Quality Improvement Plan, Part III

Quality Improvement Plan, Part III

Introduction

The Affordable Care Act passed by the Congress in America aims to provide its citizens with affordable quality health care. This has prompted the Department of Health and Human Services to develop national strategy for Quality Improvement in health care industry to prioritize the issues facing the industry and to make aligned strategic plan that should aid in implementation and outcome deliverance. But at an individual level, it is the responsibility of every institute in the healthcare industry; being committed to the service and betterment human health, to step forward and contribute towards quality improvement.

Discussion

Improvement Area

Out of disparate key areas of improvement in the healthcare industry, my focus is 'Time Management' in the healthcare facility, to reduce the waiting time for patients and thus response time from the medical team. I have selected it as my first priority because time is the most critical factor in healthcare industry. A hospital might be the best service provider in the country but if they cannot manage time and cannot treat severe cases in time to save their patient's life, the quality is of no use.

Their exists a concept of Continuous Quality Improvement used interchangeably with Total Quality Management in healthcare industry. It is an organizational approach composed of management through defined processes, systematic thinking, and change to infuse improvement itnto the environment. This approach views the idea of Quality Improvement as an on-going process (Berwick et al., 2002). But TQM or CQI, in this case follows an ideal case, which works for the achievement of ideal outcome; which is more often quite impossible. This has given way to number of other strategies. A QI strategy is defined as “any intervention aimed at reducing the quality gap” (Shojania et al., 2004).

Methodologies

PDSA

Plan-Do-Study-Act model is a methodology that is used for QI projects aimed at achieving improved outcome through influencing positive changes in health care processes. It has been widely followed by IHI for rapid improvement (Berwick, 1994, pp. 797-802). PDSA is targeted to create causal relationships to understand the relationship between changes under probation and the outcomes that are intended to be achieved through it. This model is of immense importance as performance measurements can easily be integrated into it. Pro are it is quite comprehensive and increases the likelihood that the problem would be solved. The con is that although it will most effectively solve the problem, it needs long time before the solution is fully implemented.

FMEA

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is essentially a methodology used to identify problems and proactively take actions to eliminate them before the occurrence. FMEA attempts to identify courses through which a failure could occur, attempts to estimate the likelihood and consequences of each failure, and then accordingly take action to prevent failure. In health care, FMEA focuses on the system of care and evaluate a process from a quality improvement perspective (Reiling et al., 2003, pp. 67-71). This methodology monitor changes over time for which well-defined measures ...