Healthcare quality has been a point of contention for many years. Americans want to have access to quality care, but many fears the risk and costs that come with it. In 2016, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) included provisions to improve the quality of care provided. Many programs, such as accountable care organizations (ACOs), have helped improve the quality of healthcare. While ACOs have been successful, room for improvement still exists.
Healthcare quality is one of the most important things patients look for when choosing a doctor. Most healthcare clients prefer a doctor who provides quality care. They want to know if the health care provider is friendly and attentive, knowledgeable and experienced, not judgmental, and most importantly if they will be their doctor for life.
The following are the best practice to improve healthcare quality.
Research other organizations and collaborate
Collaboration in healthcare organizations is a hot topic. Health organizations have been struggling with rising costs, so they need to find ways to fund their programs. Meanwhile, patients need access to the best care available, and sometimes the best care is delivered by organizations outside of healthcare organizations. Collaboration between healthcare organizations and other institutions-such as industry, government, and academia-is one way to offer our patients the best quality care.
Communicate goals and progress
Communication is the cornerstone of quality healthcare. Effective communication between doctors, patients, and family members/caregivers promotes positive patient outcomes. It is important to set a course of action understood by the individuals involved. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has identified communicating goals and progress in healthcare as one of the best healthcare practices.
Become familiar with the PDSA cycle
The PDSA cycle is a quality improvement methodology that tests various changes to a process or procedure to determine if a change leads to an improvement and if it is worth sustaining. The cycle is named after its four main elements: Plan, Do, Study, and Act. The Plan includes:
- Creating an overall improvement objective.
- Defining the factors that need to be studied.
- Brainstorming potential solutions.
Next, the Do phase involves implementing the improvement and measuring results. Finally, the Study phase involves gathering data to assess the improvement, while the third step, Act, involves decisions on whether to sustain the improvement or terminate the cycle.
Create an executable plan
Effectively implementing and testing a quality improvement plan has proven difficult in many organizations. However, there are best practices for implementing an effective plan, and committing to getting quality right the first time, can positively impact an organization’s bottom line. Healthcare institutions could also employ services to provide them with medical practice management solutions. They analyze the current setup and output of your organization and suggest ways to improve the process.
Create a balanced team
The creation of balanced teams is one of the best practices to improve healthcare quality. According to The American Nurses Credentialing Center, balanced teams are “organizational units in which everyone has a clearly defined role, and each person’s contributions are valued.” Nurses who assume leadership roles are often responsible for developing team structures and supporting team members in their roles.
Maintaining Hygiene
In the healthcare industry, providing the highest standard of cleanliness is of utmost importance. However, it is estimated that the maximum number of hospitals falls short of the desired standard. This has raised concerns among healthcare providers, prompting them to explore various solutions to improve patient outcomes. One potential approach is to collaborate with cleaning companies (like the ones providing hospital cleaning in Fort Collins, CO) for sanitizing and maintaining a safe healthcare environment.
Integrate Technology
After setting goals, it is important to create a plan to achieve those goals successfully. You can get there using innovative technology since it can reduce the pressure on the manual workforce and automate a lot of operations. This could work especially well with hospital management tasks, including data collection and analysis, financial planning, salary distributions, audits, employee claims, etc. For financial audits and recovery, healthcare organizations could look for Hospital revenue cycle management software or services, whereas electronic health records solutions for patient data collection and storage. This can provide hospital staff as well as patients ease of handling medical and financing data.
Analyze your data and outcomes
Data management is a fundamental requirement for analyzing the quality of care. Organizations use data from various sources and through different formats to understand their patient population, operations, and expenses. Effective data management and collection are essential for quality healthcare, which can help plan, execute, and measure patient-centric care. Some healthcare organizations may also take the assistance of medical market research services available on websites similar to http://idrmedical.com/ to obtain facilities like market assessment and valuation, customer needs analysis, healthcare innovations, pharmaceutical development, etc. With the help of these services, hospitals and medical associations can better understand the major demands and innovations trending in the healthcare industry to maintain quality and customer satisfaction.
Quality healthcare is fundamental and essential to human health and well-being. It affects how we live our lives and how it is able to survive. Nowadays, it is hard to talk about healthcare and not talk about quality. The demand is ever-increasing, and this need has propelled several initiatives to improve healthcare quality. The healthcare industry is continuously trying to improve the quality of care and services provided by its healthcare providers.
