Quality Improvement Initiative

Quality Improvement Initiative

Name:

Course:

Instructor’s name:

Date:

Quality Improvement Initiative

Occurrence of Nosocomial infections – also known as Hospital-acquired infection – is quite high. Nosocomial infection is that infection contracted from staff or environment of healthcare facility. There are various means through which infection is spread to susceptible patients in clinical setting such as air droplets, bed linens, contaminated equipment or by health care staff. The origin of infection may be from the infected staff, the outside environment, or in some rare cases, the origin of an infection cannot be identified. According to (Eccles, 2003), there are also other cases where the microorganisms originate from the skin micro biota of the patient, becoming opportunistic after procedures such as surgery that compromise the skin’s protective barrier.

Studies conducted in the United States show that nosocomial infections are associated with increased health care costs, attributable mortality, and length of stay in hospital. This indicates that nosocomial infections impact significantly medical care costs and length of stay in hospital. Extra costs incurred as a result of hospital-acquired infections resulted from other medical costs and prolonged hospital stay. Infection control for inhibiting hospital-acquired infections may help significantly in reducing hospital stay, mortality and medical costs in hospitalized patients (Kaoutar, 2004).

Several studies conducted show that through quality improvement initiative, nosocomial infections, cost, and mortality can be greatly reduced. Quality improvement initiatives are becoming popular in an attempt to reduce unwarranted variations and to enhance quality of health care delivery. Quality in health care is defined as the degree to which programs, services, research and policies for the population improves desired health conditions and outcomes in which the public can be healthy (Langley, 2009).

The purpose of this initiative is to reduce nosocomial infections, improve service delivery, reduce medical costs and reduce hospital stay. Healthcare facility performance is defined by the facility’s outcome of care, efficiency and the level of the patient’s satisfaction. Quality is linked directly to the health facility’s underlying system of cares or service delivery approach. To improve quality and achieve different level of results, the current system of the health care facility needs to change. Target population is patients, staff and other individuals within the hospital environment. Any individual within the hospital environment may contract nosocomial infections. Hospital staff are key to quality services offered to patients.

Quality improvement aims at recognizing sub-optimal practices at the healthcare facility and changing them to decrease hospital acquired infections, medical costs, hospital stay, and improve on quality of services offered. Numerous benefits will be realized when the quality improvement initiative is implemented. The first benefit is improved quality services; quality services are offered in an effective, timely, recipient-centered, recovery-oriented and safe manner. Healthcare facilities are committed to continuous improvement of quality of the care their consumers receive.

With the implementation of this initiative, hospitals will be able to ensure that: (1) risks to staff, patients, and others are minimized, and errors in delivery of medical services are prevented. (2) Treatments, services and procedures are provided in an efficient and timely manner, with appropriate continuity and coordination across all providers of care and all phases of care. (3) Patients’ individual expectations and needs are honored; patients – or individuals whom they designate – have a say in decision making concerning their treatment. The second benefit is an increase in the number of patients being treated at the health facility. With improved quality of services offered at the healthcare facility, admission periods for patients in hospitals reduce hence making bed spaces available for other patients to be admitted. Reduced nosocomial infections also reduces patients’ hospital stay. The third benefit is reduction in overall medical costs; reduced or elimination of nosocomial infections reduces hospital stay and medical cost incurred as a result of the nosocomial infection.

As earlier stated, the aim of quality improvement initiative is to improve quality and outcome of healthcare services, address patient safety, increase access to effective healthcare services and reduce medical costs, through establishment of science research with a broad base and also through promotion of improvement in health system and clinical practices, including diseases infections and other health complications. Quality is improved by supporting and conducting health services research which in turn develops and then gives scientific evidence with regards to all aspect of healthcare. Issues addressed by health services research are issues of quality, outcomes, cost, effectiveness, utilization and patient behavior. It evaluates the system and clinical services in which health services are provided. It also includes studies of process, effects and structure of the services for patients.

An important integral component of quality improvement initiative is evaluation since there is a lot to be learned from evaluation. Evaluation is beneficial for a number of reasons including identifying and solving emerging issues, monitoring impact of services offered, collecting more detailed data, and comparing outcomes of care to draw lessons. Developmental studies and focused audits may be used for evaluation of the initiative, whereas methods such as process evaluations and multiple case studies may be used to derive generalized lessons and provide examples of successful healthcare practices (Dixon-Woods, 2012).

Evaluation helps individuals involved in quality improvement initiative to optimize the use of resources and choice of intervention. Essential information that can be added to knowledge base of improving quality of services offered in health care may be obtained by commencing formal evaluation of healthcare practices, especially in relation to processes of implementation.

References

Dixon-Woods M., M. S. (2012). Ten Challenges in Improving Quality in Healhcare: Lessons from the Health Foundation’s Programme Evaluations and Relevant Literature. BMJ Qual Saf.

Eccles M., G. J. (2003). Research Designs for Studies Evaluating the Effectiveness of Change and Improvement Strategies. Qual Saf Health Care, 47-52.

Kaoutar B., J. C. (2004). Nosocomial Infections and Hospital Mortality: a Multicentre Epidemiological study. 58(4), 268-275.

Langley G., M. R. (2009). A Practical Approach to Enhancing Organizational Performance. San Fransisco, California: Jossey-Bass Publishers.