Essay Sample on Increasing Healthcare Performance Gap: Complexities and Requirements

Introduction

Procedures that are incompetent as well as variable, differences in healthcare providers experience and education, the health insurance amongst other numerous factors hugely contribute to the increasing gap between the current and the desired healthcare performance (Counte, 2013). Furthermore, as a result of the complex nature concerning the patient outcomes improvements and the various requirements for qualified personnel and the substantial conditions for sustaining a constant and efficient quality improvement program with sustained patient satisfaction, it is undeniable that the healthcare system is often overwhelmed (Berman et al., 2015). The healthcare quality is adequately defined as the extent to which the healthcare delivery services for various distinct groups of patients improve the probability of the desired healthcare outcomes and are consistent with the current professional expertise. Healthcare delivery performance, on the other hand, refers to the adequate quality care to ensure health benefits, the use of scarce resources in an effective way as well as the facilities that can adapt and learn to improve for the future significantly. Concerning this, the chief aim of this paper is to assess the ability of the "Mary Free Bed Hospital" to deliver safe and high-quality patient care which is a growing concern at the facility that has recently been operating at a lower level than it should be leading to unsuccessful patient satisfaction. As such, it will also provide a gap analysis to identify the gaps between the professional qualifications and the facility healthcare strategies that all contributes to performance standards and operations of the facility (Lucas, Bulbul & Anumba, 2017). Typically, the failure to accomplish the desired healthcare safety and effective patient care can significantly lead to adverse consequences that can be in the form of legal, reimbursement or even regulatory impacts.

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Appraising the culture of any healthcare institution is of great importance to identify the effectiveness of the healthcare systems that forms critical aspects and play a prominent role in improving the delivery services. Ideally, the assessment substantially assists an organization to channel the necessary resources towards creating and managing the service delivery mechanisms that primarily results in efficient health improving strategies to the people in need (Lucas, Bulbul & Anumba, 2017). For the "Mary Free Bed Hospital," operational, competent and equitable health service delivery is a priority for the entire facility including the management and the staff members. Service delivery is primarily acknowledged as the critical goal through which the organization's health systems provide excellent healthcare, patient satisfaction and financial utilization (Lucas, Bulbul & Anumba, 2017). Analyzing the quality assessment and safety outcomes from both the administrative and operations perspective of the organization is that based on the nature of their education while considering the issue of healthcare quality the executive and the healthcare professionals are enormously accustomed to factors like signs of assessable medical improvement. For the patients, and mainly because they have considerably less knowledge regarding medical, they are more focused on whether the practices of the healthcare providers are congruent with their expectations and this makes up a fundamental component of patient satisfaction.

Based on the health system perspective, the significance of assessing the healthcare quality is to identify the impacts of health care on the desired performance and to evaluate the extent to which the healthcare facility adheres to scientific based evidence and is inconsistent with the patient preferences (Counte, 2013). However, in spite of the much progress concerning the improved interventions through more funds and technology, the facility still experiences significant challenges that indicate the absolute requirement for reform (Hughes, 2014). Specific systematic problems that have inflicted the hospital, which is strongly affiliated with adverse quality and safety outcomes can be attributed to the growing tensions primarily coming from the continually declining morale among the healthcare workers, high costs of healthcare services and the regulatory pressures. These problems are mainly the primary cause of a lagging healthcare system performance affecting the quality and healthcare outcomes.

Additionally, it is also striking that even with more advancements in technology and cost-effective interventions, the gap between the current and the desired patient outcomes continues to grow and thus excellent healthcare financing schemes and practical strategies to improve services delivery are certainly needed (Counte, 2013). In essence, exclusive of improvement in the performance by refining service delivering, the organization cannot achieve potential gains in health outcomes even from the enhanced funding and technologies (Hughes, 2014). The urgent need to improve the service delivery can adequately be termed as the significant gap between what the current resources can accomplish and what the facility desires to achieve accurately. Notable examples that can be used to illustrate such gaps include the low-level coverage of life-saving services although there is the adequate capacity to offer the coverage, lack of enough drugs and some hospital supplies even after they have been purchased as well as poor attendance of trained professionals to their assigned roles.

Notably, most of these problems mainly stem from the health system or process failure, and thus it is vital for the facility to adopt different improvement strategies to determine the preventable errors and the various inefficiencies in the provision of care services that in turn leads to significant changes within the healthcare system. Notable examples of strategies that would help the organization to advance the quality and healthcare safety include the root cause analysis, plan-do study Act and the Six Sigma strategy (Hughes, 2014). However, among the many proposed strategies for significant changes one of the most considerable policies would be to plan do study Act whose primary aim is to contribute positive changes within the healthcare processes (Counte, 2013). One advantage associated with this model concerning the quality improvement efforts is that it provides a functional relationship between the changes in processes and the desired outcomes.

Specific organizational policies, functions and procedure have sufficiently been used by the respective administration to respond to the poor performance in service delivery along with an extensive range of innovative strategies (Counte, 2013). These policies and processes include implementing new technologies for effective logistics and information storage and scaling up essential investments regarding drugs and other supplies, private-based partnerships and the community health workers.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the primary goal of this essay was to analyze the gap existing between the current and the desired health care performance at the "Mary Free Bed Hospital," to aid in fostering excellent strategies towards improved service delivery and patient outcomes. Besides, bringing the gap between the current and the desired healthcare performance or instead improving the health service delivery is an obligation for all healthcare facilities, which would in turn help in accomplishing important and quality outcomes where more resources and technology advances are not sufficient. As such, the institution's policymakers and the practitioners have also too significantly strengthened their efforts the right strategies and pursuing them successfully.

References

Berman, P., Pallas, S., Smith, A. L., Curry, L., & Bradley, E. H. (2015). Improving the delivery of health services: A guide to choosing strategies.

Counte, M. A. (2013). Health Care Quality Assessment. Global Health Education Consortium.Hughes, R. G. (2014). Tools and strategies for quality improvement and patient safety. In Patient safety and quality: An evidence-based handbook for nurses. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US).

Lucas, J., Bulbul, T., & Anumba, C. (2017). Gap analysis on the ability of guidelines and standards to support the performance of healthcare facilities. Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, 27(6), 748-755.