Quality Indicators Essay

indicators are outcomes that increase the quality and safety in patient care. Some indicators are patient falls,

Keywords: The Joint Commission, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, The American Nurses Association, Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting,

Quality Improvement (QI) is an organizational approach leading to the quality of patient care and patient services through use of specific guidelines, principles, and methods to ensure quality of care for every patient and health care facility throughout the world. Quality outcomes focus on the principles of quality management. These measurements investigate the quality of care, patient outcomes and consumer needs, through being part of the participant group. This quality improvement discussion will review the foundational frameworks of QI and explanation of each framework in detail. Included in this QI report will be

This quality improvement discussion will review the purpose of quality management in health care industry and why it is needed. Included in this QI report will be an explanation of the

Claxton, et al (2015) explain the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Health Care Quality Indicators(HCQI) distributes reports to the healthcare systems. Also, these reports provide context, identifying

To understand, translate, code, accumulate, analyze different indicators, both in terms of administrative, statistical and medical use;

The National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) is an initiative of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2015). NQMC is a website and database for information on evidence-based health care quality measures and measure sets (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2015). “The NQMC mission is to provide practitioners, health care providers, health plans, integrated delivery systems, purchasers and others an accessible mechanism for obtaining detailed information on quality measures, and to further their dissemination, implementation, and use in order to inform health care decisions” (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2015). There are several measures established in the NQMC that deal with prescribing the correct medications for hospitalized patients.

Identify and specify up to five new adverse event measures (non-medication-related) that could be used in future QIO programs and CMS provider reporting programs in the hospital setting (inpatient and/or emergency

Develop a plan for the center by using clinical quality measures, or CQMs, which are tools to help track and measure the quality of health care serviced that are provided by eligible professionals, eligible hospitals that are within the health care system. These would be measures to use data that is associated with providers that are able to provide high quality care or relate to long term goals for health care. The measures would be the many aspects of patient care including:

Quality measures are strategies that gauge, evaluate or compute health care processes, results, discernments, patient insight, and administrative structure. In addition, quality measures are frameworks that are connected with the capacity to deliver first-class health care and/or that are able to identify with one or more quality objectives for medicinal services. These objectives include: compelling, protected, effective, quiet focused, impartial, and opportune consideration. Quality measures can be used to measure quality improvement, public reporting, and pay-for-reporting programs specific for health care providers (CMS.gov, 2016). There are an assortment of quality measures in which health care organizations can use to determine the status of the care they are delivering. Many are appropriate, but few are chosen for this research paper. Among them are: National Health Care Surveys, Hospital IQR Programs, Scorecards, and Political, Power, and Perception/Data for Decision-making tools.

The IQI indicators that are important for risk are the mortality rates. The utilization rates are not as important as the mortality rates. Once

Outcome measurements are used to evaluate the health status of patients following the care he/she has received in a given hospital. The measurements look at both the intended and unintended effects such care might have had on the health status of patients and general function. They also help evaluate the level to which a hospital is achieving its goals as they relate to the care being provided to a patients. Outcome measurements usually include traditional measures such as mortality, morbidity, and issues that are related to quality of life. They incorporate patient satisfaction reports related to the healthcare services they have received. These measures are important to patients looking for a hospital as he/she may seek the opinion of persons who have previously received medical care in a given hospital (Jha &Epstein, 2010).

Furthermore, the IQIs can be used to assist hospitals in identifying potential challenges and problem areas that might need further examination; enable the healthcare system to assess quality of care within the hospital using discharge records of in-patent and out-patient data.

Because our group admits and follows low mortality risk DRGs, the quality indicator that I have identified as most pertinent to my current position falls under the umbrella of the patient safety indicators that were identified by AHRQ. The specific patient safety indicator that measures most of what I do on a daily basis is the Death Rate in Low-Mortality Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs). The website is as follows:

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee to Design a Strategy for Quality Review and Assurance in Medicare defines quality of care to be “the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge” (Ransom, Joshi, Nash & Ransom, 2008). Making sure to have current knowledge on healthcare services is crucial to the quality of care provided, and health care professionals are expected to continuously stay updated on the changing trends. The IOM later released six aims for improvement, or also known as the six dimensions of quality, which are safe, effective, efficient, timely, patient-centered, and equitable.