Quality Indicators in Healthcare

This assignment explores the variations in quality standards for home and long-term healthcare by examining quality indicators (QIs). It analyzes national data on home care services, highlighting positive outcomes like timely treatment and medication instruction, as well as areas needing improvement such as patient mobility and bathing assistance. The analysis also compares long-term care outcomes, emphasizing the need for transparency, better incentives, and error prevention within healthcare systems. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of collaboration between home health and long-term care to enhance patient safety and quality.

Running head: DISCUSSION
A review on quality indicators in healthcare
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1DISCUSSION
Quality Indicators (QIs) are developed and maintained as a response to address the need
for accessible and multidimensional quality measures, which can be utilized to gage the
performance in health care facilities (Anhang Price et al., 2014). This essay will illustrate the
variations in quality standards for home and long-term health care.
An analysis of the home care national data indicates that the home health team provided
treatment in a timely manner (93.4%), efficiently taught the patients about the drug medications
(97.5%), often checked risks associated with patient falls (99.5%), diagnosed depression (98%)
and gave foot care to diabetic patients (97%). However, the rates of patient betterment while
walking or moving (71.3%) around or bathing were moderate (74.4%). There was less number of
hospital admissions (16.7%).
On the other hand, long term hospital care showed better health outcomes (177 score) and
a moderate number of no differences (66 score) among patients. However, the score for patients
for worse health outcomes were quite high (167 score). As a healthcare executive my primary
role would be to ensure transparency of the healthcare programs, better incentives for the
beneficiaries, abolishment of faulty systems that lead to medication errors and designing of safer
health systems to prevent any adverse events.
Thus, collaboration between home health and long term care would generate awareness
on patient safety and health quality issues. This will lead to greater scrutiny from public,
purchasers and regulators (Briggs, Cruickshank & Paliadelis, 2012). Adoption of zero payment
policies for serious reportable events that could have been avoided would improve the quality
and eliminate errors.

2DISCUSSION
References
Anhang Price, R., Elliott, M. N., Zaslavsky, A. M., Hays, R. D., Lehrman, W. G., Rybowski,
L., ... & Cleary, P. D. (2014). Examining the role of patient experience surveys in
measuring health care quality. Medical Care Research and Review, 71(5), 522-554.
Briggs, D., Cruickshank, M., & Paliadelis, P. (2012). Health managers and health
reform. Journal of Management & Organization, 18(5), 641-658.