Continuous Quality Improvement Process Paper

Continuous Quality Improvement Process Paper

Continuous Quality Improvement Process Paper

Enhancement of quality care in the healthcare environment is one of the key responsibilities and functions of the healthcare sector. Therefore, the healthcare stakeholders engage in various efforts to ensure quality outcomes. One of such is continuous quality improvement. Quality improvement in nursing ensures that nurses schedule and apply a continuous practical development of care methods for the purposes of delivering health care quality (Hill et al., 2020). Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore continuous quality improvement in healthcare including methods used in continuous quality improvement in healthcare, factors impacting it, and its impact staff and patient outcomes.

The Need for Continuous Quality Improvement in Health Care

Continuous quality improvement (CQI) has been applied in health care just like in other fields. CQI is particularly important in health care to help in improving healthcare outcomes and clinical care. It is needed in the healthcare setting to enable the healthcare professional to adhere to the evidence-based practices and best practice clinical guidelines (Maphumulo & Bhengu, 2019). Practice clinical guidelines usually originate from comprehensive research efforts, which are then translated to practice after producing enough evidence of their efficacy. They are then transformed into practice clinical guidelines, which can then be used to enhance patient outcomes. Therefore, CQI plays a central role in ensuring that these guidelines are followed. The CQI is also needed in the healthcare sector to ensure that the workforce recruited is of the right qualities.

The rise in healthcare costs has been a concern in the past few years, and therefore a need to formulate various strategies to reduce the costs. Therefore, continuous quality improvement has also been applied in the healthcare sector to help reduce costs while simultaneously reducing costs (Maphumulo & Bhengu, 2019). Through various quality improvement efforts, various healthcare incidences such as patient falls, hospital-acquired infections, and medical mistakes are reduced hence lowering the overall healthcare costs.

Methods of Continuous Quality Improvement Used in Health Care

Organizations that choose to undertake a continuous quality improvement initiative have a wide range of choices to go for depending on the type of quality improvement to be accomplished. Several methods exist which can be used in different situations. One of the methods is the six sigma method, which has its origin in the U.S manufacturing industry. This method functions to enhance efficiency by variability minimization of the process followed by errors isolation and correction (Kilbourne et al., 2018). Reducing errors concomitantly lower variability thus improving efficiency.

The other method is the lean method which deals with value based on the wants or needs of patients. Therefore, when this method is used, the institutions focus on eliminating or lowering the activities that do not add value to make tasks less prone to mistakes and always cut down wastes to enhance healthcare delivery. The other popular method is the Plan Do Study Act model. This method enhances quality by first establishing the problem scope, identifying the changes to be undertaken, making plans for the changes, and determination of the measures to be used in determining whether a change or improvement is taking place (Wells et al., 2018). The other method is the Focus Analyze Develop Execute, which focuses on the data collection process, taking actions for process improvement, evaluating the implemented actions, and making the necessary adjustments.

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Factors That Affect Continuous Quality Improvement Process

As earlier indicated, a continuous quality improvement process is key in improving patient care outcomes. However, various factors impact the continuous quality improvement process. One of such factors is management commitment. Continuous quality improvement processes are usually organization-wide; hence need to be led by a strong team. Committed leadership is key in the process as they improve chances of successful implementation (Wells et al., 2018). The other factor is monitoring systems. Monitoring systems are important in ensuring that the process goes as planned. Through such systems, the implementation team can effectively identify errors in the process and timeously correct them for a successful process. Availability of resources or lack of it can also impact the continuous quality improvement process. When a problem has been identified in the care setting that needs a continuous quality improvement process to solve, resources are usually required to help in the whole process (Wells et al., 2018). However, a lack of adequate resources can paralyze the process and lead to total failure.

The Impact of Continuous Quality Improvement Process on Staff

Whenever an organization participates and accomplishes a continuous quality improvement process, the process usually has various impacts on the organization’s aspects and resources. One of such is the organization’s staff. One of the impacts on staff is that it boosts the morale and confidence of the staff. The continuous quality improvement process ensures that the staff has clear guidelines to follow while performing patient care actions and processes (WHO, 2018). Such clear guidelines ensure that the nurses confidently attend to the patients while also increasing their morale to continue offering the best care to patients. Continuous quality improvement also improves the staff’s interpersonal relationships. Continuous quality improvement process also ensures that the staff offer patient care services to the expected standards. Through continuous quality improvement, various practice guidelines are implemented and enhanced. The implication is that the staff have to follow these established guidelines when offering their services hence ensuring that the offered services are of the expected standards.

The Impact of Continuous Quality Improvement Process on Patient Outcomes

The ultimate goal of continuous quality improvement is to create a sustainable and efficient healthcare system where the patient care services are top quality while the working conditions for the nurses are also to the acceptable standard. The process has various impacts on patient outcomes. For example, the quality improvements ensure that patient outcomes are to the expected standards as established by various benchmarks (WHO, 2018). The CQI process can help healthcare organizations to achieve or attain various set benchmarks such as the prevalence rates of the particular condition, among others.

The other impact of continuous quality improvement is that it can lead to safe patient care. Patient safety has been a great concern in the healthcare sector. Therefore, when the CQI process is used in the care environment, it helps to substantially reduce medical errors and patient falls, among other possible adverse impacts possible (WHO, 2018). The continuous quality improvement process is, therefore, key in enhancing the patient are safe in the care environment and that the patient care services offered are of good quality, and that the patients are safe in the care environment.

Conclusion

The CQI process has evolved in recent years and has also been applied in various sectors in addition to the health care sector. Process, even though it can be a big challenge, various methods exist that can be used in ensuring that such a method succeeds. The continuous quality improvement process has also been shown to improve patient outcomes and also impact positively on the staff.

References

Hill, J. E., Stephani, A. M., Sapple, P., & Clegg, A. J. (2020). The effectiveness of continuous quality improvement for developing professional practice and improving health care outcomes: a systematic review. Implementation Science, 15(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-020-0975-2.

Kilbourne, A. M., Beck, K., Spaeth‐Rublee, B., Ramanuj, P., O’Brien, R. W., Tomoyasu, N., & Pincus, H. A. (2018). Measuring and improving the quality of mental health care: a global perspective. World Psychiatry, 17(1), 30-38. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20482

Maphumulo, W. T., & Bhengu, B. R. (2019). Challenges of quality improvement in the healthcare of South Africa post-apartheid: A critical review. Curationis, 42(1), 1-9. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC-170ff325f8.

Wells, S., Tamir, O., Gray, J., Naidoo, D., Bekhit, M., & Goldmann, D. (2018). Are quality improvement collaboratives effective? A systematic review. BMJ quality & safety, 27(3), 226-240. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2017-006926.

World Health Organization. (2018). Delivering quality health services: A global imperative. OECD Publishing.

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The purpose of this assignment is to discuss the purpose and use of the continuous quality improvement (CQI) process.

In a 1,000-1,250-word paper, address the following:

Explain the need for CQI in health care.
Describe methods of CQI used in health care.
Describe factors that have an effect on the CQI process.
Describe the overall impact that the CQI process has on staff.
Describe the overall impact that CQI initiatives have on patient outcomes.
This assignment requires a minimum of three scholarly resources.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

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