Health administration

Various measures have been developed which are grouped into aspects of patient safety, patient-centeredness, effectiveness as well as timeliness. An important measure involves the use of a combination of ratings and reports to determine the experiences of patients regarding the important dimensions of patient care, overall satisfaction with the services they received as well as the importance of each of the elements in relation to satisfaction of patient needs. More objective measures are also used to describe levels of quality of services from patients’ perspectives.
Regulation and accreditation standards exist to ensure hospitals provide high quality and competent health care. Facility accreditation processes ensure hospitals demonstrate capacities that are in accordance with national health accreditation standards developed for health care centers. Health care centers have to undergo accreditation review for them to qualify to provide health care services to patients. Regulations and accreditation standards ensure that health care providers make informed choices and conform to the outlined legislation that governs the privacy and confidentiality of patient information (Ransom et. al, 2008).
Barriers may be faced in the measurement of health care quality. Many operations are carried out in health care facilities and this leads to the development of the complex nature of health care therefore making measurement of quality of health care to be a difficult task. It is important to ensure revision and coordination of quality measures as well as develop new quality measures that will effectively address emerging issues that are brought about by the complexities within the health care system. It has been realized that various aspects of quality can be determined from a patient’s perspective as they are able to identify deficiencies that busy health service providers may not be able to notice.
The hospital should therefore coordinate the development of measures and this can be achieved by ensuring a detailed consideration of sources of data, patient needs, analysis, and requirements for maintenance. Uncoordinated development of measures can lead to a situation in which conflicting and competing measures of similar processes and outcomes are developed. This can create confusion and may also hamper efforts of providing quality information to stakeholders. Coordinated measure development will therefore ensure the effective operation of processes and this will make it possible to provide quality services to patients.
Conclusion
Monitoring and revising quality program implementation will improve health care outcomes and reduce medical errors. Health care settings should comply with the set standards developed as this will enable to overcome challenges faced in the provision of services. Ensuring patients receive quality services will be the key to developing a quality health care system that will serve all patients equally.