The Importance Of Quality Management For A Health Care Institution

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).

Quality Assurance/Performance Improvement (QAPI) “an initiative that goes beyond the current Quality Assessment and Assurance provision, and aims to significantly expand the intensity and scope of current activities in order to not only correct quality deficiencies, but also to put practices in place to monitor all nursing home care and services to continuously improve performance”.

There are external and internal reasons that drive healthcare organizations to improve their quality of healthcare. External reasons for quality improvements come from governments, insurers, and consumers requiring that healthcare organizations provide and continue to improve on high-quality and safer health care. The internal reasons for quality improvements come from staff who work within these healthcare organizations. The quality of healthcare differs from city to city and even from country to country. In order for healthcare organizations to meet the quality of care expectations demanded and set themselves apart from other healthcare organizations, they pursue becoming accredited. One must understand what accreditation is, the history of accreditation and what the future holds for accreditation, in order to understand how being accredited can improve the quality in healthcare.

An organization risk manager and quality manager are continually seeking useful ways on minimizing risks to the organization and promoting better care of the patient. Risk management is the series of actions that is put forward to identify and address the issues to avoid the possibility of loss or injury. “Moreover, even when a risk-management plan creates barriers to access, a careful discussion of those barriers can lead to strategies to reduce them” (Meltzer, 2007, pg. 2). Quality management oversees the development of a product or service and ensures that it’s functioning or performing in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort. These departments are critical in recognizing and protecting a company loss. Many health care professionals not easily persuaded that quality can improve even though the result is not good

The advancement of a high-performing health care system that accomplishes improved access, enhanced quality, and more effectiveness, for the susceptible, vulnerable, the uninsured, minority, children, and elderly adult, remain vital (Commonwealth Fund, 2016). The expectations to meet this standard has been adopted by hospitals as they are in continuous review of modalities to provide safe, effective, and efficient care for their community. Consequently, the priority Quality Improvement area identified in the Medsurg/Orthopedic unit of riverside hospital is “Point of Care Documentation”.

MQH is a private hospital and a major facility of Southern University Local Health District. Med-Quality Hospital (MQH) is located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. MQH is an 800-bed facility and is the second largest medical facilities in Louisiana. MQH mission focuses on five core values including quality of service, quality of humility, quality of justice, quality of spirit, and quality of love for all life. MQH offers a variety of services from acute care to woman wellness. MQH has separate branches of services under our health care network including nephrology, outpatient surgery, in-patient and out-patient rehabilitation services. We serve 35,000 inpatients and 250,000 outpatient annually and committed to building a health community through

Before understanding a quality management program and traditional quality assurance, it is important to understand the definition of quality. Quality is composed of two elements, content and delivery (Brent, nd). Content quality is related to the medical outcome that has been achieved. While delivery quality is based upon the patients interaction with the health care system, also known as the patient 's impression of the organization such as its environment, the providers and caretakers, and treatment. Together, content and delivery create quality. (Brent, nd)

Quality management is a systematic and continuous process that organizations use to deliver products and services that meet or exceed customer expectations. Quality management in healthcare has evolved over the years to address increased demands from consumers related to the quality of care and services, as well as to address problems in patients’ outcomes. The medical field tends to use quality management to focus on patient and staff safety, reducing medical errors, and avoiding or decreasing morbidity and mortality rates. In order to improve the quality of a facility requires the entire facility to

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.

Healthcare facilities have a legal and moral obligation to provide the high quality patient care, (Huber, 2014). The Quality Management team’s goal will be to continually strive to improve the care their organization delivers. In order for this to be achieved their must goals and objectives to work towards. The success of these goals and objectives are dependent upon The Quality Management Structure of the organization. With proper implementation and management of the quality care initiative, the organization should an improvement in patient safety and clinical outcomes.

In conclusion, health care management concerns the administration and management of facilities, human resources, and delivery procedures in the health sector. These are carried out in nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, public hospitals, and private clinics. The future challenges for health care management include securing adequate finances for health care operations, training adequate human resources, managing an increasingly aging population of patients, and controlling emerging chronic diseases.

Quality management departments collect and analyze data to ensure quality care that is safe and effective for patients. Positive outcomes are crucial for success, and are measured objectively to monitor, and revise improvement programs implemented. Regulatory and accreditation agencies set the standards for patient safety defining quality indicators that health care organizations measure, and evaluate to sustain accreditation with compliance. Data proves compliance with best practices and positive outcomes, increasing reimbursement and the number of individuals who will come to the organization for care. Administration leadership has found that

Grievous noted that the pursuit of excellence not only improve the quality of care, improve patient satisfaction with the medical staff, but also can reduce costs and increase profits. Taking into account the factors of instability and political uncertainty caused by health care reform, economic changes brought about by bringing unpredictability, each medical organization should do its utmost to maintain the most stable state. The pursuit of excellence to provide a broad road to success for the medical organization. "

Risk and quality management are vital to operating any kind of organization, but more so when dealing with an organization such as a hospital. Dealing with the lives and wellbeing of others is a huge responsibility. Some hospitals deal with more areas of services than others. Take John Muir Health for example, they provide a vast amount of services that range from primary care, emergency care, urgent care, rehabilitation, cancer treatment, children’s care, medical imaging, and more (John Muir Health, 2013). Of these areas of service require risk and quality management assessment. Other areas that do not

Quality is defined as conformance to the requirement, not goodness: The first absolute explains that management must strive to ensure that during the quality improvement process everyone is getting things done right the first time. Crosby stated that in other to do this management must state clearly what are the individual roles of the employee, management must also supply the employees with the resources needed to do their task and lastly management must give continuous support and encouragement to the employees during the improvement process. When quality is defined as conformance to requirement it helps to reduce hassle and improve quality at the same time. Crosby (1995).