Quality Improvement Organizations ( Qios )

What do you consider to be the key issues for quality improvements in the NHS quality-improvement program as it goes forward?

By 2001 it was brutally apparent that the U.S. Health Care system was in dire need of a reform in regards to quality and patient safety. Following two separate reports issued by The Institute of Medicine (IOM), To Err is Human (1999) and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health Care System for the 21st Century(2001) the U.S. Congress requested the IOM review quality processes across multiple government funded health care programs. And understandably, “these reports described America’s healthcare system as a tangled, highly fragmented web that often wastes resources by duplicating efforts, leaving unaccountable gaps in coverage, and failing to build on the strengths of all health professionals” (Brown J., p. I – 15, 2013). Thus, the Committee on the Quality of Health Care in America released 6 aims to address key dimensions that require improvement in our health care system. These aims propose that our system needs to strive to be more Safe, Effective, Patient-Centered, Timely, Efficient, and Equitable (STEEEP). All of which were created to help overhaul our current health care system and, more importantly, narrow the quality chasm.

Partners HealthCare is a non-profit, health system located in Boston that created a data based transformation (Davenport, 2013). It integrated a new system that aligned the participating organizations to cohesively run as one and to help shape the future of the organization. The system didn’t stop there as it was responsible for bettering the patient financing experience and the delivery of healthcare information to other organizations (Davenport, 2013). The initial goal of the organization was making patient care more affordable and accountable by providing integrated, evidence based, patient-oriented care.

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

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a federal health reform legislation engineered to provide Americans with high quality, affordable cost and better access to health care [1]. To address these overarching aims, the ACA requires the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish a National Strategy for Quality Improvement in Health Care, also known as the National Quality Strategy (NQS) [2]. The strategy sets three aims. First, to make health care more reliable,

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

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services support quality initiatives. The mission of CMS is quality health care for people with Medicare which is a high priority for the president. CMS began to start quality initiatives back in 2001 to assure quality care for all Americans through accountability. There are various quality initiatives that focus on every aspect of the health care system. From focusing on reporting quality measures for nursing homes to kidney dialysis facilities. Consumers can use the information provided on their website for these health care settings to assist them in making the right choices for the care provided.

Intermountain Healthcare ("Intermountain" or "IHC") is widely regarded as a successful model of low cost, high quality delivery. The Midwest-based integrated delivery system achieved this reputation by adopting an approach that emphasizes reducing healthcare costs through process-driven delivery quality improvement. The three most important elements of this approach are: 1) the focus on minimizing variation in key processes to enhance treatment quality; 2) a robust clinical information management system which enabled measurement for improvement; and 3) a responsive management structure that effectively seized improvement opportunities.

Topic 1 - Part 1 There are several reasons for quality initiatives, particularly as they pertain to Medicare and Medicaid. First, quality initiatives impact every aspects of healthcare and the manner in which quality and efficiency are delivered and combined. Second, successful quality initiatives impact the way the public sees healthcare and the manner in which government can help impact the delivery to the majority of citizens. The are a standardized approach for the development and most especially, the measurement, of quality. The focus and idea is that if you do not measure it, it won't measure up to standards. There are 15 of these steps that directly impact care; from the development and definition of a plan, through committees and panels, then finally through the approval and implementation process. Essentially, this is a set of tools that are used to both standardized and improve care.

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)

Glickman, S., Baggett, K., Krubert, C., Peterson. E., & Schulman, K. (2007). Promoting quality: the health-care organization from a management perspective. International Journal for Quality in Health Care.

It has not been easy for Baylor Scott & White Healthcare to travel this journey, as it had to align its policies to the national health care priorities and embrace a slogan STEEP to provide quality healthcare to its clients. The organization bears a high quality strategy that is well spelt out in its vision and mission. The organization has worked to ensure that all the stakeholders make quality healthcare a priority. In other words, the organization has worked hard to link performance management incentives to clinical indicators and in the end create a multidisciplinary healthcare improvement operations team that can function across all

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.

Department of Health & Human Services. (2011). National Strategy for Quality Improvement in Healthcare. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

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.