HCA 615 Quality and Performance Improvement Analysis Paper (Bench Mark)
HCA 615 Quality and Performance Improvement Analysis Paper (Bench Mark)
Quality improvement (QI) entails precise as well as persistent activities undertaken in a care facility that lead to changes in the operations of the organization. The need for quality improvement in a care facility leads to the introduction of systematic approaches that focus on the assessment and prioritization of the actions related to health service delivery (Buchbinder & Shanks, 2012). Stakeholders in a hospital formulate strategies that guarantee effective, safe, and efficient ways to provide services to patients. One of the ways for quality and performance improvement in a health facility is based on increasing nurse staffing to conform to the recommended nurse-to-patient ratio of 1:4 (Berg et al., 2011). Notably, nurses play vital roles in patient care as the professionals spend the longest time with the clients when compared with other care providers. Besides, nurse staffing serves as one of the crucial aspects in the provision of quality care to patients.
Performance measures to assess patient safety entails an evaluation of staffing by acuity indicators in a care facility. This relates to the number of nurses required to provide services to patient population in a given health institution. Acuity in a care setting is rated based on the severity of illness ranging from minor to major and extreme conditions. Basically, a nurse-to-patient ratio of 1:4 is considered as the required bare minimum number of staff necessary to solve severe complications of patient illnesses (Lee et al., 2017). This ratio is the recommended number required for individualized medical attention that nurses can render in cases of critical care. Besides, the quality measures on safe staffing ensures that the nursing professionals have the most significant amounts of flexibility within the hospitals to handle thrilling severe scenarios regarding their patients.
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An illustration from the Harvard School of Public Health Human Subjects Committee, related to medical errors indicate the premise can be prevented in a scenario when there is adequate nursing professionals in hospital (Lee et al., 2017). The report also affirms that the average rate based on medication errors correlate with the number of hours that nursing staff spend with patients. Supposedly, a lower score of nurse-to-patient ratios reduce the incidences of urinary tract infections, hospital-acquired pneumonia, and the overall length of stay in a hospital. With this, senior stakeholders in a health facility need to work on quality checks as a way of ensuring that adequate professionals avail quality care to the patient population. Often, efforts in bridging the gaps of the unsafe large patient-to-nurse ratios focus on identification of skills and nursing expertise required in a given care facility. Besides, acuity of patients being cared for is also a vital factor of concern in the need to lower the patient staff ratio (Berg et al., 2011). This approach provides a framework to determine the number of care providers needed to respond to the complex cases in a hospital setting. Conversely, important consideration need to be made by assessing the number of unlicensed assistive staff in the specific facility in order to link them to duties in the institution that can reduce the overall work of nurses.
The internal perspective of a given care facility stems from measures developed to improve patient satisfaction with respect to services provided. These are analyzed based on improved access to quality care in addition to the availability of referral systems. Moreover, the approach incorporates the provision of teaching and research services to ensure that the health service delivery conforms to the current evidence-based practices on care. However, quality care to patients depends on the skills of nursing staff and the time cycle for nurses (Fendya, Snow & Weik, 2010). With this, productivity in a health facility is measured based on the level of experience of nurses as well as number of shift hours allocated by the institution.
Nursing shift hours is one of the quality improvement addressed in staffing. This entails the adjustment to duties in a care facility based on task allocation as per the capacity of a given facility. Often, 6 hours is the recommended time that nurses need to adhere to in a bid to optimize quality outcomes. However, a majority of health facilities use the 8 hours shift for nursing staff due to a shortage of the professionals. To make it worse, some facilities use the 12 hour shifts for their staff. The shift hours beyond 8 means that the professionals will be overwhelmed by the amount of tasks allocated (Lee et al., 2017; Weaver, Stutzman, Supnet, & Olson, 2016). In most cases, the staff will experience burnout related to the duties assigned. Based on this premise, the quality of health services provided to patients will be compromised as evidenced by missed diagnosis and untimely provision of medication to patients. However, safe nurse staffing bridges the gap of inefficiency as it ensures that there are adequate number of professions to respond to quality care needed by patients.
On the other hand, measures that indicate unsafe larger nurse to patient ratios are related to the analysis of diagnosis-related groups (DRGs). This describes the number of doctors, registered nurses as well as the available medical products that are used to perform a given health procedure (Fendya, Snow & Weik, 2010). The premise provides feasible ideas related to the number of nursing professionals that can support prompt as well as quality care.
Therefore, quality improvement in health care is paramount. Using strategies such as nursing shifting hours’ reduction that target the personnel play an important role in ensuring that care facilities maintain quality. By doing so, the various stakeholders of these facilities, especially the patients, become happier, which impacts the rating of a hospital.
References
Berg, G. M., Acuna, D., Lee, F., Clark, D., & Lippoldt, D. (2011). Trauma performance improvement and patient safety committee: fostering an effective team. Journal of Trauma Nursing, 18(4), 213-220.
Buchbinder, S. B., & Shanks, N. H. (2012). Introduction to health care management. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Fendya, D. G., Snow, S. K., & Weik, T. S. (2010). Using system change as a method of performance/quality improvement for emergency and trauma care of severely injured children: pediatric system performance improvement. Journal of trauma nursing, 17(1), 28-33.
Lee, A., Cheung, Y. S. L., Joynt, G. M., Leung, C. C. H., Wong, W. T., & Gomersall, C. D. (2017). Are high nurse workload/staffing ratios associated with decreased survival in critically ill patients? A cohort study. Annals of intensive care, 7(1), 46.
Weaver, A. L., Stutzman, S. E., Supnet, C., & Olson, D. M. (2016). Sleep quality, but not quantity, is associated with self-perceived minor error rates among emergency department nurses. International emergency nursing, 25, 48-52.
