Health Care Improvement Case Study

Quality Improvement can be defined as the combined effort of health care professionals including, doctors, nurses, healthcare managers who ensure better patients outcome such as quality care, safety, better system performance and better professional development. Healthcare system always goes through changes, whether its implementation of new systems or diagnosis of new disease. Therefore, health organizations are always in need of some improvement and advancement. In order to achieve improvement, systems have to go through a series of change; however, not all changes can be called an improvement. To ensure the improvement in these systems, some powerful strategies are planned, designed and implemented. These formal strategies analyze the systemic efforts and measure performance in order to improve the entire system and is called quality improvement or QI program.

The clinical, behavior, and lifestyle outcome objectives included: for 100% of participants to be able to identify at least one modifiable risk factor for heart disease; for 100% of participants to improve at least one risk factor; by end of the program for 85% of participants to score at 90% on healthy behavior survey; after six months, 90% of people in the program to improve eating and physical activity habits; after six months, 50% of smokers will have engaged in smoking cessation; after six months, 70% that are hypertensive will have improvement in systolic blood pressure; after six months, 60% will have reduced LDL cholesterol; after six months, 60% will have decrease BMI value by one; and by six months, 60% will have an established primary care physician.

Data is very important to determine the quality of healthcare. It can deliver information about quality of patient outcomes through EBP articles and research studies by utilizing data related to the specific problem. Data can also provide precise numbers and percentages based on the patient outcomes for specific area of study. National Database of Nursing Quality Indicator (NDNQI) analyse healthcare systems and measure nursing quality to evaluate quality of patient outcomes (Huges, 2008). An example of data that can reflect poor quality in care would be increased death of patients from treatable diseases/infections such as clostridium difficile. According to the studies conducted by Mitchell, Russo, & Race (2014),

Quality improvement by definition is the use of data to monitor the outcomes of care processes and use improvement methods to design and test changes to continuously improve the quality and safety of health care systems ("Pre-Licensure KSAs | QSEN," n.d.). Having applied the knowledge and skills used for quality improvement in this scenario could not have avoided the occurrence of the seizure, but with proper initial assessments of this patient, the nursing staff would have been on high alert. With seizure precautions instated, technicians that were observing the dayroom could have noted the commotion occurring and would have called the nurses over in a timely manner to quickly intervene with possibly PRN medications to stop the seizure.

The issue of HIV status and reporting procedures raises several legal questions that relate to patient confidentiality and privacy concerns. Code of ethics and integrity are an element of the nursing underpinning; thoughtfulness, compassionate and advocacy are some fundamental qualities every nurse conjures daily as a vocation and individual clinical practice. Amongst other profession, it is imperative that nurses function with moral standards, a proficient parameter of the law (American Nurses Association, 2010a). It is important to remember that legal protection of patient confidentiality depends on whether or not health concerns for the general public supersede the interest of preserving the patient and provider privilege. The balancing of these two fundamental interests is a grave challenge when it comes to privacy concerns with HIV status.

Reducing ER visits for senior with two or more visits within the last six months begin with implementing programs that target this population. WISH is Montgomery County’s effort to begin to address this issue. The challenge is expanding the reach of the program. Currently, this program has isolated a small subset of the senior within Montgomery County. The statistics show this issue spans well beyond the population identified in Montgomery County. This is a national issue. CMS has developed several initiatives to begin to address the issues. While programs such as WISH are beginning to move the needle in the right direction, there are challenges within the program. Rapid cycle improvement measure ensures that the

To provide patient-centered care that is respectful of and quick to respond to individual patient preferences, desires, morals and ensuring that patient values guide clinical decisions.

Patient Ms. A. H. admitted with hopelessness, and pain. Complains of anxiety over financial situation in her family.

The concept of data sharing has evolved over time from its infancy in the 1980s. The Institute of Medicine formed a committee to explore the development of computer-based patient record. In 1991, the committee released their report on the CPR and urged its implementation within a decade (Sayles, 2013). Their viewpoint was the technology was needed to improve health care. Their definition did not begin and end with defining just the data elements, but also encompassed the applications involved. Many of their initial ideas are still in use today, such as decision support systems and practitioner reminders and alerts. Although many developments have occurred in the 25 years from this initial report, the EHR is still not

Since Paul is a neurosurgeon, he really has no other option other than to deeply consider and reflect each step he commits in his career, because even the slightest of errors could have devastating consequences. One factor of Paul’s decision making process would be to know a patient’s desired results, as well as address any concerns they may have, in order to give the optimal health care to the patient, both physically and mentally contenting towards the

Inadequate and inconsistent drug supply has altered clinical care. Depending on pharmaceutical availability, patients may not be treated based on evidence-based practice, which has affected patient care (2013). Because of these shortages in chemotherapy drugs, patients would have to be told about changes to their treatment regimen. These changes could have the potential to be less effective or have more side effects and this could have a very negative outcome on both patient care and disease

What is your opinion of a single-payer health system? Would it work (or does it work) in your country? Why or why not?

How will Congresswoman Moody ‘s provide healthcare coverage for her district, including undocumented workers, while still taking into account financial and political considerations?

To learn and understand about the different health care delivery systems around the world. My expectations are to learn about the advantages and disadvantages of the different health care delivery systems. I also expect to learn about the different actors that play a part in the delivery of health care, and how social determinants, economic and political factors, as well as concepts like cultural competency play a role in the different health care delivery systems.

The continuing growth of technology in health care is ground breaking at this time. With the advancements in technology and health care there has become a rift between providers and patients. Patients want the best quality care from the health care system. Despite this justifiably positive view that, overall, quality of care is high in this country, many factors point to the fact that the quality of care is declining. It is believed that patient-physician relationships are not as strong as they once were, causing distrust and uncertainty. The health care field is ever changing and health care providers need to stay current on those changes, both now and in the future. Quality patient care will greatly remain impacted from the health care provider shortages and in return patient satisfaction will continue to be impacted.