By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:

• Competency 1: Lead people and processes to improve patient, systems, and population outcomes.     
  • Define a patient, family, or population health problem that is relevant to personal practice.
• Competency 2: Make clinical and operational decisions based upon the best available evidence.     
  • Analyze evidence from the literature and professional sources to define and guide nursing actions related to a health problem.
• Competency 7: Implement patient-centered care to improve quality of care and the patient experience.     
  • Propose strategies to improve patient or population outcomes related to a health problem.
• Competency 8: Integrate professional standards and values into practice.     
  • Reflect on state board nursing practice standards relevant to a selected health problem.
  • Communicate professionally in writing that is clear and logically organized, with correct grammar, spelling, and use of APA style.

Important: Complete this assessment first and complete all other assessments in the order they are presented.

Professional Context

Nurses are leaders in problem identification and solution, planning and implementing patient care strategies to address problems in the home, hospital, and community. This assessment will help you develop a problem statement for a patient, family, or population health concern. 

Instructions

Throughout this capstone course, you will be investigating a patient, family, or population health problem relevant to your practice. For this assessment, you will identify the problem that you will address throughout your clinical practicum in this course, as well as begin to establish your evidence and research base to plan, implement, and share findings related to your project. The Problem Identification Template [DOC] will guide you through development of a problem statement, evidence collection and analysis, and best practices to help you create your implementation plan for the second assessment in this course.

Your submission for this assessment will be the completed template. When working through the template, you may use the resources provided in this course; however, most of your research and search for evidence will be conducted by you. Use the Capella University Library, professional organization and government resources, and relevant organizational best practices as sources of evidence. This is the capstone course for your BSN degree; your goal is to demonstrate your achievement of the program outcomes through your work on this project.

The following are some health issues that would be appropriate for your project:

• Diabetes self-management.
• Hypertension management and prevention.
• Medication reconciliation within a family or group.
• Parkinson’s disease support group.
• Patient family education communication improvements.
• Postoperative home care.

This list is by no means exhaustive. You should choose a patient, family, or population health issue that is relevant to your practice and organization; you must be able to study the problem in your clinical practicum effectively.