Quality Improvements in the Delivery of Services to Citizens - Essay Example

The department of finance and personnel (DFP NI) launched a best practice scheme in Jan 2008, the aim of which is to provide real examples of qualityimprovements in the delivery of services to citizens The department of finance and personnel (DFP NI) has launched the best practice scheme in January 2008 to monitor quality improvement in public sector and customer service. Following is the best practice adopted by a health care company to extent quality services to citizens from all walks of life. The objective of our home care company is to enable citizens to lead a quality life. The company extends practical and personal care for clients round the clock. The home care company strives hard to improve the quality of care and several best practices have been accomplished to enhance the quality of care. The home care company lays emphasis to re-able people who require home care service. The re-ablement service is for duration of six weeks. Clients are offered care and assistance to re-learn normal life skills or learn new life skills to increase their independence. The significant aspect of re-ablement is to assist people to perform their routine activities rather than performing health care workers performing their tasks. On completion of the six week re-ablement service, the care plan is reviewed and further action is taken so that the person can move into the next step of learning. The action that follows the re-ablement service is either to follow the same care plan, increase the current care package, reduce the current package or allow the client to lead a normal life without the support and service of the health care worker. The last option is allowed when the person has completely adapted to their life skills. In short, re-ablement service optimizes the effort of the client to stay independent in the long run and lead a quality life. The service enables people to avoid unwanted visit or stay at care homes and hospitals and enables clients make optimum use of available resources. The in-house service of re-ablement is a value added service and results in positive outcomes that serve as a motivation to the staff (Using best practice (n.d)). The home care company intervenes into the patient’s affairs to avoid hospitalization. To achieve this objective, home care company provides training to health care workers to assist patients during emergency. Emergency care planning enables health care workers to assess the extent of risk and determine whether the patient requires hospitalization. The plan is also meant to educate patients on the risk factors of the disease and ascertain whether hospitalization is required for a specific case. Therefore there are several factors involved while assessing the severity of a patient’s condition before deciding whether or not to hospitalize. The ascertainment process requires the health worker to perform certain activities, follow policies and procedures and be equipped with requisite tools to guide the patient through the emergency. Besides deciding on hospitalization, the health care worker also advises the patient to follow a particular care setting for a specific medical condition so that the person can remain at home. A patient emergency plan is an important part of Emergency care planning. It is a written plan that assists the patient to recognize a probable health issue and ascertain whom to call for assistance for the health condition, whether it is the home care agency or EMS. Patient emergency plan is a patient centered tool and emergency care plan is a general process. The elements of emergency care plan comprise patient emergency plan, flyers or posters to remind the patient to call the concerned agency before calling the emergency care other than in actual emergencies cases, stickers or magnets on the phone inscribed with phone numbers, flyers or posters in the office to guide health care workers about the care plan, electronic or paper documents to educate the patient about emergency plan, method to handle patient calls during normal work hours and calls after work hours. The care plan provided by the health workers also includes guidelines, processes and procedure to support the emergency care plan. Patent education is crucial for the success of this plan. Interdisciplinary health care workers of the company take care of this process. Education to patients is provided by clinicians who work in association with caregivers. Clinicians start the education process from the basics that include phone numbers and agency timings. The education of patient is then continued by teaching complex factors of self health care. The clinician also verifies the patient’s efficiency in learning. The patient is also taught to recognize signs and symptoms that indicate risk. The clinician updates various disciplines of the emergency plan on every visit. On learning new skills, the patient becomes more responsible for self health, while monitoring and responding to more symptoms and signs. The use of proper tool to document processes in the patient’s folder will limit the psychological and physical stress on the patient and result in considerable decrease in the time they spend away from home. This is achieved if the patient makes proper use of the tool in a timely manner. Emergency care planning is one of the best intervention practices that enable patients to avoid hospitalization for acute care and remain at the patient’s home by undergoing proper treatment methods (Emergency Care Planning). The home care company has taken further initiative to improve the quality of care by implementing the best practice intervention package that provides education for nurses in the field of disease management and offers guidance symptom management. The patient can learn the importance of home health service in disease management and reduce the event of hospitalization even when acute care is required. Health care workers of the company are taught to deal with the modalities of managing symptom. The method of educating nurses includes disease management at home and polishing practice (Nurse Track). As a result of best practices in assuring quality care, the company’s clients have shown improvement in various aspects of mental and physical well being. Some of the improvement achieved due to quality care is improvement in eating, grooming, body dressing, toileting, laundry, housekeeping, bathing, phone use, shopping, management of oral medicines, dyspnea, urinary and bowel incontinence, number of surgical wounds, behavior problem and improvement in anxiety level. The intervention program also ensures that the patient is stabilized while preparing lightly meal, transferring, phone use, shopping, and management of oral medication, speaking and language use and are found to be stabilized in language use (End-Result Outcomes 2008). In short, the home care company reduces the incidence of hospital visit and hospitalization by empowering the patient to become independent and learn more skills to identify problems and summon the concerned to deal with health situations. These are some of the best practices of the health care company that supports citizens to lead a quality life. Reference Emergency Care Planning Available: http://www.wvmi.org/shared/content/hhqi_campaign/bpip_ecp/ecp_nursing2.pdf. Accessed on November 25, 2008 End-Result Outcomes 2008 Available: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/HomeHealthQualityInits/10_HHQIQualityMeasures.asp#TopOfPage. Accessed on November 25, 2008 Nurse Track Available: http://www.homehealthquality.org/shared/content/hhqi_campaign/bpip_dm/COPD_Nurse_Track_final_010208.pdf. Accessed on November 25, 2008 Using best practice to develop Home Care Re-ablement. (n.d). Available: http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/internet/social_care/carers_introduction_to_services/home_care/cec_using_best_practice_to_develop_home_care_re-ablement;internal&action=printerfriendly. Accessed on November 25, 2008 Read More