Early Dysphagia Screening for Stroke Patients

Early Dysphagia Screening to Reduce Aspiration Pneumonia in Stroke Patients
Student’s Name
Institution
Course Number and Name
Instructor’s Name
Date
Early Dysphagia Screening to Reduce Aspiration Pneumonia in Stroke Patients
Project Description
The nursing practicum project, which took place at the Presbyterian hospital in New York, was about early dysphagia screening in stroke patients. The project aimed to establish whether dysphagia screening reduces the risk of aspiration pneumonia among stroke patients. The project utilized the water swallow screen for dysphagia detection.
Project Rationale
I decided to do a project on dysphagia screening because national and international guidelines recommend dysphagia screening for stroke patients during the first 24 hours of hospital admission (Eltringham et al., 2018). Thus, the project will benefit stroke patients by ensuring they receive optimum care at admission. Early dysphagia screening reduces not only the risk of aspiration pneumonia but also the length of hospitalization of stroke patients (Palli et al., 2017). This indicates that dysphagia screening improves patient outcomes. The project will also contribute to nursing research and promote evidence-based practice, thus benefiting nursing science and practice.
Personal/Professional Expectations
I expected that at the end of this project I would be a more competent health care professional. I hoped that I would improve my competency in clinical prevention, leadership, inter-professional collaboration, and quality improvement. By becoming competent in these areas, I believed that I would provide optimum care for optimal patient outcomes in the future. I also expected that at the end of the project, I will be better at applying critical thinking and decision-making in my clinical decisions about my patients.
On a personal level, I hoped that this project would be my small contribution to the world. All I want is to be able to make people’s lives better, whether at work or in my personal life and this project was one way for me to improve the lives of others.
Project Goals
The long-term goal of the project was to facilitate process improvement through the use of early dysphagia screening to reduce aspiration pneumonia among stroke patients.
The short-term goals were:
* To train other team members about dysphagia screening through education sessions
According to Abu-Snieneh and Saleh (2018), healthcare professionals, such as nurses, provide direct primary care to stroke patients with dysphagia and as such, they should be competent in the assessment and management of dysphagia. Training the team members about dysphagia screening would enhance their competency.
* To create a patient education program about dysphagia screening
According to Krekeler et al. (2018), stroke patients with dysphagia should be able to follow dysphagia recommendations even when there is no direct supervision from healthcare professionals. Their ability to adhere to the recommendations is supported by self-management and self-efficacy skills, which can only be achieved through patient education.
* To educate families about dysphagia screening
Families provide support to their loved o...