Health Care Quality Improvement In A Hospital Of Choice (Coursework Sample)

Nursing Continuous Quality Improvement
Continuous quality improvement includes quality assurance – the provision of services that meet appropriate standard. Problem resolution involving all departments over the issue at hand and finally quality improvement which is a continuous process involving all organizations working together across departments to produce better services of health care. Nurses like other health care professionals are part of the initiative to ensure a continuous quality improvement
Continuous Quality initiative in my work setting
I happen to be a nurse working in a local hospital. I have noted a lot of changes all that are geared towards improvement of quality.
I have witnessed the adoption of multidisciplinary approach and thus teamwork as a standard of practice. The teams are composed of a team leader direct the team and other team members with different specialty. This has improved on consultation when attending to patients, information sharing and helping where need be.
The hospital has also embraced electronic management of health records. This allows the hospital to have a well update patient records thus improved record security, efficiency and for easy retrieval. The hospital is now furnished with computers and other gadgets.
There is also a move to create new leadership that is strong enough and understands the emerging demands of the practice.
The debate around the hospital setting has always been one embracing patient safety. The management has continued to encourage the nurses and other health care givers to think about the safety of the patient before any intervention is done. Further, the health care givers now appreciate the need to be patient-centered in their provision of health care.
The hospital now appreciates the importance of effective communication. Currently, there is a proper communication channel that engages patients, health care givers and even the relatives of the patient
Moreover, the health care givers, nurses included are slowly embracing the evidence based practice where diagnosis and interventions are informed by the available evidence.
The hospital has also undergone restructuring in its design to cater for patients with different needs. Unlike before, isolation rooms are new available for patients with contagious conditions. The lighting is adequate and of the right amount. The introduction of well-maintained toilets.
Unlike before, doctors, nurses and other health care givers in the hospital that are embraced safety are rewarded. Nurses and other care givers have also been encouraged to embrace accepting responsibility for errors and adopting strategies to stop recurrence.
The need for proper monitoring in improving quality health has also been embraced
Critique
The hospital is embracing a patient centered type of care where autonomy is at the centre. Sadly, limitations of autonomy are not being addressed. The fact that medical professionals have ethical values and principles that they must abide by as professionals that occassionally are against some of the patients remains. Some patients may want that you aid them die, what is against the ethics of practice.
The hospital is embracing a multidisciplinary approach of care yet it has inadequacies of well trained health care professionals. Use of machines in the management of health records and in dispensing drugs if not we'll monitored can be disastrous.
A lot of initiatives are in placed to improve the quality of health care yet no attention is being given to reducing the cost of seeking medical help.
Tools for quality improvement
i) Root cause analysis.
This is a formalized investigation and problem solving approach aimed at identifying the causes of an error, the result of which will help in developing an action plan that will improve the quality of care
In the health care settings, it is used to assess risks that occur when medical errors caused by system factors and not individuals are implicated.
The aim here is to uncover the underlying cause of medical error by looking at enabling factors eg lack of proper training, including latent conditions eg not checking the patients ID and situational factors like two patients with the same last name, that contributed to an event (adverse drug event).
ii) Failure mode and effect Analysis
This is an evaluation technique used to identify and eliminate known potential failures, problems and errors from systems design, processes before they actually occur.
In healthcare the failure mode and effect analysis focuses on the system of care and use of multidisciplinary approach in evaluating processes in assessing quality improvement.
iii) Six Sigma
Has been used before in health care settings to decrease variations or defects and reduce cost of operation, by improving outcomes.
Six Sigma helps in differentiating between the causes of variation and outcome...