External quality indicators
Although experts recommend the use of detection and other medical tests to be used as quality indicators, other stakeholders have not establish this to be valid. The essentiality of their use has not been ascertained. The first quality indicator available to the patients is the provision of a range of health care services to all the patients. This will enable the patients to be well taken care of while receiving the type of medication required with their cancer condition. The patients’ survival will be increased if the care given is adequate, safe, efficient and to the stipulated standards. This complies with the goal of improving the care given to the patients and the rates of registering new ones (Tobias & Hochhauser, 2010).
The other indicator is being a member of National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN). This network has some basic rules that improve the consumers quality received which have to comply with by all its members. There are guidelines relating to the patients who have been diagnosed with cancer and on how they have to receive the attention required. There is frequent assessment to establish whether all the centres have been within those stipulated guidelines. The care given to the cancer patients should be safe and efficient to them both when in the centre and when in their own homes.
The third indicator is the long-standing survival of cancer patients treated at the center. This is a quality indicator of the quality service offered to the patients at the cancer centre. Having been accepting services from the center mean it has been within the expectations of the patient and that there has been improvement on the sickness. This also implies that the centre has been complying with centre goal pledging a judicious diagnosis, to encourage apt analytic practices and to maintain correct referrals for the management of all cancers.
Use of external quality indicators
The external indicators are useful to the consumers in instilling a sense of being excellent self-managers of their own sickness. This enables them to understand the best way to enhance quality in the medical attention they get from the cancer centre. They have to undergo some training that will give them knowledge of their ailment and the best way to manage it accordingly. The training to the consumers will be carried out under a cancer education and empowerment programme. This ensures that the consumers are able to maintain some set of standards when not in any close contact with the medical personnel. This way, the consumers are able to establish a tradition of understanding their cancer disease. This enables them to have a relevant attitude towards the medics and the cancer disease itself, hence they have ability to improve on the quality given by the cancer centre (McCulloch, 2003).
The promotional advice received by the consumers will enable them to adopt behavioural skills that provide them with solutions. This will enable them to add knowledge on how to control the stressors, any social problems, and any form of substance abuse. These indicators are mostly providing a connection between the primary nurses (attendants) and the consumers to ensure that the quality is improved. The turnout rate by the consumers to the cancer centre on any appointment day is based on the external indicator that encourages consumers to be self-driven. The consumers also are able to have regular visits to the cancer centre through the external indicators hence minimising the adverse risks in their medical condition. The suggestions given by the consumers on how to improve the quality services offered should be followed up to ensure that there has been a change.
References
McCulloch, E. A. (2003). The Ontario Cancer Institute: successes and reverses. New York:
McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP.
Tobias, J., & Hochhauser, D. (2010). Cancer and Its Management. New York: John Wiley
and Sons.
