a vital first step on the path to any profession. It can be argued that the quality of the health care afforded to the patients stems from the quality of education received by medical students and their effective acquisition of knowledge. Therefore, it is important to ensure that every nurse is successful in their course and completes it without failing. This essay will discuss an at-risk student and propose a suitable quality improvement plan.

Before a plan of action can be recommended, the academic coordinator at the educational facility must identify the root cause of the student’s failure to perform. The individual in question is a mature student with three children. She is a single mother and a sole carer for her children and receives limited financial support from her family. Thus, she is forced to study and work long hours in order to support herself and her children. Overall, she has completed two terms out of the four-term program and has failed one course. If the problem is not addressed, the student is at risk of failing another course.

It can be argued that the primary process problem is the lack of time that can be dedicated to studying as the student’s financial situation requires her to work long hours. It is proposed to create a team to address the problem consisting of the academic coordinator and staff from the financial support office. The team will identify the specific skills and tools required to address the issue and help the student at risk (Buchbinder et al., 2021). If valid, they can be implemented to help other learners in similar situations. The team is encouraged to create a flowchart to develop a sequence of steps in the process (Buchbinder et al., 2021). According to Antonacci et al. (2018), process mapping methods, such as flowcharting, lead to “a holistic understanding of the process under review.” The flowchart will start with the step “assess student’s academic performance” and proceed through the steps “assess the family situation,” “assess the financial situation,” and “offer meaningful financial support.” Overall, the flowchart will allow to determine the root cause of the existing quality issue and develop the requisite quality improvement measure.

The most reasonable method to assess the problem is to collect data on the student’s performance and work hours to assess if there is any meaningful correlation between the two. A histogram graph can be created to provide a visual means to the team and illustrate the effect of long work hours on academic performance. The graph will also help create a baseline of the student’s achievements that can later be implemented to measure the implemented plan’s effectiveness (Ahmed, 2019). Thus, the recommended process improvement is to offer financial support for the remainder of her two terms at the educational institution. This quality improvement measure’s efficiency will be assessed by collecting data on the student’s academic accomplishments after the plan is implemented and comparing it to the established baseline. If there is a significant statistical difference in how she performs in her courses after receiving the afforded financial support, the organization could consider a similar program for single-parent nursing students.

In summary, the education of the individual in question is jeopardized due to her financial situation, lack of support, and long work hours. The academic coordinator is recommended to gather a team to assess the student’s situation and offer financial support as the quality improvement measure. The correlation between the person’s work and academic performance and the effectiveness of the proposed intervention can be assessed using histogram graphs.

References

Ahmed, S. (2019). Integrating DMAIC approach of Lean Six Sigma and theory of constraints toward quality improvement in healthcare. Reviews on Environmental Health, 34(4), 427–434. Web.

Antonacci, G., Reed, J. E., Lennox, L., & Barlow, J. (2018). The use of process mapping in healthcare quality improvement projects. Health Services Management Research, 31(2), 74–84. Web.

Buchbinder, S. B., Shanks, N. H., & Kite, B. (2021). Introduction to health care management. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.