Aim

The aim of this assessment is for you to demonstrate applied understanding of clinical governance in your workplace.

Instructions:

In this assessment, you are required to develop an audit plan on one nursing practice in your clinical workplace. Your audit will demonstrate your understanding of clinical governance theories, requirements and how they are enacted in your workplace. To complete this assessment, you are asked to:

• Consult with your unit nursing leaders, i.e., Nurse Unit Manager, Clinical Nurse Consultant, Nurse Educator, Service/Clinic to identify one nursing practice to audit using the principles of clinical governance,
• Include links to the relevant National Safety and Quality Health Service Standard (NSQHSS), and
• Outline the process/es (steps) you will implement to actively undertake your chosen clinical audit in your workplace.

This assessment task will be the basis for Assessment Two where you will undertake and report the results of this audit. Assessment One is therefore the plan for the audit you have chosen to undertake, and Assessment Two presents the results of the audit.

Please prepare your assessment using the following steps and the audit template attached to this assessment task sheet (also available on this Unit's Moodle site as a Word document):

1. Provide an overview of clinical governance in healthcare organisations. Your overview will be informed by current literature to provide a description and explanation of clinical governance including how clinical governance impacts clinical risk and influences safety and quality in nursing practice. Then apply this information to how your organisation addresses clinical governance including risk and nursing-initiated audits.
2. Choose a nursing practice for audit and select the relevant National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standard needed to undertake the audit. Discuss what nursing practice audits need to be undertaken in your clinical workplace with your unit nursing leaders, i.e., Nurse Unit Manager, Clinical Nurse Consultant, Nurse Educator, Service/Clinical Manager. Collaboratively decide on an audit for you to undertake. Identify the relevant National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards (2017) for this nursing practice audit. The standards are listed below:
• Clinical Governance Standard
• Partnering with Consumers Standard
• Preventing and Controlling Healthcare-Associated Infection Standard
• Medication Safety Standard
• Comprehensive Care Standard
• Communicating for Safety Standard
• Blood Management Standard
• Recognising and Responding to Acute Deterioration Standard
3. Review the relevant audit. Work with you unit nursing leaders to access an audit tool currently used in your healthcare facility or ward. Alternatively, you can create an audit tool if a tool does not exist for the nursing practice that you want to audit. If you have to create your own audit tool, ensure that the tool is reviewed by your management support and check it with the NURS20169 unit coordinator (Dr Leanne Jack). Review the audit to identify what measures of compliance are used to audit the nursing practice within the selected Standard. Briefly describe the audit and its components.
4. Describe the background of the identified nursing practice that is to be audited. To do this you will need to research current literature and your local health service policies and procedures. The background should also include the clinical risks associated with the identified nursing practice.
5. Identify/list the steps you will implement to undertake this audit plan.

Literature and references

In this assessment use at least five contemporary references (≤7 years) to substantiate your information. You may also use seminal scholarly literature where relevant. Suitable references include peer-reviewed journal articles as well as textbooks and credible websites. When sourcing information, consider the 5 elements of quality reference: currency, authority, relevance, objectivity, and coverage. Grey literature sourced from the internet must be from reputable websites such as from government, university, healthcare organisations, or peak national bodies, for example, the Australian College of Nursing.

Presentation requirements

1. Use the template.
2. Use Arial or Times New Roman font in size 12 font only.
3. Use double line spacing only.
4. Include page numbers on each page in a footer.
5. You should write in the third person.
6. Use formal academic language.
7. The word count is all the words in the table excluding the reference list but includes in-text references and direct quotes.
8. Use the seventh edition American Psychological Association (APA) referencing style. The CQUniversity Academic Learning Centre has an online APA Referencing Style Guide.

Resources

1. National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards.
2. You can use unit provided materials and other credible sources (e.g. journal articles, books) to reference your argument. The quality and credibility of your sources are important.
3. We recommend that you access your discipline specific Nursing Resource Guide.
4. For information on academic communication please go to the Academic Learning Centre Moodle site. The Academic Communication section has many helpful resources including information for students with English as a second language.
5. Submit at least one draft before the due date to review your Turnitin Similarity Score before making a final submission. Instructions are available here.

No Assessment Criteria

To achieve a pass in this assessment students must be successful in at least 2 of the 3 major criteria.

To be successful in each of the major criteria students must be successful in one half of all of the given minor criteria, i.e., 3/6, 4/8.

No Assessment Criteria