Healthcare Quality Assurance And Management. Management Essay

HEALTHCARE QUALITY ASSURANCE AND MANAGEMENT
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Institution
Quality healthcare is defined as the extent to which the care provided, using professional knowledge, increases the possibility of desired health outcomes. It describes the relationship between cost, quality and healthcare accessibility, and is measured with a view of eradicating problems caused by overuse, underuse and misuse of health resources.
Six aims of promoting quality healthcare
The six aims of promoting quality healthcare as outlined by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and Institute of Medicine (IOM) are as follows: Safe: Deals with eliminating harm to patients from the care that is meant to help them. Effective: States that service, based on scientific knowledge, should be limited to only those who are likely to benefit from them. It stresses the need to avoid misuse or underuse of care. Patient-centered: Outlines that care should be responsive and respectful of an individual’s preferences, values and needs. This should guide all clinical decision pertaining to care of the individual.
Timely: It highlights the need to reduce the waiting time and harmful delays for patients and providers. Efficient: It stresses the need to limit the wastage of healthcare resources like supplies, equipment and energy. Equitable: Stresses that care provided should not vary but be of standard quality for all. Individuals should not be discriminated based on gender, ethnicity, socio-economical status or geographical location.
Assessment and management of the six aims
These aims can be accessed through measures from standardized models such as The Donabedian Model that highlights three main categories for gathering information about quality care; “structure”, “process” and “outcome”. Structure describes the context of care given including hospital buildings It highlights the systems in place and the capacity of the healthcare institution. Process describes the ability of care givers to provide high quality care and actions that they may take to improve community health. “Outcome” deals with the impact of the intervention by a care giver CITATION Tze15 \l 1033 (Tzelepis,F.,Sanson-Fisher,R.W.,Zucca,A.C.,&Fradgley,E.A, 2015).
The assessment occurs at both personal and population levels. Personal level is the micro level that deals with care at the point of delivery while population/macro level concerns indicators such as infant mortality rates, life expectancy, incidence and prevalence of specific medical conditions.
Safe pertains to avoidance of medical mistakes. These may include; surgical mishaps, drug interactions, skin breakdowns and hospital acquired infections (HAIs). Most of these mistakes are preventable through effectiveness. Effectiveness would greatly enhance the safety of patients if there is adherence to the guidelines of best care practices. This would enhance better outcomes like low readmission rates. Patient-centered deals with addressing the needs of patients both emotionally and spiritually. The care should also help alleviate fear and anxiety pertaining t...