Wk 5 Discussion – Sustaining Project Improvements
Sustaining the change in an improvement initiative should be one of the project implementation goals. While diverse approaches can enhance patients’ health, in the project to improve the quality of life of the elderly with congestive heart failure, the project team should undertake measures to ensure that the elderly retain a positive lifestyle in the long term.
Social support is the project’s most effective way of sustaining behavior improvement. According to Seymour (2018), the strategy involves creating groups of individuals with the same objective. Thus, the team will create teams of elderly participating in the project for social support and keeping each other accountable. When they work together, the chances of continuing the change will be considerably high.
Some factors could affect the sustainability of the improvement plan. For instance, elements such as socioeconomic status or lack of resources (such as weighing scales) and cultural beliefs could affect the elder’s willingness to participate in the change in the long term. Clark et al. (2017) add that time is another challenge for the population in maintaining the change. Overall, social barriers (such as lack of social support), poor health, insufficient education, and poor follow-up from the implementing team could be among the main hindrances.
The team will provide support through regular follow-ups of individuals and groups to ensure they continue to improve their lifestyles. Thus, to measure the improvement initiative, the implementer will collect data from the participants, such as the number of times they perform an age-appropriate exercise regime, consume the recommended diet, and take their weight. The data will help in the follow-up by identifying areas that require improvement.
The improvement initiative will have achieved the objective by sustaining the new behaviors. Thus, the implementer will take active steps to ensure participants realize the importance of sustaining the new behavior to improve their health outcomes.
Reference
Clark, R. E., McArthur, C., Papaioannou, A., Cheung, A. M., Laprade, J., Lee, L., … & Giangregorio, L. M. (2017). “I do not have time. Is there a handout I can use?”: combining physicians’ needs and behavior change theory to put physical activity evidence into practice. Osteoporosis International, 28(6), 1953-1963.
Seymour, J. (2018). The impact of public health awareness campaigns on the awareness and quality of palliative care. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 21(S1), S-30.
