Quality Improvement Initiatives

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 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).

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.

The Performance Measurement is a way to either measure or give a understandable value to what has been done compared to what was supposed to be done. It applies to all aspects in the working environment, such as procedures, critical activities and processes. In other words, first you set pre-defined goals and give away tasks and responsibilities to other workers, then at the deadline you can compare the achieved results to what the original goal was at the beginning. It is also useful to evaluate not only the final result, but even all the actions taken to get that particular results and the way the actions have been taken as well.

A quality improvement (QI) project involves data-guided activities with short timelines to improve health care delivery systems (Arndt & Netsch, 2012). The setting of QI projects take place in a single setting and are monitored in the institution where the QI project is conducted. The purpose of a QI project is to change practice outcomes and apply known solutions to a known problem in that institution (Arndt & Netsch, 2012). Data obtained from the activities is disseminated through newsletters, flyers, through staff meetings, or submitted for publication and presented in

The nurse is challenged with the care of patients over a lifespan. Each stage of life brings its own physical and emotional changes which directs the care needs. The care needs of the pediatric patient will be much different from the needs of the geriatric population. The geriatric population has very specific needs which has prompted the government to establish the Quality Assurance & Performance Improvement (QAPI) program. The QAPI provides the framework for nursing facilities to develop and implement changes which address deficiencies the facility was found to have. Also, the QAPI program requires practices and policy be put in place to monitor care of the residents. The purpose of this paper is to list some of the changes the elderly go through as they age, and demonstrate these changes in a quality improvement project. After review of literature, I will discuss the challenges, barriers, and solutions as related to quality improvement. Lastly, I will discuss the quality of care for the geriatric in the future.

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).

After the interview with my nurse manager, I came up with the PICO question which states: “Does the computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system reduce the number of medication errors compared to the common paper system being used today?” This question is important and I selected it because the population that the Belvoir Community hospital serves includes army officers of all ages both active and retired including their spouses and children. This group includes two sub groups of highly vulnerable persons which include the very young and the very old, who have a high-risk effect for medication errors because the potential adverse drug event is three times greater than an adult hospitalized patient (Levine et al., 2001). CPOE is not a panacea, but it does represent an effective tool for bringing real-time, evidence-based decision support to physicians. Nurses are the last defense level of protection against medication errors, and are solely responsible for the dispensing, administering, and monitoring of medications. In healthcare, computers can be used to help facilitate clear and accurate communication between health care professionals. When using a CPOE system it allows physicians to type in prescriptions right into the device or computer which significantly lessens any mistakes that can occur when

According to Mannix, Wilkes, and Jackson (2013), one example of scholarship of application is quality improvement initiatives. Quality improvement initiatives are actions taken to improve patients’ care and outcome. A quality improvement initiative within the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is improving pain assessments of the neonate. Since pain is subjective, the recognition of inconsistency in the nurses’ documentation of the neonate’s pain needed to be addressed (Reavy & Haney, 2014). The purpose of implementing a multidimensional neonatal pain assessment tool, N-PASS, was to assess the infant pain, level of sedation, and to provide consistency in nurses’ documentation (Reavy et al., 2014). The N-PASS acronym represents Neonatal Pain,

As a hospital, quality care should be a priority for patients that are going to be treated for a sickness, or any type of procedure that is going to take place. A lot of times a patient gets an infection while they were at the hospital, on top of being treated for what they original came in for. Health facilities should be environments of healing, which they are, but they also have tons of various types of germs and infections, which grasp onto individuals that have weak immune systems/are sick. Some infections that are at hospitals are Tuberculosis, VRE, VAP, C-Diff, UTI, and MRSA. Preventive measures to stop the spread of the infections is lacking tremendously in the work and aim to provide safety for all patient’s health. The work

Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI) communicates the following five elements: design and scope, governance and leadership, feedback, data systems and monitoring, performance improvement projects, and systematic analysis and systemic action. The purpose of this paper is to communicate issues surrounding these topics, as well as aging problems. Are the topics evidence based? Do they have supporting documentation to put them into practice at various facilities? Can executing the aforementioned items make a difference at institutions? Now, start the journey to see how each section can be applied to your workplace.

Examining planning for and effectively measuring the health care quality indicators make healthcare quality more transparent and provide information for quality improvement programs and initiatives in the healthcare system.

These suggestions for applications of QI philosophies and considerations for structural integration of QA and QI are not intended to convey that organizationwide adoption of QI merely involves use of QI tools and techniques, or that instilling QI philosophy in an organization is easily accomplished. Achieving continuous quality improvement on an organizationwide basis requires long-term, senior-level commitment, extensive training, adoption of the philosophies at all management levels, and behavioral and cultural change within the organization. The adoption of QI methods and philosophies in health care organizations does not preclude the use of or eliminate the need for QA approaches. Quality improvement and quality assurance are complementary

Although production needs are being met, improvements in productivity are always at the forefront of management’s thoughts. Doing more with less is a constant effort for middle management and hourly laborers. Over all the

The Quality Management process is a set of procedures that are followed to ensure that deliverables that are produced by a team that comply with standards. The start of a Quality Management process involves setting quality levels, which agree with the customer. Quality Assurance along with Quality Control Process are measured and reported to the actual quality of deliverables. Part of the Quality Management Processes are quality issues are identified and resolved quickly. A Quality Management Process should be implemented anytime you want to improve the quality of your work. By implementing a Quality Management Process, you will ensure that your team’s output meets the expectations of the customer.