Health Quality Ontario: A Case Study

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is able to successfully respond to the dynamic nature of the health care industry by continually improving the quality of their health care organization. Since they are a large institution they have the flexibility to have a multitude of programs which results in specialization of said programs. One that directly contributes to improving the quality of the organization as a whole is their Department of Medicine Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (QI/PS) program. Quality is value/cost and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center felt that quality was so important for their patients and employees alike that they allocated an entire department to its structure and function.

Health care managers need to improve quality services in health organizations. To improve these quality services they have to use methods that are proven helpful in the QI process. For example, Six Sigma is used to display and measure quality improvement data. It is also used to measure

Quality Improvement (QI) is an organizational approach leading to the quality of patient care and patient services through use of specific guidelines, principles, and methods to ensure quality of care for every patient and health care facility throughout the world. Quality outcomes focus on the principles of quality management. These measurements investigate the quality of care, patient outcomes and consumer needs, through being part of the participant group. This quality improvement discussion will review the foundational frameworks of QI and explanation of each framework in detail. Included in this QI report will be

McLaughlin, C.P., & Kaluzny, A.D. (2006). Continuous Quality Improvement in Health Care, Third Edition, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, Sudbury, MA.

Bert Nash is working diligently on Quality Improvement Measures (QIM). As a part of quality improvement, Bert Nash are sending appointment reminders to consumers via text 48 hours in advance. Also Bert Nash find ways to reduce the loss of time to increase revenue. Bert Nash analyzes the learning community, identify staff, clients, and healthcare organization. The quality improvement risk management team works together monthly. The QIRMT encompasses all issues within the HCO. The quality improvement team observes, researches, and discusses compliance guidelines, volume control, incident reports, and HIPPA violations. The quality improvement risk management team discuss anything outside normal procedures that need to be changed. For example, if there is an incident to report the QIRMT determines if there is a process that needs to be changed. (Kihm)

NHS quality improvement programs main purpose is to collect and review data entered in order to recognize the opportunities to improve business operations in healthcare. To bring changes in quality, it is necessary to respond to patient’s ideas and implement them for the better results. The key issues that are to be considered for quality-improvement NHS program, as it moves forward are the needs for the patients, necessity of the funds for quality improvements, needs of the service providers and expectations of the community. Outcomes for people and also change expertise. And to improve business operations in healthcare and also recognize opportunities.

Quality Improvement (QI) is an organizational approach that leads to the quality of patient care and services through use of specific set of guidelines, principles, and methodology. This is so that there is assurance that quality care is provided for every patient. Principles of quality improvement focus on measurements. These measurements involve data collection used to improve the quality of care, and patient outcomes. Any good quality improvement program ensures strengthening the systems through analyzes and processes.

The Fraser Health Authority conducted 3 inspections of your Good Foods Restaurant facility, at intervals of March 19, July 23, and October 16. During the inspection of October 16, 2016 our investigator continued to found significant violations of British Columbia’s Public Health regulation for food premises, under Division 3 and Division 6. You can find the Act and the referenced regulation division through links in British Columbia’s law website at www.bclaws.ca. These violations will be the cause of illnesses and the spread of illness causing microorganisms.

In any continuous quality improvement effort, measurement is the key element (Sollecito, & Johnson, 2013). “Measurement and statistical analysis are used to assess the impact of an improvement effort” (Sollecito & Johnson, 2013). To Measure the impact of the program, the hospital utilized a departmental quality improvement assessment with a scoring matrix for self-assessment (McLaughlin, et. al., 2012). The scoring matrix consisted of five category ratings which each department head had to complete. Univer4sal Charting and Resource Utilization were also used for measurement (McLaughlin, et. al., 2012).

Shaw, P. & Elliott, C. (2012). Quality and Performance Improvement in Healthcare. 5th Edition. (pgs. 156, 157, [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from

One way that an organization can use benchmarks and performance measures to monitor success of quality improvement initiatives is by measuring overall organizational quality improvement and benchmark amount of waste. By measuring overall quality improvement and setting quality improvement benchmarks, the team can verify if the undertaken quality improvement initiative had a positive impact on overall quality improvement for the betterment of patients. Conversely, quality improvement performance measures can also indicate if some areas of the QI plan need improvement or have been unsuccessful. By analyzing quality improvement performance measures and benchmarks, the QI initiative will provide better indication as to if the bottom line of improving patient outcomes is attainable and or achieved. Or if the quality improvement initiative has had a negative impact on patient outcomes and what QI processes need to be addresses. Benchmarking can help the QI team get a better understanding as to how well the QI initiative goals have done compared to previous processes. If the QI team sets a benchmark to improve the number of patients seen on a day to day basis by adopting a new QI process and does not succeed. The team can then use the QI initiative benchmark and quality improvement performance measures to analyze gathered data and fix the issue or change the quality improvement plan

A widely known challenge chronic in healthcare is the readmission of a large percentage of patients who do not follow their medication regimen. The readmission is normally caused due to poor adherence to non-adherence. For the purpose of this week’s discussion this post will cover the definition of quality improvement (QI). QI is defined as the use of data to monitor the outcomes of care processes, improvement methods to design and test changes to continuously improve the quality and safety of health care systems (Hinkle, Cheever, & Kerry, 2014).

Lehigh Valley Health Network has an outstanding reputation for treating its employees with respect. It is recognized as one of the best hospitals in the area and that is demonstrated in it's MAGNET status. LVHN has an excellent reputation for identifying talent and utilizing their skills to the best of their ability. It would be an honor to join the talent pool as a nurse at Lehigh Valley Health Network.

According to Err is Human: Building a Safer Health Care System, thousands of Americans die annually due to medical errors and hundreds of thousands are victims of a non-fatal medical errors or injuries (Kongstvedt, 2013). With that being said, health care is composed of three main components: quality, access, and cost (Tabish, 2009). High quality care could prevent many of these fatalities or never events that occur within the health care organization. Historically speaking, many health care changes and improvements in quality of care have occurred due to quality management and quality assurance. To fully understand how quality is achieved and maintained, it is important to dissect these two programs or processes. This paper will analyze the key components of a quality management program as well as discuss characteristics that distinguish a quality management program from traditional quality assurance.

Healthcare providers strive to improve service quality by implementing various quality management programs. Customers tend to seek for higher quality of care when choosing treatments, providers, and health plans. For healthcare organizations that desire to provide high quality care and compete in the global market, choosing a quality management program to implement is critical for performance and efficiency. Many studies have been conducted to analyze the effectiveness of such programs. Lean, Six Sigma and Total Quality Management (TQM) are three programs that will reviewed by three different case studies in efforts to understand them and to compare and contrast their capabilities.