Healthcare Quality Indicators

Better quality health care will affect the life expectancy rate and the expenses. Patients expect doctors and hospitals to deliver the best possible care. The major issue with the quality of health care is “medical errors result from faulty systems… not individuals” (Hughes). In order to ensure patient safety and positive outcomes, hospitals have to assess for themselves the various different aspects they need to improve on. For example, hospitals could have a shortage ranging from staff, medication, or equipment. Through universal health care, “doctors… can focus on patient care”, which will aid in improving treatments for each individual (White). Along with this, there will be more government funding to improve hospitals as a means to help patients. Countries under universal health care coverage have a better quality of care, while the “United States [is ranked] last overall” (“Right to Health Care”). These benefits of medical treatments of universal health care are vital to American

With these outstanding evidences the Commonwealth Fund placed United States last in terms of overall health system ranking measured by different categories of access to care, equity, quality, efficiency and healthy lives compared to other developed countries. Among those rank categories, our health system is specifically placed last in access to care and efficiency. 37% of the adults in United States reported that they did not receive the recommended treatment, surgery or follow up care due to high cost. 40% of adults who had visited emergency room reported that they could have instead just visited a regular doctor if it was available. U.S. was also ranked last in infant mortality rate and amount of deaths preventable through timely access to healthcare.

In the United States the quality of health care that people receive changes in accordance to the region and is more than often just not sufficient. Because of the lacking care among these hospitals, federal policy makers and private organizations have put in motion a very important program that will collect and publicly report that gathered data on the quality of health care that the American people are getting. The Hospital Consumer Assessment of

One of the primary issues the Healthgrades report identified was the impact and direct costs involved with patient complications and mortality. Healthgrades focuses on making the hospitals accountable and transparent into their clinical performance thereby providing care that is of higher quality, save lives and decrease costs (Healthgrades, 2013). Everyone who works in an acute care setting hears the term “increased length of stay” and according to Healthgrades complications account for 31% to 68% of the total variation in direct hospital costs. In fact, increased length of stay has the biggest impact on direct cost to the hospital

An important social welfare demand is the establishment of efficient healthcare services to accommodate the demands of living in the modern era. Differences in socioeconomic status and existing health care policies contribute to the variation in care quality. Mosadeghrad (2014) noted that factors affecting health care quality can be evaluated using Donabedian measurement to assess technical quality, interpersonal quality, and amenities. Thomas (2014) stated that eliminating health care disparities and improvement of care quality requires changes in policies and legislation to meet the healthcare needs of the population.

Believably, the ultimate goal or vision for the entire healthcare system is the provision of optimum patient-centered care. However, the achievement of this objective has become one complicated endeavor, especially when one takes into consideration that the quality of care constitutes the most prioritized factor in healthcare and signify a vital component of care provision.

Quality measures are strategies that gauge, evaluate or compute health care processes, results, discernments, patient insight, and administrative structure. In addition, quality measures are frameworks that are connected with the capacity to deliver first-class health care and/or that are able to identify with one or more quality objectives for medicinal services. These objectives include: compelling, protected, effective, quiet focused, impartial, and opportune consideration. Quality measures can be used to measure quality improvement, public reporting, and pay-for-reporting programs specific for health care providers (CMS.gov, 2016). There are an assortment of quality measures in which health care organizations can use to determine the status of the care they are delivering. Many are appropriate, but few are chosen for this research paper. Among them are: National Health Care Surveys, Hospital IQR Programs, Scorecards, and Political, Power, and Perception/Data for Decision-making tools.

Health care quality: The U.S ranks in the middle. On two of four measures of quality effective care and patient-centered care but it does not perform as well providing safe or coordinated care.

The essential for eminence and safety step up initiatives permeate health care.Quality health care is define as “the grade to which health services for persons and populations boost the probability of desired health outcome and are reliable with existing professional information. According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) statement, the mainstream of medical errors result from defective systems and processes, not persons. process that are incompetent and changeable, altering case mix of patients, healthiness insurance, difference in provider instruction and practice, and frequent other factors put in to the involvedness of health care. With this in intellect, the IOM also assert that today’s health care business function at a minor level

Quality indicators enable the health care system to identify inferior care in both process or outcome and structure while enhancing quality improvement in health care (De Vos et. al, 2009, p.1).

Quality is not always that simple to measure. The five dimensions of quality as stated in the text, such as reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles are good fit for Memorial Hospital (Vonderembse & White, 2013). The factor included in quality assessment of Memorial Hospital depends on delivering exceptional care, i.e. effective, timely, safe, courteous, and convenient. Hospitals use quality measure to assess whether hospitals are using the right treatments and procedures when patients are in the hospital. Memorial Hospital has concentrated on offering high-quality general health care in the areas such as laboratory and X-ray facilities, an emergency room, an intensive care unit, a cardiac care unit, and a psychiatric ward.

Campbell & Sweeney, 2002; Blumstein, (2002) suggested that quality of care is not a unitary concept that reflect a uniform process. Many have referred to the quality of care in varying ways and distinct conceptualizations. Therefore, (Morse et al. 1991; Wilson & Cleary, 1995; Anderson & Burckhardt, 1999) only considered the quality of medical care at the patient-physician level, which is the approach of this research. Quality of medical care is a multidimensional construct with three components: outcomes, process and settings. The first goal of the patient, as well as the physician is to treat the condition with most proper care resulting in a better health outcome. Restoration of function, recovery and survival are few examples. The inclusion of this dimension is essential since it provides a robust metric to evaluate the quality of medical care provided. Second, the process dimension refers to

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a viral infection that can cause serious problems not only chronic liver infection, but may lead to the morality by acute liver failure. This virus can spread both horizontally (from mother to their infant) and vertically (exposure to inflected body fluid). The World Health Organization (WHO, 2017a) estimates 257 million people are infected with HBV, but only 22 million infected people have been diagnosed. This means the infection of the HBV is a worldwide public health problem. However, there is a hepatitis B vaccination to prevent HBV infection and to limit new patients, especially in infants. Therefore, WHO (2017b) suggested to include the hepatitis B vaccine in routine infant immunisation schedules and encourage governments to provide the vaccine in the universal immunisation programme. This essay will discuss the reasons why the government should implement the hepatitis B vaccination programme in the aspect of social stigma and psychosocial problem of hepatitis B patients. In turn, the implementation of the hepatitis B vaccination programmes has a certain impact on the economy in terms of reducing medical cost.

Health care system world widely is a very important issue. According to WHO is that a good health system delivers quality services to all people, when and where they need them. The exact configuration of services fluctuates from country to country, but in all cases requires a stable financing mechanism such are a well-trained and adequately paid workforce; reliable information on which to base decisions and policies; well maintained facilities and logistics to deliver quality medicines and health (WHO a)

Undoubtedly the health care service is facing an increasingly complex challenge regarding the provision of high – quality services. According to the complexity of health care services and systems, exploring and explaining the availability, utilisation, costs, quality and accessibility; the delivery and continuity of health care services is the key to informing government officials, health insurers, health providers, and the public and decision makers on the subject of health-related issues. Therefore, deciding health care needs and providing correct reactions to them ought not to be just the employment of specialists. Rather, it must include the cooperation of different specialists who work with and in the health care system consistently (Ashworth et al., 1992).