Quality Assurance In Healthcare

The quality department has developed this manual to introduce new employees to the basic concepts of risk and quality management within the institution. This manual meets the institution’s initiative for continuous quality improvement within each department and the opportunity to mitigate areas of risk whenever possible. In order to accomplish this goal, it is important for the new employee to be able to identify what quality improvement and risk management mean within the institution. The institution believes that when employees are aware of these concepts, decision-making processes can be put in place to reduce risk and improve quality. This manual will also review the challenges that come from risk- and quality-management decisions especially in the health care setting. The new employee will be introduced to a variety of tools available to help assess potential problems, determine whether a change is needed and how to institute these changes through informed decision making. A clear understanding of how to use these tools will help the institution reach their goals of patient-centered care while providing a safe environment. Risk and quality management initiatives have the potential to save lives and save the institution money. The institution believes that successful risk and quality management is achieved only through employee awareness and incentives to provide a culture of safety.

With nearly all health care institutions participating in some form of quality improvement (QI) activities (Walston, Burns and Kimberly 2000; Manuel 2008; Gowen Iii, Stock and McFadden 2008; Chassin 2013), the lack of substantial improvement in quality is disheartening (Glasgow, Scott-Caziewell and Kaboli 2010; Chassin 2013). Unless substantial changes are made to the way in which quality improvement is conducted with an effort to seriously address the widespread overuse of health services, desired progress will not be achieved (Chassin 2013). Thus, healthcare providers need to study, develop, implement, and sustain process management systems which must investigate a clear identified problem and improve patient and worker safety while enhancing

Quality management is essential to the success of the quality improvement of the health care industry. “Management uses management and planning tools to organize the decision making process and create a hierarchy when faced with competing priorities “( Ransom, et al., 2008). Quality measures should have these goals: effective, safe, efficient, patient-centered, equitable, and timely care (Quality Measures, Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2011).

With the new healthcare landscape, quality improvement has become a priority; and as required by current legislation, quality initiatives need to be implemented, monitored, and reported (Ransom, Joshi, & Nash, 2008). According to Dattilo and Constantino (2006), human factors play an important role in most errors despite the existence of other root causes. For example, short staffing, shift overlapping, staff level of training and qualifications, close supervision, and overall team and staff culture are all factors that may be the trigger points

1. the robustness of the literature in this area, both in terms of assessing quality of care

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.

al., 2012). Trying to get the leadership motivated with adapting to TQM was a challenge in the beginning. The enthusiasm of top leaders has caused the TQM process to become effective. Although Health care has a complex adaptive system, leadership is crucial in implementing an improvement system (Sollecito & Johnson, 2013). The strengths of the TQM process were the support of the chamber of commerce, implementation of a quality improvement plan, adapting a successful way to measure improvement and development of cost effective techniques (McLaughlin, et. al., 2012). Corporate headquarters was totally involved in the TQM program with the CEO John Kausch as an active member of the Total Quality Council of the Pensacola, Area Chamber of Commerce (McLaughlin, et. al., 2012)

Ashton, C., Kuykendall, David H., Johnson, Michael M. (1999). An Empirical Assessment of the Validity of Explicit and Implicit Process-of-Care Criteria for Quality Assessment. 27(8). 798-808.

An interesting perspective on the definition of quality which would be interconnected with any managed care plans was highlighted by Carolyn M. Clancy, Director Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in a subcommittee hearing to the U.S. Senate. The statement by Carolyn M. Clancy was presented on: March 18th, 2009 when discussing the topic of: What is Health Care Quality and Who Decides?

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)

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),

The necessity for quality and safety improvement initiatives permeates health care. Quality health care is defined as “the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge” (Kohn, Corrigan & Donaldson, 2000). Most care deficits are based in systems and processes and not individuals. Healthcare is has variation and complexity.

The purpose of this paper is to identify a quality safety issue. I will summarize the impact that this issue has on health care delivery. In addition, I will identify quality improvement strategies. Finally, I will share a plan to effectively implement this quality improvement strategy.

As stated “Organizations rely on a particular culture to ensure the performance of improved safety processes over long periods of time and to remain constantly aware of the possibility of failure” (Chassin and Loeb, 2013). If place of businesses or organizations knows there is always a chance of failure then they can prevent any failures before they happen and become an issue. The last long term goal for an organization in the health care field would be compliant and to achieve and maintain the accreditation. This can be accomplished by going through with the short and long term goals. If all of the short term goals of implementation, education, and assessments are accomplished then organizations or place of business will be successful with the quality management program. The individual that is over top of everyone should be the one who tells the fellow employees about the success and be certain that all policies and procedures are kept and maintained.

. Understanding what is important thing for quality healthcare to take place, it is important to understand value in measuring quality to make the health care meet the needs of individual populations (Torrens, 2008). Using results to improve the best resulting outcomes from the health service provided. Performance measures from valid clinical data has resulted in a significant improvement in the quality of care for patients across the population. Measurements for assessing performance promote better standards for ensuring the very best quality care, credibility, and accountability (Price, 2016).