After reviewing sources to go along with this topic, I realized how big of an issue placement can be for patients and hospitals. COVID-19 has definitely not helped this problem, but even before this pandemic, placement issues have been a problem. I have never really worked with long-term patients before until my time on R2. I didn’t ever notice this issue until it was brought to my attention. When reading through patient charts, the patient comes in with a problem they are getting treated for, so I base my care on that. Patients may be healed but still needing care that they cannot receive if they are discharged home. On R2, there is a big board that has all patient rooms and the reason they are still in the hospital. When I took a closer look at this board, I realized that so many patients were still on R2, due to lack of placement in another facility. The sources we found, furthered my learning about placement issues and how this can negatively impact both the patient and the care team. Patient placement has become more of a problem recently, and that is why as a group we chose to do a project on the issue to bring more awareness to the subject. 

After submitting our first proposal, we had to make some slight adjustments to our evaluation of outcomes. We know that our implications may not make a huge difference, because placement issues are global, but we want to raise awareness to the subject. We changed our evaluation from going back to the floor to assess for discharge planning issues to how many views we receive on our podcast, to ensure that the nurses on R2 are listening and gaining knowledge. I feel that what we have found, will impact all of us going into nursing. We will be aware of this subject and be able to provide the care needed to long-stay patients. We will be able to identify when an issue arises and be able to work with the patient on their next placement. 

I feel that as a team we worked well on this project and were able to identify where problems may happen. I think that everyone played a role in this project and we will be able to take outcomes of this project and apply them to our practice in nursing. I am excited to see who this podcast will reach and how it will impact the understanding of prolonged stays among the patient population.