Imagine you are being vetted for a managerial position at a local health care facility. As part of the process, they have provided prompts for which you must write a response.

Write a 700- to 1,050-word paper describing the process for tracking outcomes and improving quality and safety. Include the following in your paper:

Impact of external and internal standards
Role of continuous improvement in quality and safety
Plan for employee development in quality and safety
Role of technology in quality and safety

Use this template for your Week 3 paper: ATTACHED IN ADDITIONAL MATERIALS

Cite 3 references, one of which may be the course textbook.

Format your assignment according to APA guidelines.

ANSWER

Outcomes and Quality

After recently being hired as the special assistant of the chief executive officer at Texas Emergency Hospital, it is my role to focus on the quality of care and health outcomes within the hospital. Considerably, the hospital has been facing challenges linked to medication errors, which have significantly impacted the quality of care and health outcomes. Medication errors are a prodigious source of adverse health issues within hospitals, particularly in the emergency departments. Medication errors have accounted for the highest number of health issues within the hospital. There are several factors and standards that make hospitals prone to medication errors. However, continuous quality improvement as an upper leadership approach will be utilized to prevent medical errors and enhance quality health outcomes. Therefore, this paper will focus on reduction of medication errors through continuous improvement and technology to improve health outcomes and safety.

Impact of External and Internal Standards

The healthcare organization setting can be categorized into external and internal environments. The internal environments consist of the working environment and the facilities and resources needed for offering healthcare services. On the other hand, the external environments consist of the healthcare environment’s surroundings that affected the quality of service and performance (Mosadeghrad, 2014). The variations in external and internal factors such as patient cooperation, resource availability, and collaboration influence the quality of service and healthcare outcomes within a healthcare setting. Proper planning, supportive leadership, education, training, and adequate management of processes and resources also affect health and patient outcomes.

Mosadeghrad (2014) argues that the quality of care within a healthcare setting promotes cooperation between the healthcare provider and the patient in a supportive environment. This means that the quality of patient care and healthcare outcome is influenced by individual, environmental, and organizational factors that inhibit or enhance medical services quality. Mosadeghrad (2014) added that quality healthcare entails offering patients proper services in a technically competent approach, with shared decision making and good communication to reach the desired healthcare outcomes.

Continuous Improvement – Quality and Safety

Continuous improvement is an ongoing effort to heighten the measurable performance of a service, product, or process. Healthcare continuous improvement is a data-guided and systematic activity designed to bring measurable improvements in the delivery of care within healthcare settings (Blouin and Tekian, 2018). The Continuous quality improvement initiative needs to consider three components; the process, output, structure, and outcome. Any initiative involving the improvement of patient care has to focus on a system, especially people and technology. Processes are workflows and activities carried out to achieve outcomes or output, which more commonly focuses on administrative and clinical processes. The output is the instant predecessor to the change in the patient’s status, while the outcome entails the result of the patient care and the change in the healthcare interventions. Lee, Lee, Yeung, and Chan (2013) states that improving quality of care has taken different approaches, with continuous improvement receiving more attention within healthcare to enhance the quality of care. For instance, healthcare organizations have shifted to improving care services and developing capabilities by building on skills, knowledge, and infrastructure. Considerably, medical errors are a result of practice or system failures, making it essential to assume varying process improvement approaches to identify ineffectual care, inadequacies, and avoidable errors that influence modifications linked to the systems of care. For instance, when applied across the healthcare organization, continuous quality improvement generates a continuous flow of process improvements that exceed the patient expectations regarding medical errors.

Employee Development in Quality and Safety

The quality improvement will focus on employee development to enhance the healthcare professional practices that will pave the way for safe and quality health among patients in the healthcare settings. The empowerment of employees will be established by using improvement teams that include individuals with skills and knowledge who will offer training and become advocates for change, thus reducing medical errors. The employees will undergo training programs that will enhance their skills and expertise as well as build a safety culture that will address the fundamental source of medical errors. Mosadeghrad (2014) found out that a healthcare organization’s instability to reduce medical errors stems from interrelated processes and structures. Mosadeghrad (2014) focused on safety culture and found out that hospitals can reduce errors by enacting a safety culture model such as empowerment of caregivers to positively lead a safety culture.

Technology in Quality and Safety

Health information technology has transformed the healthcare environment by applying information processing and healthcare information which are used to achieve safer and quality care. Health information technology has offered a myriad of healthcare benefits, such as improved clinical outcomes, reduced human errors, improved practice efficiencies, and coordinated care which have played a significant role in patient safety. For instance, technology provides clinical decision systems that offer support to healthcare professionals with patient-specific information, thus improving patients’ safety and quality of care. (Alotaibi, and Federico, 2017) stated that health information technologies such as, E-prescribing, electronic physician’s order clinical decision support, and computerized drug dispensing cabinets have been used to improve patient safety outcomes. For instance, the automated dispensing cabinets have been used to store medication with controlled dispensing and monitor medication distribution, thus improving health outcomes, patient safety and reducing medication errors.

Conclusion

Medical errors have been a severe health issue that affects the quality of care and health outcomes at Texas Emergency Hospital. The prevalence of medical errors has been linked to external and internal standards such as ineffective management of processes and resources, education, and training, among others within the healthcare setting. Continuous improvement has focused on measurable initiatives that will reduce medical errors and increase quality and health outcomes. Employee development has paved the way for reduced medical errors and enhanced skills to improve the quality of care. Through health information technology, healthcare professionals will reduce human errors and improve practice efficiencies.

References

Alotaibi, Y. K., & Federico, F. (2017). The impact of health information technology on patient safety. Saudi medical journal, 38(12), 1173.

Blouin, D., & Tekian, A. (2018). Accreditation of medical education programs: moving from student outcomes to continuous quality improvement measures. Academic Medicine, 93(3), 377-383.

Lee, S. B., Lee, L. L., Yeung, R. S., & Chan, J. (2013). A continuous quality improvement project to reduce medication errors in the emergency department. World journal of emergency medicine, 4(3), 179–182.

Mosadeghrad A. M. (2014). Factors influencing healthcare service quality. International journal of health policy and management, 3(2), 77–89.