Difference Between Quality Improvement Project and Research

Quality improvement (QI) project and research are critical in the provision of care in hospitals. The information they provide help healthcare providers to use the best practices while taking care of the people. However, QI and research differ in various aspects. The primary purpose of research is to test a hypothesis or answer a question (Katherine, 2015). The researcher develops a question and then undertakes the research using subjects. A specific design must be followed while conducting this activity. The primary purpose of QI is the enhancement of performance. The activities carried out helps to ensure that patients receive quality care. The research is intended to provide benefits to future patients, and it may not be beneficial to current subjects. Health practitioners use the results in their clinical practice while taking care of patients in the future. Quality improvement is intended to directly provide benefit to a system or a program. For example, the establishment of collaborative perinatal care can help to improve quality of care in women before and after giving birth which is a direct benefit to the program. In research, subjects can be placed at risk (Katherine, 2015). Participants are used as samples to test a hypothesis or seek an answer to a question; hence sometimes they are exposed to danger. QI does not increase the risk of a patient with an exception of confidentiality concerns.

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The topic that may be my focus on DNP project is the effect of nurses' burnout on the quality of care provided to the patients. Nursing is a demanding profession that involves patient care and safety (Rochefort & Clarke, 2010). The profession faces the problem of staffing shortage that forces nurses to work for long hours that cause them to experience different work-related stress. There exists a relationship between the nurse's burnout and quality of care that also affects the well-being of individuals (Nantsupawat, Nantsupawat, Kunaviktikul, Turale & Poghosyan, 2016). The project would investigate the relationship between burnout among nurses and patient outcome in various hospitals (Nantsupawat et al., 2016). The registered nurses would be used as participants to fill in questionnaires that would be analyzed. The study would also use secondary data from hospital nurse surveillance.

Both quality improvement and research play a fundamental role in providing quality care to the people. However, they differ in various aspects that include purpose, design, benefits, risks and starting point. Nurses' burnout may be my topic of focus in the doctoral project since it is common. It would investigate how nurses' burnout affect patient outcome.

References

Katherine, E. G. (2015). Differentiating Between Research and Quality Improvement. Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing.https://www.nursingcenter.com/journalarticle?Article_ID=3099809&Journal_ID=54008&Issue_ID=3099787

Nantsupawat, A., Nantsupawat, R., Kunaviktikul, W., Turale, S., & Poghosyan, L. (2016). Nurse burnout, nursereported quality of care, and patient outcomes in Thai hospitals. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 48(1), 83-90. https://sigmapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jnu.12187

Rochefort, C. M., & Clarke, S. P. (2010). Nurses' work environments, care rationing, job outcomes, and quality of care on neonatal units. Journal of advanced nursing, 66(10), 2213-2224. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2010.05376.x