An Effective Quality Assurance Group

* for completion if part, or all, of the evidence has been sampled by the Internal and/or External Moderator

The nurse is challenged with the care of patients over a lifespan. Each stage of life brings its own physical and emotional changes which directs the care needs. The care needs of the pediatric patient will be much different from the needs of the geriatric population. The geriatric population has very specific needs which has prompted the government to establish the Quality Assurance & Performance Improvement (QAPI) program. The QAPI provides the framework for nursing facilities to develop and implement changes which address deficiencies the facility was found to have. Also, the QAPI program requires practices and policy be put in place to monitor care of the residents. The purpose of this paper is to list some of the changes the elderly go through as they age, and demonstrate these changes in a quality improvement project. After review of literature, I will discuss the challenges, barriers, and solutions as related to quality improvement. Lastly, I will discuss the quality of care for the geriatric in the future.

Falls are a major cause of injury and death in the frail older population with Alzheimer’s disease. Residents in the long-term care settings experience falls for many reasons and are likely to endure injuries more than those in other settings. Preventing falls in this setting posed significant challenge, many have cognitive problems, aged related changes, chronic medical conditions, medication effects, and physical limitations requiring dedicated interdisciplinary efforts (Vance, 2011).

With response to the online job posting on Trillium Gift of Life Network website, I am applying for the position of Quality Analyst at Trillium Gift of Life at 522 University Avenue as suggested by Nisha De Silva; the current Quality Analyst – Organ in the Quality department. I have graduated in the stream of Nursing and hold a previous degree with a Specialization in Anthropology, both from the University of Toronto.

The National Committee on Quality Assurance set the “gold” standard on health plans and their quality ratings. There was no other regulatory agency to oversee the health plan upon its initiation. Now we have other organizations; however NCQA provides the most stringent, ridged regulatory guidelines of the managed care organizations. In order for a health plan to do business with CMS, or state agencies, and to the public; they must show they meet NCQA guidelines. Health insurance has become a hot button topic with ACA and CMS. The Organization was established to set the tone of quality in the health/managed care environment. There are other governing bodies such as HHHAC for ambulatory centers and dome care URAC another nonprofit organization, who reviews health plan, clinical integration, health care, healthcare accreditation. Also AAAHC accreditation means that a health care organization meets or exceeds nationally-recognized Standards for quality of care and patient safety

quality assurance is a system for evaluating the performance, the quality if the services they provide i.e. what chamberlayne provie for their service users. Many quality assurance procedures would be set by the central government. Standards, governance, and quality control are all essential in any care setting like the NHS of any health service.

At present, the convening of this group is to assess a particular never event that occurred in Huntsville Hospital last month. The National Quality Forum literally defines a never event as a preventable adverse event occurring in a health care setting that should never happen; like, wrong site surgery, patient falls, and medication errors as examples (Gitlow et al., 2013). Discussion, explanations and resolutions are the intended outcome of today’s meeting.

Pearl, you mentioned in your post that quality improvement (QI) performance measures are tied to financial reimbursement. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service (CMS) certainly apply quality improvement to providers’ reimbursement. CMS sets rules to follow to keep health care costs down and make sure the program is not paying for treatment that is unnecessary or harmful. Private insurers are implementing restrictions as well. A patient asked yesterday about how the Affordable Care Act had affected a family practice. The provider answered that it had certainly made there more rules to follow to ensure full reimbursement of expenses. This is part of CMS’ initiative to save taxpayer money. CMS states that its programs measure data

in the field. They produce the software to assist with testing, maintenance and diagnostics. Homologation

Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI) communicates the following five elements: design and scope, governance and leadership, feedback, data systems and monitoring, performance improvement projects, and systematic analysis and systemic action. The purpose of this paper is to communicate issues surrounding these topics, as well as aging problems. Are the topics evidence based? Do they have supporting documentation to put them into practice at various facilities? Can executing the aforementioned items make a difference at institutions? Now, start the journey to see how each section can be applied to your workplace.

General observations: There are mechanisms throughout the project to ensure the quality of the product such as review and signoff, JAD sessions, and unit testing. However, the general feeling is the QA team is still the owner of product quality. Therefore, the project team looks for the QA team to dictate quality processes. As AOD moves to an iterative methodology, the project team owns product quality. The project team needs to be trained to understand the role of quality within an iterative process.

The Utilization Management Program of the Naval Hospital Guam facility is one which is designed to ensure that high quality, cost efficient health care is delivered to all members of the community. The Utilization Management Division is responsible for implementing a Utilization Management Plan which will monitor the appropriate usage of the health care facilities, services and its resources. These services may include utilization reviews, case management, discharge planning and outcome-based evaluations. The Utilization Management Program is completely planned and put into action by this division. It is also responsible for coordinating and monitoring access to care, developing programs, and evaluating

iConsultant is committed to implementing appropriate quality management systems and processes to enable the delivery of the highest practicable quality products and services. Dyson Limited engaged iConsultant to strategize a total quality transformation for the company to overcome its current quality challenges and hone its competitiveness in the world market.

Quality assurance collectively influence the quality of a product. The product need to be designed and developed, considering GMP and GLP (Good laboratory practice). The system ensured that there is a procedure regularly for self-inspection and auditing.

There have been quite a number of published papers and books that address the problems faced by Software testers. This problem is not only limited to Software testers but exists in every profession. Biglard et al (2012) clearly defines knowledge workers as, “those who work with information