Healthcare Quality: Factors, Strategies, and Challenges Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of healthcare quality (HCQ), emphasizing the critical roles of clearer accountability and effective communication in enhancing patient safety and improving overall care delivery. It begins by defining HCQ and outlining its core functions and d...Read More

HCQ

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Factors related to the quality and safety health service provision..........................................1
Key efforts or strategies in strengthening the two factors......................................................2
Identification of challenges related to selected two factors....................................................4
Way of addressing challenges for maximising continuous improvement..............................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Healthcare quality (HCQ) refers to procedures that improve delivery of carer services,
optimize value and increase outputs with the help of leading activities. It includes various core
quality functions like regulatory & accreditation, accountability & quality review, process &
performance improvement, health data analytics and care transitions & population health.
However, healthcare quality consist number of domains such as effective, health care centred,
timely, efficient, equitable and safe that should be considered to improve HCQ (Lizaur-Utrilla
and et. al., 2016). Moreover, it is very important to establish effective quality systems and
clinical practices in order to improve patient experiences. The present report will focus on clear
accountability and effective communication between practitioners & patients and within
organisations that can consist timely reporting mechanism along with no blame culture. It will
also include strategies in strengthening the two factors and relevant challenges that raised in
health and social care. The way of addressing determined relevant challenges for increasing
improvement in continuous manner is given below.
MAIN BODY
Factors related to the quality and safety health service provision
Healthcare quality can be described as establishing effective policies and procedures that
facilitate to increase effectiveness of care facilities along with improving patient experiences. It
includes the criterion of managing required resources and utilisation of appropriate system which
provide support to improve clinical outcomes. However, it is essential to organise desired
training and learning sessions for care practitioners which helps to increase their capabilities in
respect of performing their tasks more carefully (Kuhar and et. al., 2018). It will facilitate to
reduce chance of occurring drugs errors and other relevant mistakes which helps to improve
patient outcomes respectively. Moreover, quality improvement techniques should be establish at
different levels such as level of organisation or system or team or individual itself. Quality and
safety improvement are two very important factors that should be considered for increasing
overall clinical efficiencies which are explained further –
Clearer Accountability – This can be considered as an aspect related to responsibility of
care providers which states that if a professional is associated with specific patient, then they
should be responsible for any kind of related outcomes. It consist the fact that connected carer is
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considered to be remain accountable for positive or negative outcomes of a sick person.
However, it is necessary for every medical professional to focus on their actual tasks and
perform it carefully with the of help of following required rules and regulations. In addition to
this, clarifying about accountability of care professionals make them more active and careful
regarding their decisions and attempted medical practices. Meanwhile, it is also favourable to
boost up focus of care practitioners while conducting treatment procedures along with avoiding
mistakes or other errors (Gavin and et. al., 2017). Moreover, if care staff become aware about
their accountability regarding providing care to patient, then it is suitable for improving safety as
well as quality of services delivered to them.
Effective Communication – The conversation among patient and care professionals is
important to perform co-operatively for particular patient and sharing desired data is favourable
to make accurate decision about effective treatment procedure. It is essential to make an
appropriate communication at every level which is significant to make sure about safety of
patients by providing desired medication in specific amount. Meanwhile, it is important to
communicate with patient and their family members to gain relevant data about medical history
of patient which is helpful to avoid drug errors through making accurate decision about required
medication. It is responsible for increasing quality of care services along with ensuring about
patient safety. However, communication between care professionals and with patient or family is
important but proper conversation among linked organisations is also mandatory (Graffigna and
Barello, 2017). Moreover, it has been analysed that, when specific medical service is not
available at particular hospital then they will refer the patient to another care home. It is very
important to share relevant data or information of an individual at organisational level accurately
which is suitable for health of patient.
Key efforts or strategies in strengthening the two factors
The medical professionals are required to understand about their accountability regarding
patient outcomes after providing medication or treatment. It includes the main criterion of
encouraging development of healthcare sector by focussing on clear accountability and effective
communication which are helpful to deliver better quality of care facilities along with ensuring
security. However, it is necessary to determine number of problem that occur while conducting
clinical practices and develop way of solving them. Meanwhile, it has been analysed that
effective communication of care practitioners with their colleagues, patient, family members and
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other organisations is essential which facilitate to boost up quality and safety of sick people.
Moreover, the two factors including clarity of accountability and effective communication plays
an important role in delivery of better quality of medical facilities along with ensuring about
safety of them. It is necessary to utilise more effective as well as efficient strategies for
strengthening them in order to increase quality of facilities.
Strategies for strengthening clearer accountability
There are some effective strategies that should make carer understand about their
accountability towards patients and their health conditions. Initially, the strict policies and
regulations can be established for reducing abuse in health organisations which helps to enhance
clarity regarding accountability (Stojanovic and et. al., 2017). Basically, it consist to apply
technique of mapping exercise that informs appraisal of professionals ability for completing
accountability roles and helps to pinpoint the gaps along with feeding into set reasons & targets
in organisation. In addition to this, it is necessary to provide appropriate training & learning
sessions for medical practitioner to make them perfect in order to understand about clinical
procedures & practices to carrying out them in effective manner. It will boost up capabilities of
staff in respect of increasing their performance on regular basis. However, management of staff
working shifts and make them aware regarding strict actions against them for attempting any
kind of mistake or errors will makes them responsible towards their work. It is necessary to make
them understand that they are accountable for critical condition of patient so that they should
perform their duty with more concentration. Additionally, the legal framework & judicial
system, operating processes & administrative regulations and ethical norms can be applied for
strengthening factor of clearer accountability and improving safety & quality of services. The
system of country regarding healthcare includes federal, state & territory and local system that
can be improved by betterment of quality & safety. Federal system can provide more funds to
state level health sector who put efforts to boost up various services at local level system
including public hospitals, ambulance service and training to professionals for strengthening
clearer accountability.
Strategies for strengthening effective communication
Effective communication has an another phrase of sharing desired information about an
individual which helps to make accurate decision making of their treatment process. It includes
the fact that conversation is required to be appropriate at every level like between colleagues,
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among different hospitals, carers to patient & their family etc. Basically, it has been analysed that
efficient communication is helpful to provide better quality of care facilities to patient for their
wellness and increase safety of them as well (Orom, 2016). Firstly, utilisation of simple language
by medical practitioners is suitable to easily and clearly communicate with patient in order to
collect required information about them. Secondly, it is necessary to make conversation precisely
& clearly to save time and focus on care planning which facilitate to deliver better quality of
medical services to a sick person for their well-being. Thirdly, communicating with open ended
questions is helpful to gather more appropriate information from patients and their family
members.
On the other hand, utilisation of advanced technology can be done for reporting
mechanism through which professionals can report about patient's condition to their superior.
However, technological software system should established in healthcare organisation which are
helpful to share information at organisational level about specific patient while referring them to
another care home for further treatment (Braithwaite, Matsuyama and Johnson, 2017). Moreover,
effective information system should be update with advanced software or applications in order to
record, store, process and proceed data related to particular person for further treatment.
Meanwhile, it is necessary for care professionals to understand facial expressions and meaning of
non verbal signs for sharing data. Furthermore, these strategies are favourable for strengthening
the factor of effective communication in terms of increasing quality of services and safety of
people. Federal system is helpful to provide funds to state system to adopt new & advanced
technology for effective communication and provide it local healthcare departments.
Implementation of innovative technological system at different levels provide support to
strengthening the factor of effective communication that facilitate improvement of quality &
safety.
Identification of challenges related to selected two factors
The clearer accountability and effective communication can be considered as an
important aspects for improving quality of care as well as safety of patient. It is observed that
there are several relevant challenges which are required to be determine and put efforts to solve
them immediately in healthcare sector.
Challenges related to clearer accountability
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Continuous working shifts – The continuous working shifts is an issue that create due to
lack of sufficient staff members to deal with number of patients which develop a challenge for
care professionals. It create the problem for medical practitioners that they are required work for
continuous 12 hours shifts in which they are not much capable to deal with patient carefully in
their second continuous working hours. Moreover, working for continuous shifts due to
insufficient staff is a challenge for clearer accountability.
Extra work load – In an organisation, the problem of extra work load takes place due to
lack of staff members. It develops the additional workload on employees and they get
disappointed. It is a main reason to arisen the problems such as mental stress, depression and
other things. In order to overcome from this problem, there is a need to professionals to hire the
talented or qualified employees and also divide the work on the basis of their capabilities.
Challenges related to effective communication
Lack of advanced technology – The communication at organisational level can be done
accurately with the help of effective technology because verbal information get modified. It
includes the problem of accuracy of data which can be reduced while it will be transferred from
one individual to another that is not suitable for treatment decision. In the healthcare, lack of
advanced technology creates issue in communication through email, video conferencing,
phones, texts etc. On the other hand, it is necessary for professionals to keeping up with the
communication related regulations and also upgrade infrastructure as per the new demand.
Unconscious state of patient – The unconscious state is problematic for care practitioners
because they are not able to communicate with patient regarding their state of health. It is
necessary to gather data by communicating effectively with an individual that helps to make
appropriate decision of medication. However, unconscious state of an individual is a challenge to
factor of effective communication in context of increase quality and safety in healthcare.
Way of addressing challenges for maximising continuous improvement
The challenges associated with effective conversation and clearer accountability should
be identified in order to establishing solving techniques for improving safety and quality in
healthcare. Considering above mentioned challenges, methods of solving them to maximise
continuous improvement are given below.
Managing working shifts – The management of working shifts in such a manner to reduce
time of initial shift and providing rest time between two continuous shifts will be helpful to
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reduce the issue. It is favourable for them to regain their focus & get rid of their tiredness and
become ready to next working shift. It will facilitate to increase their capability which is suitable
to deal with patients easily and increase continuous improvements (Lee, 2017).
Provide training to deal with extra work – The effective learning should be provide to
staff members for increasing their skills and abilities to manage additional work load in
appropriate manner.
Adopt new technology – The health organisations should invest money to adopt new &
advanced technological machines and software along with providing training to employees for
using the same properly. It is helpful to communicate at individual, team and organisational level
accurately to share desired information.
Communicate with family – The unconscious state of patient create a problem of not
gathering information about them which is important for decision of treatment. It can be solved
by communicating with their family members for gaining desired knowledge about an individual
which helps in providing appropriate medication to them for making them well.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that healthcare quality can be described as
implementation of effective clinical practices in order to boost up quality of medical services
deliver to patients for their better health condition. It includes two factors including clearer
accountability and effective communication that are required to be focus in terms of increasing
quality of medical facilities as well as safety of sick people admitted in hospital. Moreover, it
consist relevant challenges such as continuous working shifts, extra work load, lack of advanced
technology and unconscious state of patient. Additionally, these challenges have their own
respective solutions including managing working shifts, provide training to deal with extra work,
adopt new technology and communicate with family.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Braithwaite, J., Matsuyama, Y., & Johnson, J. (2017). Healthcare reform, quality and safety:
perspectives, participants, partnerships and prospects in 30 countries. CRC Press.
Gavin, L. & et. al., (2017). New clinical performance measures for contraceptive care: their
importance to healthcare quality. Contraception. 96(3). 149-157.
Graffigna, G., & Barello, S. (2017). The value of measuring patient engagement in healthcare:
new frontiers for healthcare quality. In Healthcare Ethics and Training: Concepts,
Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 1268-1290). IGI Global.
Kuhar, D. & et. al., (2018). Healthcare infection control practices advisory committee
(HICPAC).
Lee, D. (2017). HEALTHQUAL: a multi-item scale for assessing healthcare service
quality. Service Business. 11(3). 491-516.
Lizaur-Utrilla, A. & et. al., (2016). Early surgery within 2 days for hip fracture is not reliable as
healthcare quality indicator. Injury. 47(7). 1530-1535.
Orom, H. (2016). Nativity and perceived healthcare quality. Journal of immigrant and minority
health. 18(3). 636-643.
Stojanovic, J. & et. al., (2017). Modeling healthcare quality via compact representations of
electronic health records. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and
Bioinformatics (TCBB). 14(3). 545-554.
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