Quality Measurement by Health Care Professionals (Essay Sample)

Quality Measurement by Health Care Professionals
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Quality Measurement by Health Care Professionals
Quality service delivery should be the focus of every healthcare facility and professional. Patients expect quality services that address their medical needs while preventing further complications in the future. Thus, it is essential for medical practitioners to effectively utilize quality improvement tools to realize patients’ wellness. In most cases, the quality improvement tools are standalone techniques that can improve the quality of services delivered without influence within the care setting. There are several tools used to foster quality service delivery in healthcare facilities. The paper aims to analyze the tools and their utilization by different healthcare professionals, with special attention to fishbone, flow charts and scatter diagrams.
Quality Improvement Tools
There are several quality improvement tools used in healthcare facilities. The first is fishbone, also known as a cause-and-effect diagram. The tool works by identifying a quality-related problem on the right hand with causative agents on the left side. According to the Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry (2021a), the tool helps medical practitioners to identify the various factors or causes that result in specific health outcomes. The administrators also use the tool to determine the factors responsible for the failure of set programs in healthcare facilities. The fishbone diagram's causative factors are organized into machines, methods, environment, personnel, materials, and measurements (Rodgers & Oppenheim, 2019). The leader's role is to identify which of these factors are attributed to the quality problem being experienced in the facility. Thus, the tool's purpose is to establish the factors responsible for the compromised quality standards in the healthcare facility. It helps the users to assess the individual or group factors that need to be modified, suppressed, or installed to realize the desired quality standards.
A flow chart is another quality improvement tool used in healthcare facilities. They are a diagrammatic representation of steps that need to be followed to realize the desired outcome. The purpose of the flow chart is to describe in visual terms the process that should be followed when implementing an activity or performing a task (Institute of Healthcare Improvement, 2021a). Medical professionals and other employees in managerial positions use the tool to understand the critical control process points and to identify the areas that require further improvement to help realize the quality standards in organizations. The most important steps are strengthened and emphasized to ensure that the quality of the process outcome is not compromised.
The final tool is the scatter diagram. It is used to establish the relationship that exists between variables. According to the Institute of Healthcare Improvement (2021b), the scatter diagram shows how two or more variables are related. Scatter diagrams are used in internal studies within the organizations. For instance, the management uses the management to establish the factors related to healthcare facilities' stability or failure. Thus, the tool's focus is to demonstrate the positive relationship between variables that need to be strengthened and the negative associations that must be modified to improve the quality of services offered in the healthcare facilities.
Application of the Tools by Different Professionals
The tools could be used to measure the quality of services offered in healthcare facilities by various professionals. The cause-and-effect diagram, for instance, can be used by healthcare leaders such as hospital administrators. The latter can use this tool to establish the factors responsible for decreased healthcare facilities' decreased productivity (Rodgers & Oppenheim, 2019). When establishing the elements, the administrators can identify the causes as personnel, material, environment, or machine-based. This categorization helps the facilities suppress the opposing forces while strengthening the positive measures to realize the desired quality level in service delivery. The middle-level clinical provider, such as nurse manager, can use the same tool in identifying factors that require improvements in hospitals. Medical errors in clinical settings result from nurse fatigue, low staffing, and inappropriate use of medical equipment (Abdel-Latif, 2016). The nurse managers can use the cause-and-effect diagram to establish the factors associated with medical errors on the nurses' part and subsequently provide the best solution. Last are the low-level professionals such as physicians. They can use the cause-and-effect diagram to find out factors associated with increased hospitalization cases on specific patients. The findings would inform the best measures to improve the quality of services offered to prevent further hospitalizations. Thus, the tool is used by various professionals in a clinical setting.
Next is a flow chart diagram whose purpose is to show the most critical steps that must be followed when executing tasks. The first professionals to use this tool are the high-level administrators, such as hospital administrators. These professionals can use the tool in setting up the process that needs to be followed in hiring the employees in the workforce. Rodgers and Oppenheim (2019) opine that hospitals' quality of services depends on the workforce's competence, hence the need to have an objective recruitment process. Therefore, the administrators can use this tool to define essential hiring processes such as job advertisements, review of applications, interview candidates, selection, orientations, training, and placement. Next are the middle-level professionals such as nurse managers. They can use the tool when adopting new equipment to improve the quality of services in care settings (Rodgers & Oppenheim, 2019). The possible processes to be followed include identifying the problem systems, researching the best technologies, trial, and finally, the purchase. Last are the physicians. According to Abdel-Latif (2016), their primary role is to ensure that the patients' wellness is realized through informed medical choices. The flow chart diagram would establish medical procedures such as patient identification, assessment, diagnosis, testing, and t