Healthcare Management: Measurements of Quality of Care (Essay Sample)

Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Institution
Course
Date
Healthcare Management
Introduction
There are several kinds of businesses that will require managerial services and provision of medical care is perhaps the most complex kind of business to manage. This is because of the fact that in addition to the nature of the business concerning itself with the very delicate business of saving and protecting human lives, there is several other social and legal variables incidental to the business. The management must therefore strike a tantalizing balance between making profit to sustain the business, while adhering to the legal requirements in place without scaring away patients while providing above standard or average healthcare services. This is a dilemma that has curtailed the performance of managers for a long time now and scholars within the management domains have consistently voiced concerns on how best to tackle these unprecedented circumstances.
Despite the fact that this has been a contentious issue for a long time there exists very little jurisprudence on the subjects as many scholars have shied away from delving into the discussion. Though the study of management is an analogous study of general notions of management and administration, graduates are often expected to take up managerial responsibilities in foreign practices that are not textbook. It is an incontestable fact that management of different institutions requires different evaluations and skills; this is precisely why most senior management staff in hospitals happen to be medical experts. In this report, measurement of the quality of care given at Sunlight Hospital is discussed. The paper also examines measures that could be undertaken to improve the quality as well as deliberate upon how certain measures will affect the course of business.
Measurements of Quality of Care
There are several issues to consider in measuring the quality of care dispensed to patients. This include among other things whether or not they are inpatients or outpatients because there is a reasonable chance that the experiences of either will be different. It is worth noting that patient satisfaction is not an absolute measure of the quality of care that is advanced in a hospital but rather a considerable constituent of the same. The satisfaction of patients is an important indicator in the circumstances. The patients at Sunlight Hospital seem to be satisfied with all the other services that are offered except for quality of care. This sounds like a very small portion that needs to be reevaluated; however a close examination will reveal that majority of the services offered at the hospital constitute care to patients and this therefore means that a great deal of processes have to be re-examines.
At Sunlight Hospital for instance, the measurements or processes that could be used to discern the quality of care. Structural measures in as far as the quality of care that patients receive denote the infrastructural mechanisms that are implemented that in any way affect the quality of services that are rendered or care given. They include but are not limited to facilities such as the structure of the building, the distance between the various departments and how physically accessible they are et cetera. It also covers how well staffed the hospital is and also how skilled or otherwise the staff are for their various roles and responsibilities. The policy environment within which services are delivered and the general accessibility of medical services by those who need them are the prerogatives of these measures.
Structural measures are particularly considered important in this instance because the physical characteristics of the infrastructural facilities in a hospital could affect substantially the nature and the quality of the services rendered. When the structural measures meet a certain standard of quality, the possibility of having the desired response from patients is undeniable. Similarly, measures that meet the standards usually communicate the capacity of the hospital to render the services that it is meant to without difficulty. This measure is however limited in the sense that they are not conclusive. A hospital being capable of rendering certain services does not mean that the services are actually rendered or that the desired quality is actually met.
Outcome measurements constitute a measure of the quality of the service rendered by the result that the said service yields on a patient. The law of unintended consequences applies here and the effects of any given treatment or service whether intentional or otherwise accidental are considered. The other consideration that is made within the outcome measures include what goals a certain service or action were meant to yield. This measure is on that is commonly used by persons who seek various services from the hospital. They really do not care what procedures are applied or what actions are undertaken but rather focus on the result. Patients for instance come to Sunlight Hospital for treatment. This is their expected outcome so much so that if and when they get treated after visiting the hospital, they will definitely be satisfied by the quality of care they receive.
Outcome measures often include external measures such as mortality and morbidity or other factors incidental to health. It is also possible to assess outcome as a measure when patients give a report of their experience on how well they are satisfied r not with the services that they received. This is however not a conclusive measure as it is heavily reliant on the patient’s perception and state of mind and more often than not, it does not incorporate all areas of treatment or the patient’s experience. The importance of outcome measures is often overridden by the fact that coming up with an accurate record of outcomes is usually a tasking and relatively expensive exercise.
Process Measures are useful in gauging the efficiency of the set procedures that are recommended. It is a measure of just how closely the set guidelines, procedures or recommendations are closely adhered to in rendering service. Making this assessment is quite simple as the threshold to be met is a simple one of whether or not the service met the required criteria, it is however an inconclusive measure because it does not factor in the satisfaction of the recipient of the service. It is a useful approach as it gives the assessor conclusive and actionable statistics or sets of data which the hospital may straight away apply. The quality of feedback it shall give however is quite questionable because so long as the procedure was followed, the service is qualified without further inquiry into whether a threshold was met.
Patient safety measures refer to those measures that are taken in pursuit of the patients' safety; inpatient or outpatie...