Health Administration and Medicine - Essay Example

Health Administration Affiliation: Executive Summary This research is based on the need to have a detailed quality improvement plan for this health care organization that would ensure not only the comfort of terminally ill patients and also as a sustainability measure for this organization in the long. All these will be done without compromising the health of the patients or the standards of a health care facility (McLaughlin and Kaluzny, 2006). In order to ensure the above issues are fulfilled and become a success in improving the overall quality if this health care facility, it is important to familiarize and remember the mission, goals and objectives of this organization and ensure that whatever changes will be suggested about the quality improvement are in line with this mission and aim to achieve it. A mentioned earlier, the quality improvement goal of this health care organization is to focus solely on terminally ill patients by offering them several services that are not offered in a regular hospital and at the same time ensure that this health facility will be more like a second home to them than a hospital hence the relaxation atmosphere and freedom will be guaranteed as well as taking care of their health conditions in a comfortable manner. Some of the services in the quality improvement plan include counseling services, follow up on their drug administration and finally the most important of all is recreational facilities and services. This research will focus more on recreational services since it is not only unique from the other services mentioned above that are offered in a hospice but it takes the minds of these patients from their conditions and they focus their energy and time on more happy things that will be in the facility. Implementation of the above mentioned facilities will make this organization unique and hence famous. Fame will ensure that the quality of the health care organization will not in any way be compromised, more patients will be booked in the facilities , the facility will have more profits, hire more staff and hence create jobs and finally and most important is the fact that it will have fulfilled and achieved its goals, objectives and mission. Introduction This organization is solely a health care organization focusing on terminally ill patients and whose mission is to ensure that the terminally ill patients booked in this facility get to lead their sick days in comfort and peace. In order to fulfill the above stated mission, the organization will provide several services that will ensure that not only are the patients happy but so are their family members too who also get to spend time with them in the facility. Other than the usual services expected to be provided by such a facility like counseling and drug administration among other medical services, recreational services will be provided. This will of course require the renovation of one of the buildings in order to make it more of a recreational facility, purchasing new equipment for the different types of recreational services that will be offered and also hiring of extra staff trained to handle such work and also monitoring the patients and helping them with recreation. Goals/ Objectives In order to meet its mission, this health care organization has to have specific goals and objectives aimed to also improve the quality of the organization in general. One of these goals is the safety of the patients in the recreational facility. This goal is achievable through the use of not only staff but technologies for monitoring them and also ensuring that during design stage of the facility, safety measures like padding walls and floors is taken into account. The other objective is that the facility should be purely patient-centered. This therefore means that whatever decisions or changes the organizations wants to implement, they are for the good of the patients. This therefore will require constant consultation with the family, patients themselves and more so their doctors who are the one who are constantly in touch with the patients (McLaughlin and Kaluzny, 2006). Scope/ Description Basically, the implementation of this recreational facility will require the input of several stakeholders of the organization. It will also affect several departments, programs and activities that normally happen in the facility. Some of the stakeholders who will be affected and whose input is necessary are the administrators, donors or investors, clinicians and even to some extent the patients themselves or their families. The departments to be affected the most will be those of accounting due to making of budget for the recreational facilities, the staff due to having to accommodate more staff that will be assigned to the facility, the information technology department that will have to handle the new technology that will be erected in the recreational facility for monitoring among others. The daily routine and activities of the organization will also be affected and especially so because the patients will need scheduling to go to the recreational facility, those who cannot go will need arrangements for the facility activities to be brought to their rooms so that they are not left behind. All this will have to be put under consideration before the facility becomes fully functional. Data Collection Tools Data relevant to be collected for this exercise to be successful and to run according to this quality improvement plan include data on patients including the number of patients the organization can hold, the different illnesses and diseases patients have and information about patients who are bedridden. This is necessary for scheduling recreational time and also accounting for the patients when the recreational facility is opened and running (Provost and Murray, 2011). The other necessary data to be collected is that of the staff present in the health care organization and their roles. This will give an overview of which areas require more staff, what number of new staff to hire and their qualifications and contributions in relation to especially the recreational facility. This will ensure no hitches of staff shortage will take place once the recreational facility is fully functional and hence avoid compromising the quality of the organization. The collection of the above information will require the use of several data collection tools and instruments like questionnaires, records in the organization, and interview schedules with the personnel and other survey techniques that may come in handy then. The records are important to gather information about the current number of staff and patients in the organization and even how many patients the facility can hold when full. Interview schedules will collect data required to recruit new staff for their different roles. It is necessary because it will capture the qualifications of the staff and their experience in recreational facilities and other areas that require additional staff. Questionnaires on the other hand are crucial in gathering data about the roles the staff play in the organization and also collect data about patient’s illnesses which the patients fill. QI Processes and Methodology For this quality improvement plan to be fully implemented, there are several quality improvement methodologies and processes that have to be put in place. One of these is the use of information technology (IT). This is necessary to avoid the errors that are performed by humans and especially when it comes to drug administration to patients when some of them are in the recreational facility and some in their rooms, errors or failing to closely monitor and account for all the patients and scheduling appointments in time. IT can take care of all that perfectly. IT also is necessary to reduce the large number of staff needed to handle patient’s comfort in this organization as the use of different technologies can handle more work in such a short time (Lighter and Fair, 2007). The other methodology is having a framework with guidelines of how the recreational facility equipment should work, how it should be handled and the dangers involved. This framework supplements the information technology and keeps the staff on their toes when patients are in the recreational facility. The framework is also important since it is not as expensive to implement as the information technology and it can be used in case of system failures of the technologies and used by those not very familiar with some of the complex technologies. Comparative Databases, Benchmarks, and Professional Practice Standards In order for the organization to know if they are succeeding or failing in their endeavor, they have to constantly compare their performance and standards with other health care organizations offering almost similar services. This is possible through comparing the databases of these organizations with the database of this particular organization. The information deducted from the databases will point the organization to the changes it can make and also what areas to maintain the standards. Benchmarking is also important for accountability measures to organizations or even individuals who may want to bring their patients in this health care organization and who benchmark several organizations including this one (Lighter and Fair, 2007). Authority/Structure/Organization The organization authority structure is led by the Board of Directors who is followed by the executive leadership, the quality improvement committee, the medical staff, the middle management and at the bottom is the department staff. Each of these people plays a significant role in the implementation of this quality improvement plan. The Board of Directors makes the final authority of cash expenditures and even hiring the extra staff. All reporting and major decisions about the organization even though they are communicated by the executive leadership have to be approved by the Board. The Board therefore acts as a strong background shadow of the organization though it holds all the powers. The executive leadership makes decisions in collaboration with the Board of Directors on which quality improvement techniques and methodologies to implement and use within the organization. All analysis of the quality improvement and the spreading of that information to the Board and the Executive leadership are handled by the quality improvement committee. Members of the executive leadership should have management qualifications even though they can also be drawn from the medical staff due to their knowledge on patient care. The quality improvement committee should be comprised of individuals with qualifications on statistics and data collection since this is what they handle most of the time and hence have to be competent enough (Cummings and Worley, 2008). The role of the medical staff is strictly to handle the health needs and administer drugs to the patients while the department staff handles all the other comfort requirements of the patients including cleanliness and billing. Members of the department staff include secretaries, accountants, information technology personnel and even the subordinate staff. The middle management which is on top of the department staff relays information from the staff to the executive leadership and from the executive leadership to the staff. Communication Information about performance will be relayed to the quality improvement committee who then pass it to the executive leadership who after discussion with the Board makes formal announcements to the rest of the staff or even to the media. The executive leadership is tasked with this role since the members include even the PR department heads that are trained to handle communication issues. The quality improvement committee is also tasked with overseeing the data collection procedures since they have specific qualifications for this sort of work. Education Education about the plan will be done in stages and according to the authority structure. The first to be educated will be the Board of Directors, the executive leadership and the middle management. Their education will be more concerned with decision making and passing of information to the rest of the staff in the organization. The staff both medical and department one will then be offered the training since their education will be more patient-centered as they deal directly with the patients. Education of the staff should also take longer and be more detailed as it is in accordance with the mission of the organization to cater for patients and ensure their comfort and peace in this health care organization. Annual Evaluation The success and the failures of the plans are evaluated and so are the roles played by those in charge of the failures. Evaluation of the roles played by all the rest of the people is also important to be evaluated if the whole quality improvement plan is to be successful in the end and thus make the organization have absolute advantage in the health care sector. The evaluation should be conducted annually. Conclusion The implementation of the above quality improvement plan is crucial especially for the terminally ill patients who make are at the center of the mission of this organization. It would therefore be a good idea if the above mentioned issues are taken into account and a pilot program started. The benefits as mentioned at the beginning of the research will not only be for the patients but more will be on the organization and hence even the costs incurred in putting up a recreational facility will be covered and profits gathered. It should not however be forgotten that this is purely patient-centered despite the benefits to others. The patient should therefore be the number one priority and this therefore means constant involvement of the patient. References Cummings, T. and Worley, C. (2008). Organization Development & Change. New York: Cengage Learning. Lighter, D. E. and Fair, D. C. (2007). Quality Management in Health Care: Principles and Methods. New Jersey: Jones & Bartlett Learning. McLaughlin, C. and Kaluzny, A. (2006). Continuous Quality Improvement in Health Care: Theory, Implementations, and Applications. New Jersey: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Provost, L. P. and Murray, S. (2011). The Health Care Data Guide: Learning from Data for Improvement. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Read More