Standards in Healthcare: Improving Patient Outcomes in the US

This essay discusses the vital role of standards in the US healthcare system, emphasizing their importance in meeting desired performance levels, safeguarding patient conditions, ensuring safe practices, integrating technology, and promoting ethical conduct. It reflects on past organizational experiences, highlighting the significance of safe practices, documentation, and accountability. The essay identifies the need for improvement in meeting desired healthcare performance levels due to increased health burdens and proposes solutions such as enhanced training, collaborative opportunities, and continuous competency improvement. The ultimate goal is to achieve positive clinical outcomes and improve community health by maintaining adequate competency and ensuring accountability. Desklib offers a wealth of resources, including past papers and solved assignments, to support students in their academic pursuits.

RUNNING HEAD: Standards in Healthcare System
Standards Vital in US Healthcare System
RUNNING HEAD: Standards in Healthcare System
Student Name
18 May 2019

Standards Vital in US Healthcare System
Top reasons illustrating standards are vital in the US healthcare system
In this section, the discussion is based on top reasons which illustrates standards are vital in US
healthcare system. “To meet the desired level of performance” - The increasingly competitive
healthcare system in the US demands professionals to have optimum competency level and
problem-solving skills. The objective of implementing standards to ensure improve the quality of
care and delivering consistent (efficient and effective) care. “Safeguard patient condition and
clinical outcomes” - According to the report of Nelson et al. (2015), the healthcare industry in
the US follows the conceptual model of healthcare delivery, having good elements of service,
quality, and resource stewardship. The standards are thus vital because they ensure improved
patient outcome (physically and mentally), and recognizes the empirical partnership between
healthcare professionals and patients. “Ensuring safe practices, documentation, and
accountability” - The objectives of implementing standards also ensure that patient care will be
based on best practices, evidence-based, and include collaboration between interdisciplinary
professionals. Further, documentation such as patient record, consent, and confidentiality is a
regulatory requirement. The accountability refers to team cohesion, partnership, and effective
delegation positive health outcomes can be achieved. “Integration of technology and cost-
effectiveness” - Standards also insist on change management, strategies to bring cost-
effectiveness, reducing financial burden onto patients, and maximizing health outcomes they
using technological innovations into practices. “Ensuring ethical practices” - The corrective
measures, transparency, positivity, and ethical practices are of high value in the healthcare
system. Particularly in the US, the practice must be corruption-free, in the public interest, and
ensure achievement of quality of life (Elshaug et al., 2017). Standards are necessary for bringing
the ethical concept into implementation.
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Standards Vital in US Healthcare System
The vital standard of previous organization and its influence
Based on the experience from previous organization, “ensuring safe practices,
documentation, and accountability”, was the most vital standard. The ideology is to maintain a
uniform protocol, in conjunction with all the associated departments in the healthcare institution.
For example, the surgeon and nurses are required to use evidence-based practices and render
proper documentation for every case. As a matter of fact, the documentation can be used as a
reference for future similar cases, search education for new staff, and used for further analysis.
The role of implementing the standard in this context is to use practical skills for documentation,
using standard terminologies, transfer of patient information according to the schedule of duty,
and ensuring patient safety.
The standards assist the organization for team management, helps in adopting safe
staffing practices, developing strategies for delegate tasks to licensed and unlicensed
professionals, and ensure adequate documentation. Additionally, it also helps in creating policies
for new technology such as handling social media, confidentiality for patient records, and align
the practices according to health insurance portability and accountability act. These standards of
practices are of high importance, as according to the report of Lewis et al. (2017), violating the
professional standard can expose the professionals as well as organization to liability and loss of
licensure. On the contrary, the standards guarantee that clinical decisions and actions remain
accountable and well-documented. Likewise, it also ensures that professionals were continuously
improving their competency level to achieve the organizational objectives.
Standard that requires improvement
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Standards Vital in US Healthcare System
The standard for meeting the desired level of healthcare performance in the US requires
further improvement. The reason is associated with increased health burden among the
community members, lack of insurance coverage in economically challenged population, and
reduce the number of professionals available in response to community health demand (Batalden
et al., 2016).
Impact of standard
The standards are important because they promote and guide the clinical practices to the
professionals. It ensured that the self-evaluation tool is available and personnel can evaluate
proficiency according to the demand. Furthermore, it also assists in developing clinical
competency checklist, safe work practices, and aligns the clinical performance in accordance to
federal laws.
A proposed solution for improvement
The provision of training, collaborative opportunities, conferences, hands-on practice
workshop, and continuous improvement of competency level is the request a solution for
improvement. In order to motivate the professionals, strategies such as promotion,
acknowledgement, and reward must be implemented (Burstin, Leatherman & Goldmann, 2016).
The evaluation and reviewing of performance must be accounted on the basis of feedback from
co-workers, department head or team leader, and patients (Frayne et al., 2016). The objective of
such evaluation must be oriental to use feedback for further improvement in professional
standards. As a result, it would be effective to meet the desired performance in conjunction with
health burden of community and organizational objectives. Maintaining adequate competency
level and ensuring accountability can certainly managed to bring positive clinical outcomes and
improve the community health.
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Standards Vital in US Healthcare System
References
Batalden, M., Batalden, P., Margolis, P., Seid, M., Armstrong, G., Opipari-Arrigan, L., &
Hartung, H. (2016). Coproduction of healthcare service. BMJ Qual Saf, 25(7), 509-517.
Burstin, H., Leatherman, S., & Goldmann, D. (2016). The evolution of healthcare quality
measurement in the United States. Journal of internal medicine, 279(2), 154-159.
Elshaug, A. G., Rosenthal, M. B., Lavis, J. N., Brownlee, S., Schmidt, H., Nagpal, S., & Saini,
V. (2017). Levers for addressing medical underuse and overuse: achieving high-value
health care. The Lancet, 390(10090), 191-202.
Frayne, D. J., Verbiest, S., Chelmow, D., Clarke, H., Dunlop, A., Hosmer, J., & Zephyrin, L.
(2016). Health care system measures to advance preconception wellness: consensus
recommendations of the clinical workgroup of the National Preconception Health and
Health Care Initiative. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 127(5), 863-872.
Lewis, K. L., Bohnert, C. A., Gammon, W. L., Hölzer, H., Lyman, L., Smith, C., & Gliva-
McConvey, G. (2017). The association of standardized patient educators (ASPE)
standards of best practice (SOBP). Advances in Simulation, 2(1), 10.
Nelson, E. C., Eftimovska, E., Lind, C., Hager, A., Wasson, J. H., & Lindblad, S. (2015). Patient
reported outcome measures in practice. Bmj, 350, g7818.
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