While analyzing the ‘state of the art’ of quality improvement in healthcare, it is identified that healthcare is yet to achieve a lot in terms of quality improvement. In spite of revolutionary technological advancements in the field of healthcare, care quality and patient safety is yet to be improved in various regards. For instance, medical errors still remain to be a major issue affecting patient safety despite explosive technological advancements occurred in the field of healthcare over the last decades. While going through ‘Hospital Compare’, an official government website maintained to compare the service quality of different hospitals in the country, it is identified that none of the hospitals in the country has achieved 100% efficiency in terms of quality care delivery. I strongly believe that nurse-to-patient ratio as well nursing education needs to be improved across the country to achieve greater quality improvement in healthcare.
It appears that quality improvement efforts in the country’s healthcare are fragmented because there is no uniformity in promoting health quality improvement initiatives in the United States. To illustrate, currently, it is optional for U.S hospitals to collect and report on NSQI indicators. Therefore, it is difficult for health regulators to compare the performance of different hospitals in terms of nursing efficiency and to suggest appropriate improvement measures. Since there is no uniformity in quality improvement programs implemented in different hospitals across the country, operational outcomes from different healthcare facilities are not comparable. As the quality improvement initiatives in the healthcare are fragmented, hospitals across the US often fail to accomplish intended outcomes. Therefore, cohesiveness in quality improvement efforts is vital to enhance overall patient outcomes of the U.S healthcare sector.
Philosophical Perspective
When it comes to quality improvement, I personally believe that evidence-based care is the best way to improve overall healthcare quality on a constant basis. To be more precise, evidence-based care can assist health practitioners to obtain valuable information from previous care situations and to apply them to current care scenarios to improve the outcomes (Titler, 2008). Hence, health institutions including hospitals are strongly advised to switch to a new organizational culture that promotes evidence-based care. The philosophical perspective known as empiricism resonates my personal priorities (evidence-based care) regarding quality improvement. Empiricism is a philosophical theory that states that “all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses” (Levene, 2010, p.na). According to this philosophical perspective, all knowledge in the healthcare should be derived from real-life scenarios. Hence, there is a close link between the philosophical perspective of empiricism and the health concept of evidence-based care.
Understanding of Quality Improvement Systems
While going with job search as a new nurse executive, the knowledge of various quality improvement systems can really benefit me to broaden my employment landscape. Currently hospital managements take vehement efforts to establish and maintain an effective quality improvement system because quality of healthcare has become the most pivotal factor affecting hospital reputation (Al-Abri & Al-Balushi, 2014). In this context, hospital administrators would be really interested to hire nurse executives who have a greater understanding of various quality improvement systems. In short, an in-depth understanding of different quality improvement systems can help a nurse executive to get employment easily in a reputed hospital.
References
Al-Abri, R., & Al-Balushi, A. (2014). Patient Satisfaction Survey as a Tool Towards Quality Improvement. Oman Medical Journal, 29(1), 3–7.
Levene, L. (2010). Think, Therefore I Am: All the Philosophy You Need to Know. US: Michael O'Mara Books.
Titler, M. G. (2008). “The Evidence for Evidence-Based Practice Implementation”. In: Hughes, R. G, editor. Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (US): Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Chapter 7. Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2659/
