Quality applications in healthcare are crucial for the proper functioning of clinical care. Healthcare organizations require efficient, safe, user-friendly and cost-effective systems to enhance the patient’s overall health and improve the patient’s safety. To meet these developmental needs, organizations across the globe are looking for quality software applications that can help in the creation of quality systems.
Healthcare quality assessment is a part of this process, which involves identifying and correcting any deficiencies in a system. Quality applications in healthcare help in the improvement of quality control and clinical guidelines.
Quality Applications in Healthcare
Healthcare quality improvement includes several activities such as improvement in communication, quality improvement in administrative processes, and improvement in organizational performance among others. These activities help in identifying wrong practices in the existing healthcare systems and suggest appropriate corrective measures.
Healthcare organizations across the world are working towards transforming their healthcare systems to achieve desirable outcomes in the shortest time possible. Reform works include the following.
Healthcare reform
Healthcare reform means a transformation of an existing healthcare system. This comprises large investments by public and private sector in research and technology, development of clinical facilities and infrastructure improvement. The authorities are spearheading reform efforts with the introduction of Primary Healthcare Information Technology and Clinical Data Management Improvement Programs. These efforts are aimed at making the healthcare services more reliable, economical, convenient and accessible to all. In line with this effort, many quality hospitals have been converted to high-tech hospitals. These conversions took place in response to the demands of patients, who demand higher standards of health care services.
Healthcare quality indicators provide critical information on the quality of primary healthcare services delivered by healthcare systems. Indicators are designed to capture important information on the state of health and the condition of patients in primary healthcare services across the nation. Indicators are classified according to priority, practice impact, incremental improvements, recommended practice and outcomes. They facilitate effective monitoring and evaluation of quality indicators.
Healthcare institutions are converting their clinical and administrative practices to meet quality benchmarks. Conversion involves large investments in technology, infrastructure, and clinical facilities. Some large hospitals have succeeded in converting all their departments to electronic patient records (EPRS). There are several other hospitals, clinics and offices that are successfully converting all their departments to EPRS. The increasing use of EPRS has led to increasing adoption of preventive service indicators.
Healthcare quality service delivery involves timely, efficient, and cost-effective service provision to all patients. The measurement of quality of service delivery depends upon various factors such as process reliability, staff-to-patient ratio, the quality of diagnostic test results and service continuity. These quality indicators to help monitor changes in the quality of services provided by medical institutions.
Key quality performance indicators include the ratio of patients seen to care for by staff compared to the number of admissions and the number of days staff spends assessing the health condition of patients.
Hospitals that measure these key performance indicators are likely to detect problems long before they adversely affect patient care and system efficiency. The use of electronic medical records may slow down the growth of the integrated health care system.
An analysis of the current staffing situation reveals that physicians working full time are often unable to dedicate enough time to clinical practice and report to their supervisors.
