Health Quality Management (Essay Sample)

Using Performance Based Measures and Evidence-Based Factors in Health Care Organisations
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Using Performance Based Measures and Evidence-Based Factors in Health Care Organisations
The business environment is becoming more challenging and competitive leading more healthcare organisations are beginning to place focus on using performance based factors in an effort to achieve their objectives in a manner that is not only effective but also efficient. Health care providers often have one core goal and that is to provide their patients with the highest quality of care. In this regard, constantly measuring performance can be a helpful aid in enabling an understanding of the extent to which the organisation is achieving this goal. It also presents the chance for analysis to be carried out of which changes need to be made in order to bring improvement not only on the performance of the organisation but more importantly on the quality of the care that is provided. Measuring performance also ensures that providers have a better comprehension of which aspects are working well and this information can subsequently be shared with other providers who can subsequently be able to learn from their success. This paper therefore seeks to examine performance based factors and measures that are used in quality assessment.
Process, Outcome and Structural Indicators of Health Care Quality Measurement
The large majority of discussions on quality in hospitals often put the issue within the context of examining delivery of care in relation to three distinct factors of evaluation which are structure, process and outcome (Fung et al., 2008). Measuring quality in hospitals is a challenging and complex task especially when one considers that good or poor performance on one measure of quality does not necessarily mean that that particular institution is a high quality one. In many instances, there is a need to examine a wide range of indicators in order to have a fair assessment of the overall quality of one hospital. Availability of requisite data also presents a problem when it comes to measuring quality. Moreover, some literature has suggested that measuring quality often puts forward a sense of objectivity (Copnell et al., 2009).
Outcome measures refer to results of care with an ideal measure being that which would show the impact of distinct, evidence-based care on a patient’s health. The advantage of measuring outcome measures is that they can be examined over a long period of time (Evans et al., 2008). They are often most applicable in instances when differences in the care provided to a patient have a distinct impact on outcomes. In this instance, an outcome measure would be the average time that is taken for a patient to complete the entire process of admission registration from arrival to the time he leaves the admitting area (Fung et al., 2008).
Process measures on the other hand often refer to the actions that a given provider has undertaken to ensure that a patient’s healthcare significantly improved. Process measures therefore help to provide a reflection of whether the action was carried out well and the extent to which it was effective. These indicators are seen as efficient measures of quality since they help to bring together processes to perceived improvements in the outcomes of health care. Process measures present an advantage since they help to bring out clear feedback concerning care and presents actionable steps that can be used to improve results (Evans et al., 2008). In addition, these results do not need to be adjusted for risk and can be sensitive to the differences that occur in the quality of care given. One distinct weakness in process indicators is the fact that the evidence that integrates processes to outcomes for many of these indicators is often restricted. In this instance, a process measure would be the percentage of patients who sign consent forms before they receive any type of medical care. This excludes those patients who have to go into the hospital on emergency situations (Fung et al., 2008).
Structural indicators help to provide a measure of the institutional characteristics that can impact on the quality of care which range from the amount of resources that have been put aside to deliver care. Structural indicators are often the least common indicators of quality. A structural indicator that can be used in this instance is the number of productive hours that are put in by staff who have been tasked with the responsibility of patient registration (Evans et al., 2008).
Part 2: Evidence-based performance measures related to prescribing the correct medications for hospitalized patients.
The culture in medicine has been for physicians to train and distinctly follow a work ethic that ensures patients are first and assume that this would lead to high quality health care. However, recent studies have shown that this recommended care is not being delivered as efficiently as was once thought. Indeed the only real way to know this is to constantly measure performance (Reuben & Tinnetti., 2012). Performance measures have been put in place for the large majority of chronic diseases as well as for preventive care. These measures are largely designed to examine the number of patients who have received the requisite amount of care as compared to those patients who should receive this care. It has been argued that widespread use of these measures can be helpful in enabling physicians to place focus on a number of indicators as opposed to having to analyze different distinct measures that will subsequently drive different initiatives (Faber & Bosch., 2009).
The National Quality Measures Clearinghouse presents a wide range of information concerning evidence based measures that have been developed by a number of organisations spread out throughout the health care industry(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2015).. The Clearinghouse is a public resource that is used to provide a list of the measures that are presently being issued by the Health and Human Services for measurement, improvement as well as reporting of quality. This is in an effort to enable clinicians; hospitals as well as health systems create better care decisions for their patients (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2015).
One of the measures identified in the National Quality Measures Clearinghouse is that of cervical cancer screening and here this measure sought to examine the percentage of women between 21 and 64 years who were screened for cervical cancer. This measure was put forward by the National Committee for Quality in 2014(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2015). Another measure is that of adult body mass index assessment where the measure seeks to assess the percentage of patients 18 to 74 years of age who had outpatient visit and whose Body Mass Index was documented during the year of measurement or the year before the measurement was taking place. This measure was put forward by the National Committee for Quality Assurance in 2014(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2015).
The third evidence based measure is appropriate testing for children with pharyngitis and here the measure sought to examine the percentage of children from 2 to 18 years of age who had been diagnosed with ph...