Essay Example on Quality Care in Healthcare Systems: Improving Safety and Outcomes

The necessity for quality and safety improvement initiatives is vital in the healthcare system. Quality care is measured with the degree to which the individual health services, as well as that of the populations, increase the likelihood of getting the desired health outcomes, consistent with the current professional knowledge. As stated by Kravet et al., 2016, medical errors are caused by faulty systems and processes. It is because of having processes that are inefficient and that are variable, having a changing case mix of patients, health insurance, and the difference in the providers for education and experience. There are numerous factors in healthcare that contribute to the complexity of healthcare. With that in mind, Nunes et al. (2018) state that today's healthcare functions are at a lower level than they are supposed to be. Therefore the aim of the improvement of the healthcare systems should focus on creating useful, safe, timely, patient-centered, equitable, and efficient operations.

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In creating an effective and safe through process care measures and assessing whether the health providers are performing the desired care processes, there is a demonstrated process to the achievement and avoidance of those that are predisposed to harm (Nunes et al., 2018). The goal of measuring the quality of care in the healthcare system is to determine the effects of quality care to the desired outcomes. Since there are errors that are caused by a system failure, it is, therefore, essential to adopt some improvement techniques to be able to identify inefficiencies. The study will discuss the strategies and tools for quality improvement.

I shall focus on care coordination, which includes the deliberate organization of patient care activities and sharing of information among all the participants that are concerned inpatient care to enhance the achievement of safe and effective care. Patients' needs and preferences are known ahead of time and should be communicated at the right time to the right people. The information will, therefore, be used in the provision of safe and effective care—the main aim of having the delivery of high-quality care that is highly valuable. The patients’ needs will have to be communicated at the right time (Nunes et al., 2018). There are two ways in which we shall achieve coordinated care. One is the use of broad approaches, which are commonly used to improve delivery in the healthcare facility. Comprehensive care coordination will include encouraging teamwork, care management, managing the medication, and health information technology as well as having patient-centered medical care.

The care coordination activities include the establishment of accountability and encouraging responsibility, effective communication, and knowledge sharing, helping on the transition care, and assessment of the patient's needs and goals. There should be the creation of a proactive plan that will assist in the follow-up and monitoring of the patient’s response according to their needs. However, the application of these changes to the daily routine is overwhelming. Therefore it is essential to engage all the stakeholders in the healthcare system. First, it is necessary to know what the patient is going through in order. The patients affect the coordination of healthcare, and the nurses need to identify the needs and the available resources for the changes required.

Throughout the clinic, the workers need to have well-defined roles as the patients pass through the healthcare system. There can be the creation of titles such as care coordinators and transition coaches. This will help the avoidance of confusion to the patients (Pressman et al., 2019). The focus will be on eliminating redundancy in the workers' roles and having them well defined and easy to understand. The nurses should also learn from the outside and know what the other organizations are doing to improve care. Technology should also be appropriately coordinated and implemented as recommended.

The policymakers here will have to establish a framework within which healthcare is provided to the patients. They have to aggregate data from the patients and the healthcare providers as well as payers. The patients are also involved, as they are also taxpayers and citizens looking forward to quality healthcare (Pressman et al., 2019). The patients need access to information via electronic devices, for instance, through their phones. The payers are also vital in this initiative as they procure care services from the providers on behalf of the patients and the clinic.

Conclusion

As a result, the frontline care providers and nurses in the ambulatory setting have an excellent opportunity to understand the solutions and to understand the problems thoroughly. As an effective leader, there is a need to organize the team and articulate clear goals (Pressman et al., 2019). Decisions should be made with the team members' collective input for better prediction of needs and patient expectations. The clinicians should work as a team in both care delivery and quality improvement in the ambulatory care setting. The success depends on working together effectively and by the use of the founded principles on teamwork science.

References

Kravet, S. J., Bailey, J., Demski, R., & Pronovost, P. (2016). Establishing an ambulatory medicine quality and safety oversight structure: leveraging the fractal model. Academic Medicine, 91(7), 962-966.

Nunes, J. S., Gomes, R., Povo, A., & Alves, E. C. (2018). Quality indicators in ambulatory surgery: a literature review was comparing Portuguese and international systems. Acta Medica Portuguesa, 31(7-8), 425-430.

Pressman, A., Lockhart, S., Petersen, J., Robinson, S., Moreno, M., & Azar, K. M. (2019). Measuring Health Equity for Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions in a Large Integrated Health Care System: The Development of an Index. Health equity, 3(1), 92-98.