Institute of medicine framework for healthcare quality

Health Care Quality due: In 2001, a commission of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released areport on health care quality in the US (Institute for Healthcare Improvement, 2015). According to National Research Council (2001), the report’s framework of health care quality involved the evaluation of several major components. These components included safety (the avoidance of patients injuries from the health care processes), effectiveness (the avoidance of overuse or underuse of facilities), patient-centeredness (the ability to provide care which is responsive to patients preferences and needs), timely (the time it takes to receive and give care to patients), efficiency (use of all resources to the maximum) and equitability (providing equal quality of care to patient of different gender or status).
Application to nursing
These components can be applied to nursing in order to ensure a high health care quality. The safety component, for instance, can be implemented by ensuring that the nurses possess the necessary knowledge and skills needed in the field. On the other hand, effectiveness and efficiency can be ensured by appointment of a strict managerial team; which will supervise and ensure proper use of the nursing resources.
Timely and patient centeredness components of health care quality can be achieved by reducing the ratio of patients to nurses so as to ensure that patients will get the attention they require. Finally, equitability can be met by discouraging discrimination of patients and setting harsh rules to those found discriminating patients. Once the components are implemented and observed strictly, the nursing sector can be of high health care quality.
Application to actual work setting
In my actual work setting, the framework components can be applied to improve the quality of healthcare services offered. For starter, all the nurses without a diploma in nursing should be forced to go further their studies; this will consequently improve safety of the health care provided by reducing the numbers of accidents to patients when undergoing treatment. On top of nurses furthering their studies, the manager should be highly qualified and strict; this will ensure effectiveness and efficiency of the health center’s resources.
Additionally, the government can increase the number of nurses in the health center so as to ensure timely quality and the ability to provide care which is responsive to patients’ preferences and needs. This will ultimately increase the health care quality of the health center.

References
Institute for Healthcare Improvement. (2015). Improving health and healthcare worldwide.
Retrieved February 9, 2015, from http://www. ihi. org
National Research Council (2001). Envisioning the National Health Care Quality Report.
Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.