Quality health care means different things for different patients. For some, it would mean waiting in the queue for the shortest time possible while for others it would mean nurses going out of their way to be courteous. For health professionals, quality healthcare means providing treatment and services that will help patients to heal quickly and comfortably. Quality health services can be measured by the extent to which these services escalate the probability of medical outcomes that are desirable and consistent with present-day expert knowledge. A health facility that incorporates all these aspects of quality healthcare thus becomes one that patients would prefer or revisit.
My administrative roles at Sunlight Hospital require that I understand the state of the facility. This understanding will enable me to know the degree of quality being offered at the hospital and how to improve it, create worth, increase proficiency, and transform the facility into the hospital of choice. According to Sollecito and Johnson (2013), an administrator can learn about the level of quality offered in the organization by encouraging patients to fill out questionnaire forms and put them in the suggestion box (p. 34). In addition, an administrator can get feedback from the managers and other employees about the level of quality health care offered at the institution.
Measurements of Quality
There are different ways by which quality can be measured. Some of these include safety, effectiveness, efficiency, time-sensitivity, patient-based care, and equitability. Results from scientific research show that patient safety is an important mark of quality. According to Dudeck, et al (2013), health facilities should apply safety measure procedures to ensure that both the patients and the medical personnel are safe.
The quality of health services depends on three elementary dimensions: structure, process, and outcome. Structure signifies the basic characteristics of the doctors and other employees. In order to provide quality services, they need to be academically qualified. Health facilities should have the most current laboratory equipment for accurate lab results. Finally, the institution needs to have good communication tools such as cell phones to avoid treatment delays (Jia & Mohamed, 2015) and accurate patient records to avoid treatment error. If the structure of the facility is strong, the quality of the process of healthcare provision can be measured. The process of healthcare involves using the available resources to provide healthcare. For instance, the health professionals provide quality healthcare by working according to the facility’s, policies and procedures. They must also make efforts to reduce delays to save lives. Finally, the quality of health services can be measured by the outcome of the treatment. Good quality healthcare is seen when patients recover from illness. For instance, if an expectant mother successfully delivers her child or an elderly person effectively manages his diabetic condition after treatment, it means that the facility offers good quality services. It is essential for health facilities to measure the outcomes of healthcare to know what kind of care works for patients (Rademakers, Delnoij & de Boer, 2011).
Main Features of Designing a Quality Improvement Plan
After measuring the degree of quality of services offered at the facility, ensuring that the facility has the right structure and that employees are using the available resources to provide services, the next step is to improve the services. Quality health services can be improved by creating systems that make it easy for employees to provide services. In this regard, administrators of health facilities should not assume that it is enough to have well-educated employees. Instead, they should empower them to deliver according to expected standards. The first step involves training the employees about delivering quality health services to patients. They should perform their duties knowing that they will be measured by the kind of services they offer.
Recent innovations in the field of biomedicine have significantly improved the quality of health services provided. However, innovations in health care delivery systems are much needed to increase the rate of improvement. Healthcare informatics is one such innovation. It improves the quality of healthcare by making it easier for medical personnel to access patient records prescribe drugs based on these records. The innovation of electronic health records enables medical personnel to deliver services in a timely manner because they no longer have to go through files to access patient records (Coiera, 2015, p.107). In addition, it is easier for health professionals to detect and respond to public health emergencies such as infectious disease outbreaks. Healthcare informatics makes admission records easily available to medical personnel. These records can be analyzed to see trends in patient admission: if many people have been admitted because of a certain infection over a short time, the personnel can report this trend for appropriate action. Implementation of an informatics system involves training the employees to use it and to provide feedback on the system’s effectiveness. In addition, the employees can help the administration to design a quality improvement plan by asking them to communicate about the policies that can be put in place to help them to be more efficient. After implementation, the quality improvement plan should be tested to know whether it is working or not.
How Quality Health Care Would Create a Competitive Advantage.
It is imperative to provide quality services in health care. Every health facility needs to provide good quality services to help the community. However, the manner in which a particular facility delivers its services can create competitive advantage. The competitive advantage of a health facility is what makes the patients prefer it to other facilities (Harris, 2015, p.693).
Patients may prefer a facility to others because of discounted prices, less time taken by personnel to respond, electronic patient records, courteous nurses and good patient outcomes among other reasons. Health facilities that aim to become the health facility of choice must integrate all these aspects of quality health service. Administrators should make sure that employees in every department provide service to the set standards for patient satisfaction and increased referrals.
Conclusion
In summary, healthcare facilities need to provide quality health services that can be measured by reduced response time, effectiveness, and good patient outcomes. Health facility administrators seeking to improve health service quality in their institutions need to first gather information about the current state of the facility before designing a quality improvement plan. The quality of health services provided depends on the kind of equipment used to analyze samples in the institution. It also depends on the competence of the employees. Facilities should make sure that they have the latest equipment and trained employees to provide high-quality health services. Health informatics systems make it easy for employees to access patient records. Therefore, they spend less time trying to find records manually and can serve clients faster. High-quality services delivered in an exceptional manner create the competitive advantage for the facility. Thus, the facility will make better profits.
References
Coiera, E. (2015). Guide to health informatics. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC press.
Dudeck, M. A., Horan, T. C., Peterson, K. D., Allen-Bridson, K., Morrell, G., Anttila, A., & Edwards, J. R. (2013). National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) report, data summary for 2011, device-associated module. American journal of infection control, 41(4), 286. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625764/
Harris, M. D. (2015). Handbook of home health care administration. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Jia, K., & Mohamed, K. (2015). Evaluating the use of cell phone messaging for community Ebola syndromic surveillance in high risked settings in Southern Sierra. African health sciences, 15(3), 797-802.Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4765450/
Rademakers, J., Delnoij, D., & de Boer, D. (2011). Structure, process or outcome: which contributes most to patients' overall assessment of healthcare quality?. BMJ quality & safety, bmjqs-2010. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21339310
Solleato, W.A. (2013). McLaughin & Kaluzny’s Continuous Quality Improvement in Healthcare. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
