Healthcare Quality Improvement

Healthcare quality is defined as “the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge” (Shi & Singh, 2019). Patient safety is a necessary and critical component of quality healthcare. However, medical errors inevitably occur and pose a detriment to patient care. Despite efforts to reduce or eliminate errors in medicine, adverse events attributable to medical errors continue to threaten patient safety. A report issued by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) revealed that the most common causes of medical errors are related to system or processes failures, rather than human error (Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2000). Moreover,

Efforts to improve quality and safety in healthcare have largely ignored the patient’s insight and perspective. The patient’s role in promoting safety, however, is no longer passive but rather a powerful driving force for quality improvement strategies. Patient contributions to the patient safety movement have improved the culture of safe care and lowered the incidence of adverse event rates and outcomes. Hence, patient engagement is a favorable strategy for error reduction and safety measures. With this in mind, this paper will discuss the effect of patient safety issues on quality improvement programs. This paper will also discuss why a focus on patient safety has developed. Finally, the reader will be provided with an example of how patient safety efforts have affected healthcare

The concept of EHRs supports improving the safety of healthcare and streamlining its delivery. An EHR is a digital medical record of a patient’s paper chart and allows for continuity of care and collaboration amongst a patient’s continuum of healthcare. According to Manca (2017), EHR technology allows for improved data collection, shared patient information, and treatment history. The shared EHR contains relevant documentation from multiple medical specialties, offering a comprehensive and detailed representation of a patient’s health status. For example, regardless of the setting, providers have specialized, limited interactions with patients that result in differing, fragmented views of the patient’s state of health (Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology [ONC], 2017). EHRs can minimize fragmentation by gathering, arranging, and consolidating a patient’s case history. Additionally, EHRs can diminish the rate of transcription errors. These significant benefits promote safe patient care by reducing the risk of medical errors and preventing adverse events, marking yet another milestone in quality improvement related