Improving quality-A Description of quality-safety issue in Healthcare

Improving quality Description of quality-safety issues in Healthcare

The success of any healthcare provision system is heavily dependent on its ability to provide quality healthcare to all. This can only be attained when the various components of healthcare providers work in concert to ensure that frameworks that ensure quality are properly and adequately established. The various component of an effective healthcare system includes the healthcare providers, patient population, and governments. An interplay of all these three will ensure effectiveness and quality healthcare provision. Nurses, being a critical component of the healthcare provision team, are mandated to play their role considerably well to ensure stability and effectiveness of healthcare providers. This paper seeks to discuss healthcare quality improvement as well as to highlight quality and safety issues within the healthcare system.

 Improving the quality of Healthcare is dependent on several healthcare issues. Steps towards improvement may require major alterations within the healthcare system, sometimes requiring an overhaul of the entire system, or may require micro-practices such as effective and safe handling of the patient by the healthcare providers. Improving healthcare quality may utilize several strategies. The collection of data and making a detailed analysis of the patient outcomes of a treatment process is the first strategy towards the attainment of quality healthcare. Data collection and analysis will inform the establishment of a baseline to which patient outcomes are measured as well as define standards for quality attainment. Setting goals and periodic continuous evaluation are as well important in determining whether the system is within the path towards quality provision. Improving access to care is as well important, and remains the most important aspect of improving quality. Focusing on patient engagement as well as the establishment of a collaborative approach towards service delivery is also important in improving quality (Aveling et al., 2017). All these strategies are utilizable in the quality enhancement and improvement of any working healthcare system.

Quality issues in Healthcare encompass several factors that are about but not limited to safe and effective healthcare delivery efficiently and equitably. These issues range from finances, access to healthcare services, patient and provider-related issues, and legislation, among others (Vesnic-Alujevic et al., 2016). These issues do interplay to determine the overall bearing of a healthcare system. Access to Healthcare, for instance, remains the sole most important issue that heavily affects quality healthcare provision. Access to Healthcare is a multifaceted aspect that draws several players in the healthcare system. This issue does not only concern governments and authorities but also concern individual patients and healthcare providers.

Access to Healthcare defines the ability of a population to get quality, safe, and affordable healthcare services. Its impacts on the population can easily be seen in the overall well-being of the population and remains a major determinant in societal growth and development. Poor access to Healthcare has been implicated in increased morbidity and mortality among the affected communities, with characteristic retardation in community growth and development. Conversely, adequate access to Healthcare has ensured that the incidence of diseases among the various populations is adequately picked up by the healthcare providers with a general establishment of curtailment measures and consequent improvement in the quality of life. It is for these reasons that access to Healthcare still maintains its position in governmental agendas and works in service delivery to the communities and people.

Enhancing access to Healthcare requires a collaborative approach that draws both the government and the people. Strategies that work to enhance access to Healthcare are dependent on individuals, their communities, and the authorities (Goodman et al., 2016). Individual responsibility towards health-seeking and adoption of good health behavior remains vital towards the enhancement of access to Healthcare. The willingness of people and their communities to visit healthcare provision centers whenever they are ill not only ensures that diseases are picked up early, and effective management initiated but also ensures that public health catastrophes are averted before their establishment. The government’s role is also very important. Ensuring adequate funding for the health insurance programs remains a responsibility of the government. This can be in the form of increasing the funds available for the Children’s health insurance program or continued expansion of the Medicaid insurance program even to states that have currently not implemented it. Additionally, the government should stabilize the insurance marketplaces and also ensure the retention of the Affordable Care Act reforms that are targeted at ensuring that people of low socioeconomic status gain access to Healthcare. Shortage of healthcare providers has as well been implicated in the decline of the state of healthcare provision. The government, in this regard, should ensure that staff shortages are combatted to ensure that the healthcare provision process retains the uttermost quality.

Healthcare improvement entails the general strategies that are targeted at enhancing the general status of Healthcare. The aims of healthcare improvement include patient-centered care, effective care, efficient care, equitable care, responsive care, and timeliness (Armstrong, 2018). By improving access to Healthcare, efficient care, effective care, equitable care, and timeliness are adequately addressed. Good access to Healthcare will ensure that individuals can get care not only in a timely fashion but also effectively. Additionally, strategies targeted at enhancing access to care remain beneficial to individuals who would otherwise not have gotten access to Healthcare. This, therefore, means that Healthcare will be equitable to these groups as well.

Interpersonal collaboration remains to be pivotal in the quality improvement of Healthcare. Interpersonal collaborations not only define collaborations between the various healthcare providers cadres but also define the patient-provider collaborations. These collaborations ensure the efficient flow of information from the patients to their providers by eliminating barriers that would otherwise impede this flow. Better collaborations create a good rapport between the patients and their providers as well as between the individual providers, thus creating a good environment for consultations and the transfer of knowledge. The benefits of these collaborations are evident in improved patient outcomes. Additionally, these collaborations have aided in the minimization of medication and medical errors that are otherwise devastating to the patients. Collaborations also ensure efficiency in the care initiation processes and consequently better patient outcomes (Kostal & Shah, 2021). Interpersonal collaborations are thus very important and should therefore, be emulated across all healthcare settings.

The significance of the healthcare system in maintaining healthy communities underpins the necessity of continuous improvement in the sector. Various issues within the healthcare systems interplay to inform the status and need to improve the quality of Healthcare. Strategies to improve quality include enhancing access to Healthcare, finances, patient and provider-related issues, and legislation among others. Access to Healthcare remains to be one of the important aspects of health quality improvement. Strategies that ensure accessible Healthcare successfully enhance the overall quality of Healthcare.

 References

Armstrong, N. (2018). Overdiagnosis and overtreatment as a quality problem: Insights from Healthcare Improvement Research. BMJ Quality & Safety, 27(7), 571–575. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2017-007571

Aveling, E.-L., Martin, G., Herbert, G., & Armstrong, N. (2017). Optimizing the community-based approach to healthcare improvement: Comparative case studies of the Clinical-Community Model in practice. Social Science & Medicine, 173, 96–103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.11.026

Goodman, D., Ogrinc, G., Davies, L., Baker, G. R., Barnsteiner, J., Foster, T. C., Gali, K., Hilden, J., Horwitz, L., Kaplan, H. C., Leis, J., Matulis, J. C., Michie, S., Miltner, R., Neily, J., Nelson, W. A., Niedner, M., Oliver, B., Rutman, L., … Thor, J. (2016). Explanation and elaboration of the squire (standards for quality improvement reporting excellence) guidelines, V.2.0: Examples of squire elements in the healthcare improvement literature. BMJ Quality & Safety, 25(12). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2015-004480

Kostal, G., & Shah, A. (2021). Putting improvement in everyone’s hands: Opening up Healthcare Improvement by simplifying, supporting, and refocusing on core purpose. British Journal of Healthcare Management, 27(2), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjhc.2020.0189

Vesnic-Alujevic, L., Breitegger, M., & Guimarães Pereira, Â. (2016). ‘do-it-yourself’ Healthcare? quality of health and Healthcare through wearable sensors. Science and Engineering Ethics, 24(3), 887–904. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9771-4 

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A description of the quality or safety issue in healthcare and a brief summary of the impact that this issue has on healthcare delivery. Describe at least one quality improvement strategy used to address this issue. Then, explain which of the six “aims for improvement” are addressed by the strategy. Finally, explain how inter-professional collaboration helps improve quality in this area.

Improving Quality
• Quality or Safety Issues
• Brief Summary of Impact of the Issue on Healthcare Delivery
• One Quality Improvement Strategy to Address this Issue
• Which of the Six “Aims for Improvement” are Addressed by this Strategy?
• How Inter-Personal Collaboration Helps Improve Quality in this Area
References
• Support your information with references.