Methods of Measuring Healthcare Quality - Essay Example

Quality Measurement in Healthcare

Quality measurement in healthcare helps project the performance of healthcare, thereby providing room for improvements in the quality of care. The defined quality standards are evaluated against healthcare providers and health plans performance data. Measurements in quality can improve patients' ability to make informed decisions concerning their care and also address and estimate differences as to how care is delivered and in health outcomes. Besides, healthcare providers and health insurance plans can be held accountable for providing high-quality healthcare. In contrast, the misuse, underuse, and overuse of services in healthcare can be prevented to ensure patient safety. Drivers of improvement can also be easily identified in healthcare workers for them to provide the best care. The quality of service is an important aspect since it contributes to the overall success of healthcare practice. Patient satisfaction is influenced by the quality of service that in turn affects customer loyalty and purchase intentions and the relationship between a doctor and a patient.

Methods of Measuring Healthcare Quality

Process Measures

The degree to which patients are provided with specific services in line with recommended care guidelines by healthcare providers is measured by process measures. Prevention of future health conditions or complications and enhanced health status are improved by treatments and procedures linked to process measures. Process measures assesses whether patients were able to obtain the recommended care that meets process measure requirements. A straightforward, actionable feedback and clear way of enhancing performance is created by process measures. Process measures focus on steps that require to be followed to ensure good care and when carefully executed the desired outcome is very likely to be achieved. It helps ensure a shared decision and effective communication between patients and doctors in providing quality care (Morris & Bailey, 2018). An example of process measures is determining whether physicians are able to provide appropriate drugs for diabetic patients or if patients with cancer are provided with recommended screenings by their doctors.

Process measures enables organizations minimize the variations in delivering healthcare by enhancing quality and cost. Inappropriate variation can be minimized and monitored in a case process when an organization is able to pinpoint potential variation points by establishing process metrics. The root cause of an organizations’ failure can be pinpointed by process measures thereby assessing and fixing the problem. The efforts of an organization can be revealed by process measures in systemizing and incorporating best practices to its improvements efforts. Besides, process measures can be used to prevent negative outcomes in an institution by being able to identify the steps that are most important by tracking and measuring the steps. Processes that deliver value to a patient can be mapped through process measures that ensures all patients obtain highest quality care that is consistent.

Process measures can be improved by rewarding exceptional performance of practitioners through financial rewards such as bonuses can be used to enhance good performance. Patients may use the information obtained to select providers of good quality healthcare thereby widening the market for good performers and professional satisfaction is also enhanced. Outside the revalidation process, disciplinary actions and annual appraisals regarded as evidence in the practice of a clinician requiring to withdraw licenses for poor performing clinicians can be used to counter poor performance (Lee, Miller, Daniels, Paine, Gresh & Betz, 2016). Besides, patients and buyers avoid low quality by using the information obtained in measuring healthcare quality. Loss of professional reputation by clinicians can also result to improved performance

Patient Reported Outcomes

Patient reported outcomes measure experience of care, health behavior, quality of life and health status of a patient using information obtained from the caregiver, or the patient directly without external interpretation. Feedback on the experience of care by patients is provided by patient experience measures. Patient experience measures assess aspects of care ranging from accessibility to care of information provided by doctors to whether test results are availed to patients by doctors and how quickly urgent care appointments are handled. Response to patients’ experience in receiving care such as interpersonal aspects are created by measures of patients’ experience. Patient experience measures reveal the degree to which patient centered care is critical. Clinical quality is directly linked to positive patient experiences since the patients are more receptive to medical advice, committed to treatment and engaged in their care (Morris & Bailey, 2018). An example of measures of patient experience is determining the time taken by patients to obtain an appointment with their doctors. Besides, treatment options are determined by patient experience whether patients are able to obtain information that is easy to understand.

Workforce engagement and patient experience are intertwined in enhancing employee management of an organization. Better employee engagement results to better outcomes in readmission rates, length of stay, technical quality, and better records in safety of an organization leading to better performance. Patient feedback identifies helps identify gaps in an organization, improve quality initiatives and act as measures of balance in ensuring care delivery changes don’t impact patient experience negatively. Patient experience measures help organization transition to value based care. Patient feedback facilitates organizational change through approaches that are actionable and timely by developing robust measurements (Berkowitz, 2016). Besides, patient engagement and care coordination can be prioritized by information obtained from the feedback of patients and understand the effects on the outcomes and experiences of patients of upcoming delivery models in care.

Patient response helps transform healthcare as well as improving the safety and quality through the placement of patients the core of decision making. As a result, regulatory bodies are able to achieve greater credibility. Measures in patient experience aid in the evaluation and assessment of new and old treatments thereby providing the suitable form of treatment. Moreover, it helps monitor changes in clinical action and opinion concerning when to treat and admit patients (Smith, Anderson, Lines, Pronier, Thornburg, Butler & Goldstein, 2017). Patient satisfaction is also gained by enabling patients to evaluate their care in both interpersonal and technical aspects at a personal level. Also, health states can be assessed to the daily life of an individual for preference based measures. Patient experience measures can be improved by making the method appear engaging since patients are likely to judge the method prior to the real experience. Moreover, the patients can be honored with attention and respect and information communication between them and doctors improved. Also, patients can be enabled to access top priority and timely care.

In conclusion, methods used to measure the quality of health have the potential to strengthen hospitals, surgical teams and clinician’s performance management. By shifting the emphasis from outputs and processes to the result of the patients’ health, the information obtained serves a vital part throughout healthcare systems.