Use a provided template to develop a 2-4 page submission in which you research and define a patient, family,
or population health problem relevant to personal practice.
Important: Complete this assessment first and complete all other assessments in the order they are presented.
In this assessment, you will lay the foundation for the work that will carry through your capstone experience
and guide the practice hours to complete the work in this course. The purpose of this assessment is to allow
you to define a patient, family, or population health problem that is relevant to your personal practice and to
begin building a body of evidence that will inform your approach to your practice hours, the intervention you
design, and the professional product you will deliver.
Demonstration of Proficiency
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 practicum effectively.
You must complete this assessment first. This assessment is your opportunity to plan your practicum and to
establish a collaborative oversight process with your course faculty. You must not begin any direct clinical
activities or submit any other assessment until Assessment 1 is completed and assessed by faculty. Any other
course assessments will be returned with no feedback until Assessment 1 is complete.
So please remember: Assessment 1 needs to be reviewed and approved by your faculty. Assessments 2, 3, 4,
and 5 should not be submitted until you have received feedback on Assessment 1.
Scoring Guide Criteria
Your submission will be assessed based on the following criteria:
Define a patient, family, or population health problem that is relevant to personal practice.
Analyze evidence from the literature and professional sources to define and guide nursing actions related to a
health problem.
Propose strategies to improve patient or population outcomes related to a health problem.
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.
Please identify your relationship to the patient (friend and family) and how you made contact with the individual.
Remember to only use the individual's initials in your assessment to protect privacy.
CORE ELMS
Completion of this course requires a remote rather than a face-to-face clinical practicum. You are required to
log your time in the CORE ELMS system just as you have for past courses with clinical interaction. The CORE
ELMS link is located in the left-hand navigation pane.
Additional Requirements
Length of submission: Use the provided template. Most submissions will be 2 to 4 pages. You do not need to
include a title page. Be sure to complete the reference page at the end of the template.
Number of references: Cite a minimum of 5 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that support your
central ideas. Resources should be no more than five years old.
APA formatting: Make sure that in-text citations and reference list follow current APA style.
USE THIS TEMPLATE BELOW:
Problem Identification Template
The following is a guide to organize your assignment. Please be sure to remove the guiding questions and
comments for each section. You are expected to write in a professional and academically appropriate manner
throughout. Make sure you are using proper APA style and citations throughout.
Define a patient, family, or population health problem, and realistic goals, that are relevant to personal practice.
• Introduce a general summary of the health problem that you will be exploring.
I will be exploring third parties in the operating room.
• Provide a brief context for the patient, family, or population struggling with this health problem.
• Propose one or more goals that you deem appropriate and relevant to the health problem.
• Briefly state why this health problem is relevant to your personal practice.
This health problem is relevant to my personal practice because I am a Circulating Nurse in an Orthopedic and
Spinal Surgery Center. Not only have I been sent multiple times during a surgery to call the Surgical Technician
for instruments, I have witnessed Sales Representatives come in and out of the OR. I have even witnessed the
reps picking up phone calls during the case, opening the sterile equipment despite me being in the room, and
coming too close to the sterile field.
Analyze evidence from the literature and professional sources to support decisions related to defining and
• Compare and contrast the authors you will be citing, discussing pros and cons of the evidence you are
reading about.
• Note whether the authors provide supporting evidence from the literature that is consistent with what you see
in your nursing practice.
• Assess the quality of the data presented in the articles you are reading.
• Discuss how you would know if the data were unreliable.
• Include what the literature says about barriers to evidence-based practice.
• Describe research studies that present opposing views regarding this health problem.
• Describe what the literature says about a nursing theory or conceptual framework that might frame and guide
your actions during your clinical practicum.
Propose potential strategies to improve patient or population outcomes related to a health problem.
• Cite any known authors who have recommended leadership strategies for nurses to use when providing care
to this patient population.
• Discuss research on the effectiveness of these strategies in improving patient or population outcomes
regarding this health problem.
• Describe what the literature says about patient-centered care, empowering patients to make health care
decisions, involving families in patient care, incorporating patient preferences to improve outcomes, prevent
illness, and lower readmissions to hospitals.
• Discuss ways your role as a nurse leader will help improve patient outcomes as described in the literature.
Reflect on state board nursing practice standards relevant to a project related to a health problem.
• Discuss how your state’s nurse practice act will guide your actions in terms of this health problem for this
patient or population.
• Identify the most surprising thing that you found while reading your state’s nurse practice act.
• Describe the effects of local, state, and federal laws on your nursing scope of practice and care for this
patient or population.
• Explain how nursing ethics will inform your intervention in this clinical practicum