HEALTH CARE OPERATIONS AND QUALITY
According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (2002), “a central goal
of healthcare quality improvement is to maintain what is good about the existing
healthcare system while focusing on the areas that need improvement” (para. 2).
This assignment will familiarize you with the quality improvement (QI) approaches
and models that health care administrators can effectively apply.
You are a junior administrator in a hospital. You have been asked by HR to do a
presentation to introduce new administrative hires to quality improvement.
To create your presentation, please locate the following book in the Trident Library:
Nash, D. (2019). The healthcare quality book: Vision, strategy, and tools. (4th ed.)
Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press. Retrieved from Trident Online Library.
Review Chapter 1, Overview of Healthcare Quality. There are five
approaches/models of quality improvement discussed in Chapter 1.
Create a 6- to 8-slide PowerPoint (PPT), not including your introduction or reference
slide, to discuss three of the five approaches/models of quality improvement
discussed. Your presentation should address the following explicitly:
1. Explain the importance of using quality improvement in healthcare.
2. Highlight the steps, stages, or processes of the three selected
approaches/models and provide an operational example for each that could be
applicable in a health care clinical or administrative setting.
Sample Solution
Slide 1: Title Slide
Slide 2: Introduction
- What is quality improvement?
- Why is quality improvement important in healthcare?
- Benefits of quality improvement
- Three approaches/models of quality improvement
Slide 3: Model 1: Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Cycle
Full Answer Section
- Steps:
- Plan: Identify the problem or area for improvement, and develop a plan to address it.
- Do: Implement the plan and collect data on the results.
- Study: Analyze the data to determine whether the plan was effective.
- Act: Make necessary adjustments to the plan and repeat the cycle.
- Focuses on identifying and eliminating waste in healthcare processes.
- Steps:
- Identify the process to be improved.
- Map the process to identify areas of waste.
- Eliminate the waste.
- Monitor and improve the process over time.
- Focuses on improving the quality of processes by reducing defects and variation.
- Steps:
- Define the problem or area for improvement.
- Measure the current state of the process.
- Analyze the data to identify the root causes of the problem.
- Improve the process by eliminating the root causes of the problem.
- Control the process to ensure that the improvement is sustained.
- Importance of using quality improvement in healthcare
- Benefits of quality improvement
- Summary of the three approaches/models of quality improvement
- For each approach/model, include examples of how it has been used to improve healthcare quality.
- Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each approach/model.
- Provide recommendations for how new administrative hires can use these approaches/models to improve quality improvement in their own departments or units.
- LPI is a systematic approach to improving processes.
- LPI is focused on eliminating waste and improving efficiency.
- LPI can be used to improve a wide range of healthcare processes.
- LPI can be time-consuming and resource-intensive to implement.
- LPI can be difficult to sustain over time.