Healthcare quality is the crucial aspect of the main purpose of healthcare organizations’ existence. The provision of affordable, timely, and well-designed care should be secured by the policies that are implemented into the core of every organization’s working process, making sure that the population is offered the best service. For example, vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, children, people in remote locations, and disabled patients, all require specific approaches to ensure that their needs are met. Organizations should review what specific features distinguish each group from others and build tailored care protocols from these observations.
Another example is that poor quality of care leads to greater costs for both the organization and the local/federal authorities. If the services provided to the population are insufficient or do not satisfy its needs fully, it becomes a ground for legal appeal from the person utilizing them. The organization might be called to answer before the court for not meeting the official standards of care. Finally, the quality of healthcare directly influences the overall health of the population of the state. People are negatively affected by poor healthcare, which might result in workforce losses and higher rates of disability.
Quality Initiatives from Assigned Reading
The first healthcare quality initiative is control of the ability of workers to provide medical care through licensure and accreditation. Wilensky and Teitelbaum (2020) state that “healthcare licensure is centrally about filtering out those who may not have the requisite knowledge or skills to practice medicine” (p. 272). This initiative offers a clear method of assessing and evaluating one’s education, knowledge, and skills to ensure that they are competent enough to start or continue offering quality care to the population.
Another initiative refers to the promotion of a standard of care – a set of defined measures which should be used when administering care. This policy is used specifically to determine when the care quality was insufficient or was performed with mistakes that led to a violation of the patient’s health. According to Wilensky and Teitelbaum (2020), “the standard of care is key both to the provision of high-quality health care and to legal claims” (p. 275). Finally, the last initiative is establishing tort liability of hospitals, insurers, and managed care organizations. With this approach, hospitals and other healthcare providers bear specific responsibility in regard to patient outcomes and can be held accountable if the quality of care is insufficient or results in death or injury.
Three Examples of Quality Initiatives
Florida Department of Health implemented a quality care initiative in the form of a quality improvement program that targets seven specific areas of medical services. These areas include chronic disease treatment, Alzheimer’s disease and dementias care, management of maternal and child health, and others (Florida State Health Improvement Plan, 2022). By improving the quality of care in these directions, the Florida Department of Health strives to provide comprehensive medical services for vulnerable populations.
Another example is the plan for developing better healthcare quality presented by Joseph Brant Hospital of Ontario, Canada. According to Joseph Brant Hospital (2018), “it has adopted the seven priority indicators and one additional indicator recommended by Health Quality Ontario aligned to system-level quality issues that are evident in community and the province” (p. 2). Workplace violence, access to the right level of care, palliative services, and medication safety are examples of these indicators (Joseph Brant Hospital, 2018). With this approach, the hospital seeks to improve the current standards of care and develop a more tailored system of healthcare provision.
The last example is the L.A. Care Health Plan, aimed at offering vulnerable and low-income communities of Los Angeles more accessible healthcare. The L.A. Care Health Plan (2022) states that “the Quality Improvement Program is designed to objectively and systematically monitor and evaluate the equity, quality, safety, appropriateness, and outcome of care delivered to our members” (p. 3). This initiative targets specifically the populations of Los Angeles that have trouble accessing healthcare due to a lack of monetary resources or out of social, gender, sexual, or racial prejudices.
References
Florida State Health Improvement Plan. (2022). Improving the health of Floridians. Florida State Health Improvement Plan.
Joseph Brant Hospital. (2018). Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) narrative for healthcare organizations in Ontario. Joseph Brant Hospital Canada. Web.
L.A. Care Health Plan. 2022 Quality Improvement Program description. L.A. Care Health Plan. Web.
Wilensky, S. E., & Teitelbaum, J. B. (2020). Essentials of health policy and law. Jones et Bartlett Learning.