NUR 512 Module 7 Discussion Quality of care

Sample Answer

Healthcare organizations are ethically and professionally mandated to provide and sustain high-quality care. However, many variances occur at different times depending on the workload, organizational resources, and severity of patient issues, among other factors. To address such variances and sustain high performance, the Advanced Practice Nurse (APN) should collaborate with other care providers to measure and monitor care quality and the achieved outcomes. Understanding this process, tools, and systems needed is critical to standard care that addresses patient needs comprehensively.

In a typical healthcare organization, APNs and other providers rely on process, outcome, and structural measures to determine whether the delivered care meets the desired standards. According to Jazieh (2020), process measures reflect care providers’ compliance with actions implemented to achieve quality improvement goals. A suitable example is the percentage of people receiving preventive care services. The presence of such interventions demonstrates the providers’ commitment to improve and sustain health.

Outcome measures are the indicators used to determine whether healthcare interventions improve patients’ health or other treatment-associated effects (Buck, 2022; Snowdon et al., 2023). For example, the rate of hospital-acquired infections is a highly reliable reflection of the impact of healthcare services for patients at a given time. Since outcomes depend on numerous factors, outcome measures guide care providers in risk adjustment and process standardization to enhance care quality. Structural measures have much to do with an organization’s capacity in terms of systems and processes. For instance, APNs can assess the nurse-to-patient ratio to determine variance in care quality and expected outcomes. A high ratio increases workload and hampers patient outcomes.

Accurate measurement and monitoring of care quality and outcomes is usually data-driven. In this case, healthcare professionals and organizational leaders should have adequate and accurate data to make informed choices. Typically, a comparative analysis of data from clinical records can help APNs determine variances and formulate interventions for higher care quality and outcomes. Data could be sourced from clinical records and is essential for outcome and collective evaluation of the effectiveness of procedures.

Care experiences can also guide APNs in determining variances and opportunities for improving quality. Interactions with patients regarding communication, patient-provider interactions, and timeliness of care can help APNs determine gaps between the delivered and expected outcomes. Positive patient care experiences accurately reflect high-quality care (Wong et al., 2020). On the other hand, dissatisfaction denotes gaps that should be addressed to optimize processes and achieve better results.

Care quality measurement and monitoring should be continuous and designed to achieve safe and healthy patient care environments. Based on the gaps that emerge at different times, APNs should collaborate with colleagues and leaders to improve outcomes guided by quality improvement frameworks/models. For instance, the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) approach can be used to implement and evaluate healthcare interventions. Planning involves selecting and defining the components of a measure, while doing involves collecting and monitoring the measured data (Jazieh, 2020).

In this study step, care providers analyze the situation and decide about the needed changes. The last step (act) involves implementing the desired changes (Chen et al., 2021). The inference is that care quality measurement is goal-driven and outcome-oriented. Hence, APNs should measure and monitor it purposefully to address performance gaps that hamper care quality.

References

• Buck, J. A. (2022). The limits of using outcomes as quality measures. Psychiatric Services, 73(6), 693-694. https //doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.202000873
• Chen, Y., VanderLaan, P. A., & Heher, Y. K. (2021). Using the model for improvement and plan‐do‐study‐act to effect smart change and advance quality. Cancer Cytopathology, 129(1), 9-14. https //doi.org/10.1002/cncy.22319
• Jazieh, A. R. (2020). Quality measures Types, selection, and application in health care quality improvement projects. Global Journal on Quality and Safety in Healthcare, 3(4), 144–146. https //doi.org/10.36401/JQSH-20-X6
• Snowdon, D. A., Srikanth, V., Beare, R., Marsh, L., Parker, E., Naude, K., & Andrew, N. E. (2023). A landscape assessment of the use of patient reported outcome measures in research, quality improvement and clinical care across a healthcare organisation. BMC Health Services Research, 23(1), 94. https //doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09050-1
• Wong, E., Mavondo, F., & Fisher, J. (2020). Patient feedback to improve quality of patient-centred care in public hospitals a systematic review of the evidence. BMC Health Services Research, 20, 1-17. https //doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05383-3