Sample case study on quality assurance

Introduction

Quality assurance is of utmost importance in the health care sector. The main reason is that this sector deals directly with saving human life. As such, there is adamant pressure that the services that are offered are quality to the extent that they can safeguard human life. As such, hospitals are among the primary facilities that are vital in this sector. Therefore, the report shall evaluate quality assurance as applied by Valley General Hospital, Monroe, Washington.
Quality department is tasked with the responsibility to ensure that the hospital conforms to the best quality expectation. As such, the firm defines quality assurance as a prospective view to view events and retrospective review of adverse effects. The hospital ought to be using the electronic information system that deals with electronic reporting to take note of the adverse effects. However, the hospital only relies on patient complaints, malpractice complaints and security logs evaluation to detect any adverse effects. Nevertheless, these are also factors that should supplement the electronic system.

Organization Structure

Valley General Hospital, Monroe, Washington lacks a functioning quality management department. Therefore, it implies that the role of quality assurance is split over various tasks that are hard to control and coordinate. As a matter of best practice, the hospital management should upgrade the current quality control tools to a full-fledged department with the sole responsibility of quality assurance (Donabedian 76). Therefore, the scope of this department will be defined thus giving it an authority in questioning the quality of service that the hospital offers. Also, the department will be headed by a committee that will apply the cause analysis in order to identify and identify modifiable process. Moreover, the committee will develop adequate tools to solve the process that are not modifiable through redeveloping them such that they conform to the best practices.

Six-Sigma

The concept of the six-sigma has been extended to other industries outside manufacturing. As such, it has been found that this concept can be applied in the medical setup. There are various hospitals that have been reported to have fully implemented the six –sigma technique in their operations. First, Valley General Hospital should embark on bench marking of the hospitals that rolled out the application of six-sigma in their operation. Some of the remarkable application of six-sigma that will be interesting for the hospital is the ability to change the ER patient flow in order to increase the number of patients that the hospital serves in a year, reduction of inpatient transfers, redesigning of the transplant unit to save on transplant costs, reduction of the number of steps that nurses will take to access supplies during emergencies, reduction of inpatient mortality and reduction of cycle time between making an appointment and meeting a physician.

Customer Focus

The hospital customer is the patient. Therefore, although the hospital is not directly in a competition to acquire patients, there is a need to ensure that it mains competitive focus on the customers. Currently, the hospital has showed no considerable efforts in focusing on the customer. As a result, there is a need for the hospital to undertake internal quality control improvement initiatives. The initiative should entail conducting bottom-up quality improvement efforts that are specifically targeted at instituting a process change. For instance, the hospital should scale up its initiatives in screening alcohol usage and its ability to comply with the national guidelines that relate to the management of metabolic syndrome. As such, such efforts will be steered through the concept that was developed by Dr. Brent James while working at Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, UT and the use of Breakthrough Series Model that is used in change management processes as developed by the healthcare Improvement in Cambridge.

Process Management

Every patient that visits Valley General Hospital needs a quick and effective medical attention that is provided in a comforting environment. Therefore, interpreting this statement, it implies that the patient would wish to spend the least time in OPD and adequate time with the doctor (Bulau 103). As such, it implies that the manner in which the patient is attended has become a key concern to various regulators both local and federal. Consequently, in order for the process management to be effective, the hospital has to ensure that it meets externally set quality that has been established by various regulators. Some of the established regulations that have been set out include reporting on the aggregate outcome that will be used to develop a guideline for outpatient care and the recent participation in joint commission’s new hospital-based inpatient measure set. In compliance to this requirement, the workers will establish a close working with psychometric experts and also with other partners in the system in order to ensure that appropriate instruments are used. Therefore, it implies that the hospital activities will not only be linked to the hospital internal quality control department but also with the broader system that will evaluate its functioning and quality of its services.

Knowledge Management

Knowledge management relates to the process that involves identifying, recording, organizing, and using knowledge assets to create and sustain a competitive advantage. Therefore, the process results to the accumulation of intellectual asset that the organization holds. However, the knowledge is subdivided into tacit and explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is the most relevant to quality assurance system since it’s readily available and ready to use while the tacit knowledge is instrumental in enabling the functioning of explicit knowledge since it is only present in the human resource (Shi 518). As such, knowledge management comes in handy in clinician credentialing and patient allocations. Clinicians have the tacit knowledge while the patient records serves as the explicit knowledge. Therefore, the two are brought together to ensure that the patient will receive the best care. As a result, a quality system will ensure that the finest medical details are included in the patient medical records and also ensure the capturing each clinician expertise and specialty. Therefore, using the two forms of knowledge, it is possible to allocate the clinician a patient that best benefits from their tacit knowledge. Therefore, knowledge management is exploited to offer the best medical care to the patient. The system will be most effective if the records are kept electronically using the most recent information technology available.

Recommendation and Conclusion

Valley General Hospital should overhaul the current quality management setup and constitute an expert team to develop an integrated quality management department that serves the hospital comprehensively. The department is efficient and can consolidate quality management aspects that will enable the hospital rise from its poor national ranking. Also, the hospital has to ensure that the department is staffed with a comprehensive blend of staff that have adequate knowledge of the medical fields and organization operations.

Works Cited

Bulau, Judith M.. Quality assurance policies & procedures for ambulatory health care. Rockville, Md.: Aspen, 1990. Print.
Donabedian, Avedis. An introduction to quality assurance in health care. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.
Shi, Leiyu, and Douglas A. Singh. Delivering health care in America a systems approach. 4th ed. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett, 2008. Print