Improving Quality Care

The process for documenting patient care as a vital part of nursing practice had been recognized way back when Florence Nightingale started and formalized the process. She pioneered the development of forms that helped nurses and other caregivers to communicate well and effectively (Abbott, 2003). Charting in its many forms like technology, have evolved over time to meet the ever changing needs in healthcare practice yet little has changed in the actual format of documentation until the arrival of computers were introduced in the late 20th century.

The main objective of healthcare professionals is to provide the best quality of patient care and the highest level of patient safety. To achieve that objective, there are many organizations that help improve the quality of care. One of the best examples is the Joint Commission. Unfortunately, the healthcare system is not free from total risks. In healthcare activities, there are possible errors, mistakes, near miss and adverse events. All of those negative events are preventable. But, it is clear that errors caused in healthcare result in thousands of deaths in the United States.

The increasing numbers of vulnerable adults in the United Kingdom has been accompanied several care challenges and policy makers caught their attention to do their part and come up with legislations to combat or overcome these challenges. Giving support and providing care for an individual in their last stage or end of life is a difficult thing to do. End of life care aims to put the person at the centre of the caring process, they should be involved in every decision to make when it comes to their personal care, maintain and enhance quality of life for the person involve and family if possible and provide bereavement support for families and carers after someone passed away. In lieu to this, this will not be possible if not being back up by legislation to oversee that quality care is delivered at the highest possible.

Healthcare is a complex industry that is consistently changing to meet the demand of improving quality patient care. As a member of the healthcare team, we are obligated to provide safe patient-centered care. However, patient care within the facility this nurse is employed is not as effective as it should be. The organization currently utilizes three different charting systems, two electronic health information systems and a paper chart. Each with its own purpose of use. To make matters worse, not all healthcare providers have access to both electronic health information system. Depending on the individuals professional role within the organization, access would be limited to one or the other. Nurses are the only one

Improving patient care is a process that always has room for improvements. It is important to make sure patients receive the best quality care available. "Studies suggest that high quality patient care relies on careful documentation of each patient 's medical history, health status, current medical conditions, and treatment plans" (Glandon, Smaltz, & Slovensky pg.3). To help with the process of quality care for patients HIPAA laws have been set in place. "The Administrative Simplification provisions of the Health

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.

This article offers 10 suggestions on how to improve the overall quality of your health care without increasing your costs. These suggestions certainly are not a substitute for meaningful health care reform, but following these useful tips will enhance communication with your health care provider and help you get the most out of your medical coverage. 1. Read the fine print on your medical insurance policy to avoid unnecessary costs. Some health insurance policies cover preventative care, such as routine physicals and screenings, at 100% with no deductible per 12-month time period. Be aware that a 12-month time period is not the same thing as a calendar year, and keep careful track of when you had your last office visit for preventative care.

Quality improvement in health care has been and will continue to be a beneficial process in helping with many problems faced in healthcare. According to U.S Department of Health and Human Services (2011) “quality improvement consists of systematic and continuous actions that lead to measurable improvement in health care services and the health status of targeted patient groups” (p.1). These systematic and continuous actions have indeed led to many health care improvements throughout the years including reductions in infection rates, medication errors, and health care costs. One major current concern in the health care field is the presence of catheter associated bloodstream infections (CABSI’s). Provonost, Marsteller, and Goeschel (2011)

I think healthcare is a combination of both right and a privilege. I think that not everyone has good quality care, and sadly this is usually because to receive quality care you need to be able to afford it as well as be able to access quality care. I think that quality of care for the public is all ways evolving and getting better. The healthfield is always making advancements which results in better quality of healthcare. I do not think it is becoming more affordable health care, the cost of living and treatment is always going up as the pay decreases. The US is working on making health cre affordable, but still have a long ways to go. I lso think making healthcare accessible for more people through open clinics and how our world is expanding

The quality of the health care system still requires further growth and improvement. In the future, the quality of the health care system can be accelerated by organizations focusing more on active learning, rather than passive learning. With passive learning, lessons are learned from existing evidence about improving quality and safety, and are identified, except they are not placed into practice by the organization. On the other hand, active learning implements the lessons learned into the organization’s culture and practice (Sollecito & Johnson, 2013). Thus, active learning can accelerate health care quality in the future by implementing change that supports the organizations quality improvement, and because it results in system changes

The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) (1999) report To Err is Human revealed the United States healthcare system to be a rather unsafe environment for patients estimating that as many as 96,000 patients died or were seriously injured due to preventable medical errors. Incidentally, studies conducted as recently as 2011 have suggested that the actual rate of preventable medical error occurrence may be three times the IOM’s initial estimation (Andel, Davidow, Hollander, & Moreno, 2012). Statistics this extreme cannot be attributed to the mistakes or substandard practices of individual healthcare providers alone and thus it is imperative that healthcare organizations begin to seek out solutions at the system’s level (Geary, 2014). Therefore, it

America’s health care system has become very complex with a rise in health costs, patients with complex medical issues, and Medicare cuts. Nurses must find a way to juggle the health care industry while maintaining positive patient outcomes. Patients will either have good or bad outcomes during or after their care based on the decisions of the nurse and the interdisciplinary team. The new goal in healthcare is for outcomes to be patient centered. This means that the patient is looked at holistically and also that the patient is equally involved in the care planning process as the nursing and medical staff. This

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),

Health policy reflects the decisions, plans, and actions that are implemented to achieve specific health care goals within a society and community. “An explicit health policy can achieve several things: it defines a vision for the future which in turn helps to establish targets and points of reference for the short and medium term” (Boufford, 1990). The purpose of healthcare policy and procedures is to ensure there is a standard of healthcare available. The purpose of healthcare policy and procedures is to communicate to employees the desired outcomes of the organization (Boufford, 1990). Policies are implemented to ensure the employees/ clients understand the standard procedure for the healthcare that is available. The three main points include 1) should states and government make decisions in

Healthcare Information Technology has drastically changed in the past 10 years. With billions of dollars being spent to insure improvement in the healthcare industry. In 2009 President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The President did this with hope to improve the delivery of healthcare in the United States by giving incentives for the implementation of Electronic Health Record and meaningful use of them. To become eligible for meaningful use is somewhat different for hospitals than it is professionals.