Risk and Quality Management Tools
Introduction
Health care industry is one of the most prominent landscapes internationally that desires effective management strategies to ensure its primary purpose to individuals and also other social associations. The central concept behind the effective management of healthcare services draws the importance of establishing a practical connection between recipients and healthcare providers. Management tools deter the complexity encountered in processes of care provision thus facilitating the attainment of core goals in a health organization. Hughes (2008) argues that risk and quality improvement plays a significant role in preventing medical errors as a result of system failures that highly favor care effectiveness and efficiency. Quality encompasses a lot of important concerns given the need for the attainment of the basic standards contained by the healthcare amenities. The analysis of management tools is easily persuaded to develop an understanding of the necessary assistances towards risk and quality governance for patient protection. Importantly, the commonly used measures in the account for risk and quality planning in healthcare landscape involve exploration and performance assessment techniques meant to establish a relevant background in favor of care quality (Hughes, 2008).
Quality Improvement
The contemporary conceptualization of health care services underlines the need for a patient-oriented rather than an institutionally based working system. This denotes the need for effective quality management initiatives intended to cause an improvement in service delivery in the healthcare diligence considering the essential role played by the industry across the world. According to Hughes (2008), quality health care can be described as the reliability and also the validity of health services in regards to the accomplishment of the industry's purposes. It depicts the lamentation for increased outcomes and consistency of provided health services in response to the long-lasting advancement of the medical industry.
Quality improvement projects the establishment of constant and efficient actions able to establish a significant step up of health care services. It at the same time enhances healthcare conditions of specified patient groups. For instance, the number of individuals seeking medical assistance in the contemporary community has often increased and so, the need for quality improvement with the likelihood of keeping and sustaining the purpose of healthcare amenities. Quality Improvement (QI) denotes an active link between the degrees of service development about the nature of health outcomes. It mainly emphasizes on the process that is put in place to ensure progress efficiency and service sustainability. It importantly underlines the importance of health data through process appraisal that in due course promote the development of process improvement planning. Quality health care outlines the process of ensuring consistency and sustainability of service delivery in health institutions. It, for instance, emphasizes the appropriate use of health resources including time, professionals in regards to process assessment to boost arise of chances of registering logical outcomes (McLaughlin & Kaluzny, 2006)
Healthcare industry has gradually experienced some significant transformations that undermine the regular understanding of quality improvement as the positioned method of working things out in any other organization. Conversely, quality in health care calls for critical employee understanding of health care involvedness, intention, data, process assessment and teamwork (Hughes, 2008). Abundant improvements have accordingly termed quality performance in healthcare facilities as the efficiency, logicality of care by the level of patient satisfaction. Arguably, quality relates to the viability of positioned delivery approach in the sense that it measures the compatibility of care systems to increased performance. For this reason, the health care industry demands commitment from all clusters of employees including managers and clinicians to enhance the implementation of well-versed changes for quality improvement.
As mentioned earlier, healthcare landscape registers complexity of varying effects hence the need to establish transformational changes through the incorporation of a current operating system for improved performance. The efficiency of a quality improvement highlights distinct specifications including systems and service processes, patient’s desires, team work and health data with each design characterizing its likelihood for causing improvement in certain areas.
Systems and Processes
System and process for quality improvement exemplify the importance of categorizing services into delivery systems and encompassed processes. The ideology clarifies appropriate utilization of care resources such as inputs and proper allocation of activities in regards to the accompanying processes for the improvement of care quality. Categorization of activities into their respective schemes and methods has a significant assistance to quality enhancement considering that it minimizes misappropriation of resources such as time and professionalism.
Patient’s needs
It is the role of the quality improvement program to guarantee patients consistency of high-quality services. The program is oriented towards the accomplishment of purposes which underlines the need to make patients proud by providing the best services that meet their desires and expectations when seeking for medical assistance. Patient safety is a critical principle in the healthcare industry considering that every individual expects the best from our services with efficiency. Professionalism is of importance to retaining patient trust towards our services, and so every employee is urged to utilize care expertise by medical advancement.
Team work
The healthcare industry encourages the establishment of a sustainable employee to employee relationships. Teamwork is one of the practical approaches to improved quality in the industry basing to its assistance of lessening the complexity of care provision. Working as a group ensures delivery perfection by getting higher system capabilities. It is the source of quantifiable expertise in all care systems since it incorporates different aspects of professionalism such as skills and knowledge within the institution. Experience is diverse among the employees particularly in the healthcare landscape hence the need for unfailing association. Nevertheless, joint effort facilitates the broadening of professional horizons through innovation. For instance, the nature of services in this industry often encompasses challenging problems demanding strategic and immediate exploration techniques which arise easily with sufficient employee cooperation (Spitzer & Ellsbury, 2010).
Data
Notably, sustainability of quality improvement is usually dependent on data reliability. As a result, employees are expected to one's aptitude to data responsiveness to ensure system continuance. It is important to note that health care is governed to validate the compatibility of systems in regards to evidence-based descriptions hence the need for employee compliance (In Harris, 2016).
Risk Management
The concept of risk management highlights the need for the establishment of sufficient governance arrangement to put at rests the likelihood of care complexity. It is thus important for new coming employees to know that healthcare industry is an uncertain landscape considering it exposes both the staff and patients at unpredictable risks. On the other hand, the uncertainty of care provision risks delicates the eligibility of a health organization hence the need for employees to respect the set control plans. Risk management of the comprehensive services of our industry is meant to maintain patient safety (Youngberg, 2011).
The emergence of potential risks in the healthcare industry occurs in multifaceted situations, and so, employees are expected to adhere to protection measures as indicated by the governing team to minimize the effects of such unpredictability. For instance, risk situations may be experienced in all inclusive fields including the clinical and operational fields hence the need for confidentiality among the employees concerning the goal of the health industry.
According to Youngberg (2011), the operating principle of the healthcare industry is to reduce the enduring fear developed against the success of some certain operations. Employees, for instance, clinical and operational attendants need to understand that the primary goal of a healthcare organization is the assurance of patient safety. Employee loyalty towards goal attainment is therefore required in all fields in spite of operational nature in particular attachments. Also, the healthcare industry is liable for the acquirement of patient satisfaction which limits employees from developing desires for personal interests.
Prevention is a basic principle of operation considering that it curbs the delicacy of unpredictable interventions. The industry thus expects employees to put into consideration some of the intensified control mechanisms such as departmental coordination, educational programs and strategic documentation of process continuance to eliminate ambiguity during care provision. Also, employee confidentiality is expected in any instances indicating risk potentiality hence employees are conditioned to address any incident requiring corrective measures to their responsive departments before holding action rectification.
Information on decision-making processes
Healthcare managers encounter different forms difficulties such as moral, authoritative and organizational challenges during decision-making processes. Like any other industry, the healthcare industry is as well exposed to economic and technical transformations which highly impact the planning processes. Decision-Making often introduces new or modified operational measures which include different forms of impact to both the employees and extensively to organizational performance.
However, employee participation is required from time to time during the decision making process. The first step of decision making introduces identification and definition of the problem a step that is dependent on the effectiveness managerial exploration techniques (Youngberg, 2013). It analyzes errors in regards to the proportionality of potential recreation measures. Problem definition leads to criteria formulation which establishes and directs the initial stages of decision making. Importantly, a criterion helps the categorization of desired decisions in respect to practice maintenance and changes to be made as far as regulation and persistence of identified problem are concerned.
Categorization heads the evaluation of high-flying and current alternatives. The step is helpful for any decision-making process since it enables the managerial team to come up with the best alternative that can control problem persistence. Extensively, alternative consideration facilitates the identification of any potential factor that may bring about a negative intervention to the implementation of the concluded choice before the development of an action plan.
Development of an action plan involves the determination of processes and strategies viable for effective implementation of the made decision. It as well enables identification of resources necessary to cause effective implementation of a management plan. It is important for an organization to monitor often progress of the implemented plan to detect its compatibility towards performance. Monitoring enables immediate development of prevention plans in case of plan incompatibility hence curbing chances for problem regeneration in future.
Challenges in Making Risk and Quality Management Decisions in the Health Care Industry
The complexity of health care industry imposes significant impact to decision making processes for risk and quality management. It is important to note that any made decision has diverse effects on patients' health and safety. Doubt n performance of the made decision is a major aspect that highly challenge managerial planning of both risk and quality management in the health care industry. Every decision made translates to momentous changes within the health organization. Doubt among the decision makers leads to uncertainty since appropriateness of made decisions is valued in regards to its efficiency towards performance.
Patient perception has a close impact on decision making considering that managerial planning in health care landscape is focused to the contentment of patient expectations. This complexes the planning process since patient aspirations must critically be put into consideration for a healthcare provider to ascertain the effectiveness of a particular delivery system. Lack of patient cooperation hinders the acquirement of sufficient data hence deterring the making of wealthy decisions (Eisenberg, 1997).
Risk and Quality Management Tool
Risk management tool is often used as a supportive approach towards the practical realization of a risk management program (Bialek, Duffy, & Moran, 2009). The tool emphasizes the use of different forms of assistance including employee support as an effective approach to reducing risk persistence thus improving service safety. For instance, employee engagement facilitates the establishment of a reliable feedback system from which regular reporting of medical errors is evidenced thus creating a safety culture. Employee engagement significantly promotes prevention of medical errors since employee involvement in various management levels acts as a protective learning process that boosts service performance.
Risk and Quality Management is reliant on multifaceted forms of tools including charts, devices or even particular techniques with practical capabilities of quality improvement. The following is an illustration of some instruments that can be used as risk and quality planning tools in a health care organization.
Purpose of the Tool
According to Varkey et al. (2007), health care industry has over time continued to emphasize the implementation of systems that can enhance quality assurance and control. Risk and quality tool should be able to detect and suggest the appropriate changes on a medical defect. It should also recognize potential effects of the projected transformation to ensure proportionality of process improvement (Varkey et al., 2007). In response to Varkey et al. (2007), Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is used in the health care industry for risk and quality planning in individual based healthcare organizations. The key principle of RCA involves risk exploration and formulation of strategic problem-solving measures towards quality improvement. Its major purpose entails problem classification in regards to its causes and other factors that facilitated the existence of that particular problem.
Advantages
The primary attribute of RCA is its capability to classify problems into their respective sources in a particular health care organization (Shanley et al. 2007). The tool offers detailed information on the origin of a problem hence enhancing the formulation of prevention measures. Its exploration capabilities based on problem origin offers a range of the possible alternatives for organizational change hence lessening the complexity incurred during decision making. Nevertheless, RCA is used as an immediate source of logical information that is used to weigh the compatibility of solutions about problem causes and potential effects of the recommended changes.
Disadvantages
RCA is an institution based management tool and fails to put into consideration planning models used by other institutions in the healthcare industry hence limiting information validity. RCA limits information sharing from one institution to another since it analyzes problems encompassed at individual amenities for fear of public scrutiny (Shanley et al. 2007)
References
Bialek, R. G., Duffy, G. L., & Moran, J. W. (2009). The public health quality improvement handbook. Milwaukee, Wis: ASQ Quality Press.
Eisenberg, J. (1997). Statement on Health Care Research and Quality Improvement. President’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry, Quality Improvement Environment Subcommittee. November, 18.
Hughes, R. G. (2008). Tools and strategies for quality improvement and patient safety.
In Harris, J. L., In Roussel, L., & In Thomas, P. L. (2016). Initiating and sustaining the clinical nurse leader role: A practical guide.
McLaughlin, C. P., & Kaluzny, A. D. (2006). Continuous quality improvement in health care. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett.
Reed, J. E., & Card, A. J. (2016). The problem with Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles. BMJ Quality & Safety, 25(3), 147–152. http://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2015-005076 Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4789701/
Shanley, T. P., Wheeler, D. S., & Wong, H. R. (2007). Pediatric critical care medicine: Basic science and clinical evidence. London: Springer.
Spitzer, A. R., & Ellsbury, D. L. (2010). Quality improvement in neonatal and perinatal medicine. Philadelphia: Saunders.
Stamatis, D. H. (2014). The ASQ pocket guide to failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA).
Varkey, P., Reller, K. & Resar, K. R. (2007). Basics of Quality Improvement in Health Care. Mayo Clin Proc.
Youngberg, B. J. (2011). Principles of risk management and patient safety. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Youngberg, B. J. (2013). Patient safety handbook. Sudbury, Mass: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
