Assignment Prompt & Instructions
Please respond to at least 2 of your peer’s posts.
– With your understanding of your peers’ targeted advanced practice role, respond to 2 of their posts – expanding the discussion with your thoughts about how they describe they will be able to impact an identified health system problem.
Responses need to address all components of the question, demonstrate critical thinking and analysis, and include peer-reviewed journal evidence to support the student’s position.
Please be sure to validate your opinions and ideas with in-text citations and corresponding references in APA format.
Please review the rubric to ensure that your response meets the criteria.
Jennifer Poulson
Unit 1 Discussion: The Health Care System – One System with Multiple Parts
Systems Theory is the concept that systems cannot be reduced to a series of parts functioning in isolation, but that, in order to understand the whole, one must understand the interrelations between these parts (Anderson, 2016). Systems Theory rests on the assumption that most people want to do good but are acted upon by diverse influences therefore these influences need to be accounted for and embraced (Anderson, 2016). When errors occur it is important to focus on the surrounding influences that allowed the error to occur rather than only on the individual making the error. As an advanced practiced registered nurse with an understanding of Systems Theory I will be able to impact an identified system problem by looking at the system as a whole to identify weaknesses that allowed the event to occur rather than on the individual. This will allow me to track patterns, detect system failures and create interventions to prevent the error from reoccurring. I will be able to help design a system that reduces the harm in the event a person makes a mistake, or a piece of equipment fails. It will help me improve healthcare for my patients and ensure that they are receiving high quality of care.
References
Anderson B. R. (2016). Improving health care by embracing Systems Theory. _The Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery_, 152(2), 593–594. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtcvs.2016.03.029
**The Health Care System- One System with Multiple Parts**
According to Anderson (2016), the purpose of systems theory is to look at the system as a whole vs. isolating individual parts. In order to improve healthcare systems, one must understand the interactions between all its parts (Anderson, 2016). Integrating systems theory in healthcare is meant to increase efficiency by developing common goals, focusing resources and services, and avoiding working in isolation (Benrimoj et al., 2024).
Most of my career has been spent in nursing management of skilled nursing facilities. A problem I have seen repeat itself during my career is the poor application of wound vacuum dressings, which leads to deterioration in these wounds. I believe this is an example of a systems problem since many of the nurses employed in skilled nursing facilities are newer graduate nurses with little to no experience in wound care. Applying wound vacuums can be complicated, especially with complex wounds where it can be difficult to obtain dressing adherence or when the vacuum suction needs to be traveled to another location on the body. Due to the complicated nature of this process, novice nurses may require another experienced nurse to show them how to complete these dressings several times on a variety of wounds. Additionally, the problem of poor application of wound vacuum dressings is often further complicated by nurses not having access to the proper wound care supplies.
When looking at the isolated problem of an inadequate wound vacuum dressing application, it is understandable that members of the interdisciplinary team (IDT) blame the individual nurse. However, when you look at this problem from a systems perspective, you can see that this is a chronic multifactorial issue that is compounded by inadequate training and limited specialty supplies. Per Anderson (2016), focusing too much on the specifics of individual cases often misplaces blame and leaves crucial questions unanswered. By applying systems theory to problems, you can lump similar situations together, which allows you to analyze data in order to detect patterns and system failures (Anderson, 2016). In my career, I have seen IDTs only look at this problem as an isolated incident vs. realizing it's an ongoing, chronic problem that needs to be solved. As an advanced practice registered nurse, I would want to bring awareness to the benefits of looking at problems from a system perspective and encourage the use of systems theory combined with evidence-based practice.
**References**
Anderson, B. R. (2016). Improving healthcare by embracing systems theory. _J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg, 152_(2), 593-594. doi: 10.1016/j.jtcvs.2016.03.029
Benrimoj, S. I., Calvo, B., Dineen-Griffin, S., Garcia-Cardenas, V., Fernandez-Llimos, F., Martinez-Martinez, F., & Gastelurrutia, M. A. (2024). Theories, models and frameworks for health systems integration. A scoping review. _Science Direct, 141_. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2024.104997Links to an external site.](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2024.104997)