At the end of the virtual check-in, you will craft a summar…

Use psychiatric outpatient clinic – https://heqlingnhope.com

Conduct a virtual check-in with you, your preceptor, and your mentor to discuss the focus, scope, and progress of your DNP project.

Introduction

Welcome to Assessment 2, where we’re focusing on making connections. Throughout the assessment, we’ll cover essential topics, such as Tips for Stakeholder Connections, Identifying Interventions, and Determining Outcomes, among others.

Overview

Virtual Check-Ins (VCIs) are an important part of the development process for your DNP project. They help ensure that you, your site preceptor, and Capella faculty are all on the same page regarding the focus, scope, and progress of your project. VCIs also help ensure the project you propose will be feasible within the context of your site, available resources, and time.

Note: The assessments in this course must be completed in the order presented; subsequent assessments should be built on both your earlier work and your mentors feedback on earlier assessments. If you choose to submit assessments prematurely, without considering and integrating your mentors feedback, your assessment may be returned ungraded, resulting in your loss of an assessment attempt.

Instructions

For your first VCI, it is required for you, your preceptor, and your mentor to meet face-to-face using a meeting platform. It is your responsibility to coordinate a meeting time that works for all required participants. However, you may ask your mentor to schedule the meeting and provide invitation details. During the VCI, start by thanking everyone for coming, and then move into introductions. The entire VCI should take about 1530 minutes. Before ending the meeting, check with each participant to ensure all their questions and concerns have been met. At the end of the VCI, you will craft a summary of the discussion and submit it for Assessment 2.

Your assessment will be graded based on the following criteria:

• Provide details of the meeting, including the meeting date and time, length of meeting, and a list of attendees and their roles.
• Summarize the key points of the Virtual Check-In.
• Reflect on the progress made on relevant work and the learner-led communication amongst the Virtual Check-In team.
• Reflect on uncertainty areas addressed in the Virtual Check-In and any plans made to help address these uncertainties.
• Create a clear, well-organized, succinct, professionally written submission that uses an appropriate tone and is generally free from errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
• Apply APA style and formatting to in-text citations and references.

Additional Requirements

Your assessment should also meet the following requirements:

• Length: Your summary should be 12 pages in length, excluding the title page.
• References: No reference requirement. However, it is essential that you cite reference material as needed.
• APA format: Use the to help you in writing and formatting your summary. Be sure to include:
• A title page and references page (if needed).
• An abstract and running head are not required.
• Appropriate section headings.
• Additional information: Use the following section headings to format the body of your paper to ensure thorough content coverage and flow.
• Meeting Details.
• Summary of Key Points.
• Reflect on Project Progress.
• Areas of Uncertainty.
• Nomenclature: Please save the document you are submitting for grading using the following format.
• FlexPath: Last name, First name Assessment 2 Attempt #

Competencies Measured

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

• Competency 1: Submit all necessary documentation for project site and preceptor approval.
• Provide details of the meeting, including the meeting date and time, length of the meeting, and a list of attendees and their roles.
• Competency 2: Describe a gap in practice, an evidence based intervention, and a desired outcome appropriate for a practicum project.
• Summarize the key points of the Virtual Check-In.
• Reflect on the progress made on relevant work and the learner-led communication amongst the Virtual Check-In team.
• Reflect on uncertainty areas addressed in the Virtual Check-In and any plans made to help address these uncertainties.
• Competency 5: Write in accordance with the academic and professional requirements of the discipline, ensuring appropriate structure, grammar, usage, and style.
• Use required headings and meet body of paper page requirements.
• Communicate clearly and concisely in a form and style appropriate for the audience and for the substance, purpose, and context of the message being conveyed.

Describing the Practice Site

When describing the project site of your Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) project, it is important to describe the site in a way that the reader can clearly understand the characteristics of the project site without providing enough information for the reader to identify the actual project site. Therefore, in your description of the practice site, do not provide the name of the actual site.

Each project site is different. Include the information that is relevant to your project while meeting the requirements listed in the corresponding grading rubrics.

• Location: Location is a great place to start when describing your practice site. Do not provide the city and state because those details are so specific that the reader could easily identify the site. Instead, use a geographic region, such as the Northeast United States. You can also describe the community around the practice site with terms such as urban, rural, or suburban.
• Type of Setting: Describe the type of healthcare setting where the project is taking place. This could be a hospital, clinic, community health center, long-term care facility, et cetera. If the site is a specialty center, describe the practice and the primary diagnoses evaluated at the site.
• Size and Scope: Provide information about the size and scope of the project site. How large is the facility or organization? How many patients or clients does it serve?
• Mission and Values: Briefly discuss the mission and values of the organization where the project is being conducted. This can help provide context for the project and demonstrate alignment with the goals of the site.
• Infrastructure and Resources: Describe the infrastructure and resources available at the project site. This may include physical facilities, equipment, technology, staffing levels, and any other relevant resources that are essential for carrying out the project.
• Collaborative Partnerships: Highlight any collaborative partnerships or relationships that exist between the project site and other healthcare organizations, community agencies, or stakeholders. These partnerships may be important for the success of the project.
• Population Served: Provide information about the population served by the project site. This could include demographic characteristics such as age, gender, socioeconomic status, cultural background, and health status. Include the number of patients served per week.
• Relevance to the DNP Project: Explain why the project site was chosen and how it relates to the goals and objectives of your DNP project. Discuss any specific challenges or opportunities presented by the site that are relevant to your project.

By including these elements in your description, you can provide readers with a clear understanding of the project site and its significance to your DNP project. Keep in mind that your description needs to be concise. Therefore, include only the information that is relevant to your project. For example, if your project is entitled Implementation of a Tobacco Cessation Program for Unhoused African American Men, you would include the racial demographics of the shelter clinic. If your project is entitled A Quality Improvement Project to Improve Adherence to Health Supervision Guidelines for Children with Down Syndrome, you would not include the racial demographics of the clinic, but you would include the number of children diagnosed with Down syndrome within the clinic population.

Identifying Interventions and Determining OutcomesIdentifying Interventions

Now, you are ready to explore and determine a type of intervention for your DNP project that is applicable as an evidence-based solution for the organizations healthcare delivery goal. Yes, you will need to choose one specific goal or aim that is an overarching concern needing improvement for a population. The intervention will support the organizations strategic needs related to care delivery improvement and enhancement of outcomes.

After you know what the goal and aim will be for the DNP project, it is time to explore the literature. Go to peer-reviewed scholarly information to explore what type of intervention has been used to affect change with the gap in practice you have identified for your project. Read at least 510 articles to give yourself a clear idea of how a specific intervention, once implemented, has proven to show positive results with organizational outcomes.

Once you determine your goal, go to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) or any specific specialty organization (AORN, AACN, ASPAN, et cetera) where you can find an evidence-based intervention that will support positive healthcare outcomes. You are not creating an interventionyou are using one that is already being used and is proven to work in specific healthcare settings. You can also use any tools that come with the intervention, such as a policy, procedure, job description, and even a project map that shows you the steps of the project. These items can be found in what is commonly called the toolkit for the intervention.

The intervention will help you focus on specific outcome measures and the metrics you will track to see how the intervention is working to affect healthcare outcomes and develop positive change.

Determining Outcomes

The outcomes you want to affect relate directly to the intervention you have chosen for your DNP project. The outcomes should support the aim and objective(s) you are trying to achieve with the intervention.

To begin, you need to refer to the baseline metrics you found to determine the gap in practice. Remember that no data collection can commence until after IRB approval. Then, use the intervention to determine what you will continue to measure, what you may need to track in addition to the baseline metrics, how you will measure, and the frequency of the measure. Next, develop a tracking sheet. The sheet can be a Word table, an Excel file, or another type of tracking tool that is used by the organization.

Once you have created a tracking sheet, you can begin to disseminate the formative outcomes to help keep stakeholders engaged in the process. Stakeholders can help you to decipher when there might be process issues with parts of the intervention and to keep the intervention on track. Outcomes can be both negative and positive, and all are important to analyze and understand. Projects can still be beneficial, even if the results or outcomes are different than you expected. Unexpected outcomes can help determine process issues, other concepts to consider, and what can be done for the next steps to achieve desired outcomes. Oftentimes, when you disseminate outcomes, the unexpected can be the most interesting to consider for the future of change.

Tips for Stakeholder ConnectionsUnderstanding the Importance of Stakeholders

Stakeholders in a healthcare quality improvement project typically include a diverse group of individuals or entities with a vested interest in the project’s outcomes and impact on healthcare quality.

Important Note: No aspects of the DNP project can commence, including engaging with stakeholders, until after you receive IRB approval.

Stakeholders can encompass:

• Patients and Families: The primary recipients of health care services who directly experience the outcomes of the quality improvement efforts.
• Health Care Providers: Including physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals involved in delivering care.
• Administrative and Leadership Teams: Hospital administrators, executives, and leaders responsible for overseeing and implementing quality improvement initiatives.
• Quality Improvement Teams: Professionals specifically dedicated to improving and monitoring health care quality.
• Regulatory Agencies: Government bodies or organizations that set and enforce health care quality standards.
• Payers: Insurance companies or government agencies that may financially support or incentivize quality improvement efforts.
• Community and Advocacy Groups: Organizations representing the interests of the local community or specific patient populations.
• Technology Partners: Companies providing healthcare technology solutions that contribute to quality improvement.
• Researchers and Academia: Professionals conducting studies or contributing to the evidence base for health care quality improvement.
• Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs): External organizations focused on health care quality, patient advocacy, or related causes.

In essence, stakeholders in a healthcare quality improvement project are those who can influence or are influenced by the project, and their collaboration is essential for successful implementation and sustained improvement. Read through the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions self-study on stakeholders, .

Project

Please answer each of the following prompts in complete sentences with 250 words or less:

1. Provide a description of the proposed project site. Include information on what type of

site it is (hospital, unit floor within a hospital, clinic, specialty clinic, long term care

facility, et cetera). Roughly how many employees are working in the direct area where

you plan to implement your project? How many patients/clients utilize the site weekly?

The project area that will be proposed entails a comprehensive psychiatric outpatient clinic as

a leading platform of community-based services in relation to mental health. Being a

specialty clinic, the facility offers psychiatric assessment, psychotherapy, and drug

management to adults whose behavioral needs might be various. The project will be

implemented in an already existing direct clinical area, currently employing around 18

employees, such as psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioners (PMHNPs), licensed clinical

social workers, and administrative personnel. The clinic is very dynamic, as it has

approximately 350 patients using its services on a weekly basis, both in-person and through

telehealth. This location is favorable and sufficient to be the location of a Doctor of Nursing

Practice (DNP) project, as it offers an adequate sample size and an interdisciplinary team that

could aid in the provision of quality improvement programs related to specialized mental

care delivery.

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2. What is the identified problem or gap in practice at the proposed project site? What

evidence do you have to support this problem? Why does the practice site need your

project? Does the practice site have a specific timeframe when the problem needs to be

resolved?

The practical gap identified is the high rates of medication non-adherence and missed follow-

up visits in patients receiving care through telehealth. The internal clinic data indicate that

22% of patients reported that it was challenging to handle their psychotropic medications

since the growth of virtual services, and this is comparatively high considering the internal

quality standard of 10%. The given gap is included in the sphere of the DNP Topic

Development Model, known as the Improvement of Patient Outcomes, since the given issue

is directly linked with symptom relapse and psychiatric hospitalization. The academic

literature shows that outpatients with psychiatric conditions tend to develop mental drift,

where there is no structured virtual interaction with the provider, causing reduced fidelity of

treatment (Wang et al., 2025). This project must stabilize patient health, and the facility must

be able to meet safety standards, so the facility hopes to have an intervention fully

implemented within the next six months so as to comply with future accreditation reviews.

3. What are your initial thoughts on quality improvement and intervention(s)?

This intervention that is suggested is a Telehealth-based Shared Decision Making (SDM)

Protocol with self-administering digital reminders. The chosen quality improvement initiative

revolves around the “Improvement of Process” domain by improving the quality of virtual

documentation and patient engagement approaches. Providers can monitor patient realization

of medication change in real time by employing a standardized “teach-back” assessment at

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each telehealth session. Studies indicate that the integration of patient agency, patient

adherence, and SDM models into patient psychiatric care improves remarkably when digital

health tools are implemented (Naslund et al., 2020). To guarantee the sustainability and

success of the process, the level of implementation will be assessed by monitoring the rate of

maintained appointments and patient self-reported scores of adherences after weeks of the

implementation process.

4. Is there additional information that would be helpful to the mentor or site-based learning

team?

The site-based learning team must be aware that the clinic has recently improved its

Electronic Health Record (EHR) system with a powerful patient portal. There will be the

employment of this technology in order to utilize it to support the automated reminders and

data collection of the project, and guarantee high-fidelity tracking of patient interactions.

Moreover, the site leadership fully supports this DNP project and has appointed a quiet room

where the student will hold virtual meetings and analysis of data. The phase of the Discovery

of the Organization of the DNP journey is extremely reliant on this organizational support.

5. Describe the population.

The target sample will include adults aged 18-70 years with a diagnosis of chronic mental

health conditions such as major depressive disorder and bipolar I/II disorder. Social

determinants of health, barriers to this group of the population, including limited

transportation and unstable housing, are common, which is why the success of the telehealth

model is critical to their further treatment. Research highlights the application of a high-touch

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structured digital intervention as effective in vulnerable groups of psychiatric patients to

close the distance between clinical appointments and self-management in everyday life

(Richardson et al., 2022). The needs of this population can be met in accordance with the

DNP objective of enhancing the health status of the population by providing quality and

technology-advanced services that are affordable.

6. You will be scheduling a Virtual Check-In with you, your mentor, and your preceptor in

the upcoming weeks. Please provide a list of dates and blocks of time when you and your

preceptor are available. Your mentor will use this to send out a Zoom meeting link.

The learner and preceptor are available for the Virtual Check-In during the following windows

(all times in EST):

Wednesday, January February 10:00 AM 11:00 AM

Friday, February 10:00 AM 11:00 AM

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References

Naslund, J. A., Bondre, A., Torous, J., & Aschbrenner, K. A. (2020). Social Media and Mental

Health: Benefits, Risks, and Opportunities for Research and Practice. Journal of

Technology in Behavioral Science, 5(3), 245257. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41347-020-

00134-x

Richardson, S., Lawrence, K., Schoenthaler, A. M., & Mann, D. (2022). A framework for digital

health equity. Npj Digital Medicine, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-022-00663-0

Wang, S., Killedar, A., Von Huben, A., Norris, S., & Wilson, A. (2025). Evaluation of health

equity frameworks in telehealth and digital health: a systematic review and narrative

synthesis. Frontiers in Public Health, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1690117