Executive Summary

Key Quality and Safety Outcomes

Various viewpoints regard key quality health care as an all-encompassing umbrella under which patient quality exist in. For instance, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reflects quality outcomes as “indistinguishable from the delivery of quality health care,” (Brennan, 2000). Taking a keen look at what quality entails, it may be regarded as an ideal measure of balance that exists between the probabilities identified and a strategy of standards and values. In response to that, therefore, key quality can be examined and explained as standards and values with which health services for society increase the possibility of desired healthcare outcome and are reliable and consistent with present professional knowledge (Black, 2011).

On the other side, key safety outcomes have also developed from the healthcare quality drive that is similar in abstract, in regards to many strategies to the more concrete and significant elements. According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), safety outcomes emanate from the prevention of injury to the patients (Brennan, 2000). Various emphasis has been steered to explain safety outcomes as the system of healthcare that avoids medical mistakes, learn from the mistakes that happen, and is based on an organizational culture that engrosses healthcare practitioners. However, the elaborate safety outcomes entail the practices that are aimed at reducing the threat of the severe occurrences associated with exposure to medical care in a variety of analyses or conditions (Black, 2011).

Strategic Value to an Organization of Specific Outcome Measures

Outcome measures constitute a major role in the categorizing procedure among prospective patients. According to World Health Organization (2000), it is approximated that 6 out of 10 believes that outcome is more significant in selecting a healthcare facility. Moreover, immediately a person selects and uses a healthcare facility, they are more likely to use the hospital for future medical needs and expectations.

The satisfaction of patient is regarded more crucial than even insurance and medical expenses because patients find an enormous financial threat related to their care and safety. Subsequently, the satisfied patients would develop the attitude of getting more engrossed with the healthcare facility decisions, and ensure that they get the most value of their financial usage in their healthcare needs. Improved patient satisfaction steers and impacts the positive patient experience. In response, the positive patient experience entails an increased patient involvement, enhances the organizational revenue, and advances the organizational reputation.

The rate of timely patient feedback outcome provides better acknowledgment of the patient experience, allowing the organization get instant insight into the emerging trends and potential issues and concerns that have to be looked into. It is evidently true that when the organization appropriately prioritize its efforts to progress the patient experience, then certainly it will acquire more success in improving the overall quality of the patients’ care (World Health Organization, 2000).

Relationships between a Systemic Problem in an Organization and Quality and Safety Outcomes

Within the healthcare facility there exist various workflows that gradually arise and evolve. The emergence of these workflows by which the organization tends to achieve the quality and safety outcomes may diverge the goals intended (Porter, & Teisberg, 2006). Evidently, when workflow processes are considered as separate, the procedures may seem logical in acting to achieve the outcomes. It is the relationship between the workflow processes and the outcomes that emanates the complexities. The relationship may seem to hide certain conflicts in the priorities of various roles in the organization, for instance, what the nursing team is accountable to versus the surgeon team and its schedule. The organization may also wish to familiarize with workflows that suits the emerging environment of entailing quality and safety outcomes. Within an extended duration of time, reflecting on organizational workflows may layout that various procedures are no longer required, or may be updated and enhanced.

Healthcare practice and setting have on many occasion experienced the gravity to design, or redesign, its workflows to be more effectual and operative. The urge for analyzing workflow is in response to the adjustments in how things are done. Among the various important reasons for an effective workflow is the concern for current health practitioners to involve the introduction of new healthcare information technology (health IT) into healthcare practice and setting. The introduction of health IT would result in various advantages that aim at advancing the quality and efficiency in the outcome.

How Specific Outcome Measures support Strategic Initiatives Related to a Quality and Safety Culture

Various strategic initiatives have sustained a substantial focus on enhancing quality and safety measures of patients for many years (Porter, & Teisberg, 2006). The strategic initiatives have affirmed quality and safety as the key business approach that is duly committed to changing and transforming health care services and established organizational enthusiasm through transparency, leadership focus, data infrastructure – to maintenance improvement, and constantly increasing enhancement proficiency (Aarons, Hurlburt & Horwitz, 2011).These specific improvement initiatives have resulted in quantifiable reductions in hostile events within healthcare settings in the organization.

As much as the advancement has remained quantifiable, quite a number of severe safety events – referred to as a deviation from overall recognized performance standards leading to a serious harm or permanent injury, remained constant. In response to this, leadership initiative would commit much in creating an improvement effort that would focus on the cultural and system adjustments, with the purpose and objective of minimizing the severe safety events to a measurable percentage per adjusted patient-days.

How the Leadership Team would Support the Implementation and Adoption of Proposed Practice Changes affecting Specific Outcomes

The past twenty years have been manifested by organizational change and implementation efforts undertaken by healthcare organizations to adopt proposed practices with the aim of improving patient safety and patient-centered care. Regardless of this significant outlay of efforts, various proposed practice changes have borne insufficient achievement. The limitation in the success of the changes might result from the practice and behavioral adjustments that are neither fully adopted nor eventually maintained, which has in large part been credited to insufficient implementation determinations.

The leadership team is regarded most impactful and often allude to such factors that concern organizational implementation and adoption measures. According to research (Aarons, Hurlburt & Horwitz, 2011), leadership in implementation and adoption of desired changes submits that it has a significant role in influencing vital reforms in the organizations, particularly in organizational culture change efforts. Other studies among them by Grol & Grimshaw (2003), also suggests that involvement of leadership at various ranks of an organization is important in influencing the achievement of the proposed practice changes, and considered to sustain the changes for a long period time.

The leadership team and position in the organization hubs their influence, mostly their capacity to expedite communication through the organizational structures. The communication role has been hypothesized as a capacity where the leadership affects the changes in the organization. The team also influence their access to knowledge and networks to aid as a conduit, significant in the transmission of information that looks into the proposed changes down through the minor ranks of the organization, while concurrently transforming the proposed changes into actionable procedures and steps to be adopted by the personnel in the organization (Grol & Grimshaw (2003).

References

Aarons, G. A., Hurlburt, M., & Horwitz, S. M. (2011). Advancing a conceptual model of evidence-based practice implementation in public service sectors. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 38(1), 4-23.

Black, A. D., Car, J., Pagliari, C., Anandan, C., Cresswell, K., Bokun, T., … & Sheikh, A. (2011). The impact of eHealth on the quality and safety of health care: a systematic overview. PLoS medicine, 8(1), e1000387.

Brennan, T. A. (2000). The Institute of Medicine report on medical errors—could it do harm?

Grol, R., & Grimshaw, J. (2003). From best evidence to best practice: effective implementation of change in patients’ care. The lancet, 362(9391), 1225-1230.

Porter, M. E., & Teisberg, E. O. (2006). Redefining health care: creating value-based competition on results. Harvard Business Press.

World Health Organization. (2000). The world health report 2000: health systems: improving performance. World Health Organization.