Managing and Improving Quality - Research Paper Example

? Managing and Improving Quality QI Plan [Type the [Pick the QI Plan- Managing and Improving quality Data Collection is an important part of the health care organizations. It helps in the valuable ongoing research regarding different trends that diseases and patients follow vis-a-vis their ethnicity, age, gender, build, etc. It also assists us to prioritize quality improvement steps. The three methodologies are maintaining a questionnaires, interviews and observations. What are the pros and cons of each methodology for our chosen performance improvement area? Questionnaires Questionnaires can be very useful because they ask the patient directly what is wrong with them and they answer accordingly. Some questionnaires should be general in nature while most should be specific in nature to what the patient is. The benefit of the questionnaires can be seen from the fact that 90% of medical problems can be solved by simple and logical questionnaires. These questionnaires can be filled and submitted by the patient and then be analyzed. However one problem with questionnaires is that the patient might not be in the right state of mind to answer these questions accurately thus misleading the doctors. Also steps should be taken so that the questionnaire should be filled only by the sick person himself not any other person accompanying him because that too will result in inaccurate data. Interviews Interview is a proven age old method of data collection done by the medical staff and is the most easiest and efficient way of getting to know the symptoms as well as getting to the medication decision. Interview should be casual and straightforward. The interview enables the staff to examine the patient by themselves and make a general observation about what’s wrong with the patient and also gives a feeling of being cared for to the patient. The problems with interviews are also there like for instance the staff has to be trained enough to do the interview because dealing with patients and getting to know their problems is not for novices. Also the number of patients might be large so that interviewing each will not be possible. Also the answers that the patient gives are never always known to be correct because patients are known to withhold information due to shyness, secrecy and stubbornness. Observations Observations are also a primary source of data collection that involves inspecting the patients and making logical deductions based on them. The observations can be obtained by inspection from naked eye as well as using cutting edge methodologies like angiography and MRI. These observations most of the times lead us directly to the diagnosis of the disease while in other cases, they lead us to the understanding and recommendation. The problems with observations are that they might be conflicting with each other so that the real disease is difficult to diagnose and sometimes the impact by the disease initially is too small to be noticed by the observations so different numerical and other analysis techniques have to be employed rather than pure observations to make a deduction and diagnosing the disease (Smith,2013). Describe each information technology application you researched. How might these applications be used to help improve the performance area you chose for your organization? The three information technology applications chosen by me are control chart, histogram and scatter diagram which can be used to help improve the chosen performance are i.e. data collection. Histogram A histogram is known as a distribution data across a graph most commonly used in statistics to estimate the probability distribution of a continuous variable. A histogram shows different values in a distribution system, which here is patients and compute the frequencies of these patients in a normal distribution around a disease or any other value. The individual data holds no importance in a histogram but how it affects the whole system does. The histograms can be used to organize data in continuously varying traits in the patients like skin color, height, and intelligence. These histograms can be compiled and later used for QI purposes because they can show what most of the patients want or how maximum improvements can be made (Soukup & Davidson, 2002). Scatter Diagram A scatter plot is a way of organizing data and showing trends between two different variables for a set of their values. The scatter plot is not continuous but rather appears in the form of collection of dots or points each showing one value at the horizontal axis and the other at the vertical axis. The variable along the x-axis is the independent variable and the variable along the y-axis is the dependant variable. The scatter plot can show a variety of trade-offs between the two variables. The correlations can be positive, negative and none (Bluman, 2007). The scatter plot can easily be used for quality improvement process by tabulating data between two medical quantities like lung capacity and the time one can hold his/her breath and we plot the data of a large group of people in a scatter plot and thus we can help the patients. A scatter diagram is ineffective however when more than two or three variables need to be analyzed because the coordinate system is not yet developed for these kind of plots. They can be analyzed however by comparing trade-offs with a fixed quantity and making deductions but that is not necessarily accurate for research at this level. Control Chart A control chart is used to give us information regarding performance which is necessary in a healthcare system. By analyzing the current data and plotting it in a graph with a control line can give us an idea how an organization is performing. If the performance level is lower as compared to CL then it needs to be jacked up but if it is higher, the performance is satisfactory. For even better performance, more than one CL might be established each representing a level of the performance like high, low, medium. In health care system, a performance indicator can be established and plotted on a graph with a Cl. Let’s say that is the number of successfully treated patients, which can be plotted on a graph. If the percentage of successfully treated patients is less than 90% the performance is said to be unsatisfactory and steps need to be taken to improve the system or organize a better training and grooming of the staff. The control chart is mostly used in the competitive industries like manufacturing but we intend to use it in the health care for the very first time. Describe how benchmarks and milestones are involved in managing the use of quality indicators Benchmarks and milestones are very important in the quality improvement process. A benchmark is the minimum quality that is expected by a health care system and if the system is not performing up to that level then it needs improvement. A milestone on the other hand is a value set by the healthcare system for example a liver transplant hospital can set a milestone of successfully liver transplanted patients at 100. When the milestone is achieved, it can be said that the organization has completed its preliminary goal and is out to achieve more. Identify three potential benchmarks and milestones from quality indicators that could be used for your plan Three potential benchmarks are 90% successful treatment of patients, 24 hour availability of Trauma center and at least 80% approval rate by the patients. All of these are absolutely necessary for our ambitious organization and we will never any of quality of our service drop below the benchmark. The 90 % treatment rate will ensure medicinal improvement. 24 hour trauma center will enable more emergency services and 80 % approval rate will see to it that hospital staff is professional in their attitude towards the patients (URC, 2013). Three potential milestones are an R & D department on cancer, 10000 successfully treated patients and no deaths in trauma center for a month. These potential milestones set the bar very high for us to achieve and we will try our utmost to achieve them. The R&D department will open new doors for research in our facility. The 10000 patients will show the value of our organization to the community and no deaths in trauma center will show that human life is rated most preciously for us and we will try everything to avoid sudden deaths by trauma (Commonwealthfund, 2013). Describe how performance and quality measures are aligned to an organization’s mission, vision, and strategic plan in general. Then, describe how the measures are aligned with the mission, vision, and strategic plan of your organization. Our organization’s performance indicators are state of the art and accurate. Most of the Quality improvement measures are in place and further improvement is being planned and that is evident by the seriousness and the level of ambition shown by our benchmarks and milestones. No organization especially in the health sector can be perfect due to the sector’s nature however we guarantee that we will try our best to approach that curve of perfection. Our organization’s mission is simple and straightforward; to provide the most efficient healthcare services available and to drastically reduce the number of deaths and other complications that arise to the point of non-existence. Our detailed strategic plan is also effectively mapped and will ensure maximum growth both technologically and numerically of our organization. References Bluman, A. G. (2007). Elementary statistics: A step by step approach. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Commonwealthfund. (2013). Section V--Data Collection, Evaluation, and Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) - The Commonwealth Fund. Retrieved September 16, 2013 from: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Resources/2006/Jul/Section-V--Data-Collection--Evaluation--and-Continuous-Quality-Improvement--CQI.aspx Smith, D. (2013). 3 Areas Where CEO Tim Cook Should Improve Apple. Retrieved September 12, 2013 from http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-board-directors-concerned-3-core-areas-tim-cook-needs-improve-1379639 Soukup, T., & Davidson, I. (2002). Visual Data Mining: Techniques and Tools for Data Visualization and Mining. New York: John Wiley & Sons. URC. (2013). Quality Improvement. Retrieved on September 16, 2013 from: http://www.urc-chs.com/quality_improvement Read More