Quality Measurement in Healthcare: Improving Patient Care & Outcomes - Essay Sample

Introduction

Quality measurement in healthcare helps project the performance of healthcare, thereby providing room for improvements in the quality of care. The defined quality standards are evaluated against healthcare providers and health plans performance data. Measurements in quality can improve patients' ability to make informed decisions concerning their care and address differences in how care is delivered and health outcomes. Besides, healthcare providers and health insurance plans can be held accountable for providing high-quality healthcare. In contrast, the misuse, underuse, and overuse of services in healthcare can be prevented to ensure patient safety. Drivers of improvement can also be easily identified in healthcare workers for them to provide the best care. The quality of service is essential, too, since it contributes to healthcare practice's overall success. Patient satisfaction is influenced by the quality of service that, in turn, affects customer loyalty and purchase intentions and the relationship between a doctor and a patient.

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Methods of Measuring Healthcare Quality

Process Measures

Process measures measure the degree to which patients are provided with specific services in line with healthcare providers' recommended care guidelines. Prevention of future health conditions or complications and enhanced health status is improved by treatments and procedures linked to process measures. Process measures assess whether patients were able to obtain the recommended care that meets process measure requirements. Process measures create straightforward, actionable feedback, and transparent way of enhancing performance. Process measures focus on steps that require to be followed to ensure proper care, and when carefully executed, the desired outcome is very likely to be achieved. It helps ensure a shared decision and effective communication between patients and doctors in providing quality care (Morris & Bailey, 2018). An example of process measures in determining whether physicians can give appropriate drugs for diabetic patients or if patients with cancer are provided with recommended screenings by their doctors.

Process measures enable organizations to minimize the variations in delivering healthcare by enhancing quality and cost. Inappropriate differences can be reduced and monitored in a case process when an organization can pinpoint potential variation points by establishing process metrics. The root cause of an organization's failure can be pinpointed by process measures, thereby assessing and fixing the problem. An organization's efforts can be revealed by process measures in systemizing and incorporating best practices to its improvement efforts. Besides, process measures can be used to prevent adverse outcomes in an institution by being able to identify the steps that are most important by tracking and measuring the levels. Processes that deliver value to a patient can be mapped through process measures that ensure all patients obtain the highest quality care that is consistent.

Process measures can be improved by rewarding exceptional performance of practitioners through financial rewards such as bonuses that can be used to enhance sound performance. Patients may use the information obtained to select good quality healthcare providers, thereby widening the market for good performers, and professional satisfaction is also increased. Outside the revalidation process, disciplinary actions and annual appraisals regarded as evidence in the practice of a clinician requiring to withdraw licenses for poor-performing clinicians can be used to counter poor performance (Lee et al., 2016). Besides, patients and buyers avoid low quality by using the information obtained in measuring healthcare quality. Loss of professional reputation by clinicians can also result in improved performance.

Patient-Reported Outcomes

The patient-reported outcomes measure the experience of care, health behavior, quality of life, and health status of a patient using information obtained from the caregiver, or the patient directly without external interpretation. Patient experience measures provide feedback on the experience of care by patients. Patient experience measures assess aspects of care, ranging from access to care of the information provided by doctors to whether test results are available to patients by doctors and how quickly urgent care appointments are handled. Measures of patients’ experience create responses to patients' involvement in receiving care, such as interpersonal aspects. Patient experience measures reveal the degree to which patient-centered care is critical. Clinical quality is directly linked to positive patient experiences since the patients are more receptive to medical advice, committed to treatment, and engaged in their care (Morris & Bailey, 2018). An example of measures of patient experience is determining the time taken by patients to obtain an appointment with their doctors. Besides, treatment options are determined by patient experience, whether patients can get information that is easy to understand.

Workforce engagement and patient experience are intertwined in enhancing employee management of an organization. Better employee engagement results in better outcomes in readmission rates, length of stay, technical quality, and better records of an organization's safety, leading to better performance. Patient feedback helps identify gaps in an organization, improve quality initiatives, and act as measures of balance in ensuring care delivery changes don't impact patient experience negatively. Patient experience measures help organizations transition to value-based care. Patient feedback facilitates organizational change through actionable and timely approaches by developing robust measurements (Berkowitz, 2016). Besides, patient engagement and care coordination can be prioritized by information obtained from the feedback of patients and understand the effects on the outcomes and experiences of patients of upcoming delivery models in care.

Patient response helps transform healthcare and improves safety and quality through the placement of patients at the core of decision making. As a result, regulatory bodies can achieve greater credibility. Measures inpatient experience aid in evaluating and assessing new and old treatments, thereby providing a suitable form of treatment. Moreover, it helps monitor changes in clinical action and opinions concerning when to treat and admit patients (Smith et al., 2017). Patient satisfaction is also gained by enabling patients to evaluate their care in both interpersonal and technical aspects at a personal level. Also, health states can be assessed to the daily life of an individual for preference-based measures. Patient experience measures can be improved by making the method appear engaging since patients are likely to judge the technique before the real experience. Moreover, the patients can be honored with attention and respect, and information communication between them and doctors improved. Also, patients can be enabled to access top priority and timely care.

Conclusion

In conclusion, methods used to measure the quality of health have the potential to strengthen hospitals, surgical teams, and clinician’s performance management. By shifting the emphasis from outputs and processes to the result of the patients’ health, the information obtained serves a vital part throughout healthcare systems. Process measures follow a systematic way of analyzing institutional problems thus helps come up with better ways of ensuring that patients obtain utmost care. Measures in patient experience, on the other hand strive to ensure enhanced relationships between a caregiver and a patient therefore mainstreaming a patient centered approach.

References

Berkowitz, B. (2016). The patient experience and patient satisfaction: measurement of a complex dynamic. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 21(1).

Lee, V. S., Miller, T., Daniels, C., Paine, M., Gresh, B., & Betz, A. L. (2016). Creating the exceptional patient experience in one academic health system. Academic Medicine, 91(3), 338.

Morris, C., & Bailey, K. (2018). Measuring health care quality: an overview of quality measures. 2014.

Smith, L. M., Anderson, W. L., Lines, L. M., Pronier, C., Thornburg, V., Butler, J. P., ... & Goldstein, E. (2017). Patient experience and process measures of quality of care at home health agencies: Factors associated with high performance. Home Health Care Services Quarterly, 36(1), 29-45.