Quality Management in Healthcare

The quality program goals and objectives

The quality program goals and objectives in a health organization where I work include effective leadership, patient focus initiatives, reliability and consistent compliant with the external environment. These goals and objectives are intended to increase patient satisfaction with the service and improve the effectiveness of treatments (O’Donohue & Maragakis, 2016). Patient focus quality initiatives at all times are developed and reviewed to ensure they meet changing needs of the patients. Quality management involves constant monitoring of the progress of patients to ensure there is satisfaction with the service (Oster & Braaten, 2016). This is so because the expectations and needs of patients change over time. Effective leadership is the aspiration modeled in the organization aimed at enhancing the cooperation of people with diverse expertise. Consistently delivering quality services is the core mandate of the organization.

The quality management structure

The quality management structure of the organization is comprised of two levels namely the executive management that mainly deals with senior leadership responsibilities and departmental management led by different heads.

The quality improvement projects

The quality improvement projects intended to be adopted by the facility are selected at the departmental levels with the input of clinicians and nursing staff. After selection, departmental heads then present the project to the executive for approval. Once approved the executive members oversee and manages the entire projects. The departmental heads are required to monitor the projects and report from time to time to the executive its implementation progress.

In-service programs for staff

The facility has in-service programs for staff intended to improve quality delivery of care and treatment. These programs adopt a multidimensional strategy where external experienced healthcare practitioners are regularly invited to the facility for service assessment and come up with appropriate action plan to improve service delivery.

Continuous quality improvement (CQI)

The organization utilizes continuous quality improvement (CQI) as the primary quality methodology. On the other hand, it has adopted quality tools such as benchmarking, brainstorming, cause and effect diagram, flowcharts as well as analysis charts (Walshe & Smith, 2016). The adoption of this quality methodology and quality tools has been effective towards the improvement of service delivery. This is because they are used to constantly monitor the progress of projects and hence ensure mistakes are corrected accordingly.

Communication of quality improvement activities

Quality improvement activities and processes are communicated promptly to staff in the facility through the departmental heads. This communication approach is effective, because heads of departments understand the success and weaknesses that need to be improved within their respective departments.

Effective evaluation of Quality Improvement (QI) activities

The organization evaluates the effectiveness of Quality Improvement (QI) activities by monitoring risk reduction procedures and quality measurement systems (Langkafel, 2016). When the risk reduction procedures and quality measurements systems put in place are poor, then QI activities are not effective.

Effective QI initiatives in the facility

The major QI initiatives that have been effective in the facility towards the improvement of care and treatment process is the increase of nurse to patient ratio and the adoption of electronic health records to replace handwritten records. The hospital has increased nurse to patient ratio from an initial ratio of one nurse to six patients to a ratio of one nurse to three patients. This increase has reduced the workload of nurses, which has ensured nurses offer quality patient care with less stress. Also, the use of electronic health records has ensured the patient’s records are retrieved faster without any undue delay. Thus, these QI initiatives have transformed clinical practice in the facility.

Improving healthcare performance

By improving the healthcare performance of the organization, the overall quality of treatment and care has, in turn, increased significantly (O’Donohue & Maragakis, 2016). In order to achieve this effective performance, nurses have been the chief custodians in the implementation of different QI initiatives by being directly involved in measuring, monitoring, and constantly striving to improve healthcare quality and safety.

Quality and safety in healthcare

Quality and safety in healthcare are the cornerstone pillars that prevent harm to patients. Patient-centered care is the major concept that guarantees quality healthcare to patients with best possible health outcomes (Walshe & Smith, 2016). Terms and concepts, on the other hand, used to refer to healthcare safety issues include medical errors, injuries, accidents, and infections (Walshe & Smith, 2016). All these must be prevented to decrease the mortality and morbidity among the patients and thus improve patient safety.

References

 Langkafel, P. (2016). Big data in medical science and healthcare management: Diagnosis,

therapy, side effects. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg.

O’Donohue, W. T., & Maragakis, A. (2016). Quality improvement in behavioral health. Cham:

Springer International Publishing.

Oster, C., & Braaten, J.(2016). High-reliability organizations: A healthcare handbook for patient

safety & quality. Indianapolis, IN Sigma Theta Tau International, Honor Society of Nursing.

Walshe, K., & Smith, J. (2016). Healthcare management. London: Open University Press.