The Importance Of Quality Assessment And Quality Improvement In Health Care Quality

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Topic #2 Quality assessment and quality assurance are often found together in health care quality literature. However, these terms are not always differentiated appropriately. Quality assessment is a measurement of quality against an establish standard (Shi & Singh, 2015). The measurement of quality includes the process of describing how quality is determined, identification of specific indicators to be measured, and collection of data for the measurement, statistical analysis, and explanation of the results (Shi & Singh, 2015). Quality assurance is included with quality assurance and is the process of implementing quality through continuous assessment and using the results from the assessments for continuous improvement (Shi & Singh, 2015). …show more content…

TQM was developed and utilized in other industries prior to adoption in health care (Shi & Singh, 2015, p.493-494). TQM has since modernized administration, reduced hospital stays, improved clinical outcomes, and improved patient satisfaction (Shi & Singh, 2015, p.493-494). Examples of utilization of the total quality management include improvement of patient safety through prevention of medical error incidences and as a positive influence for organizational learning and improvement. “Using total quality management approach to improve patient safety by preventing medication error incidences” is a study conducted at General Government Hospital to review current medication practices, implement a six sigma method through utilization of a five-step DMAIC procedure to find out the root cause for the errors, and establish solutions to avoid medication error occurrences throughout the hospital (Yousef & Yousef, 2017). The results demonstrated that the root cause was related to mistakes during prescribing due to poor handwriting (Yousef & Yousef, 2017). To decrease these errors, Guideline Recommendations to be followed by all physicians were published (Yousef & Yousef, 2017). This method is useful in decreasing errors during the prescribing phase and prevent the wrong medications from being administered. “Impact of Total Quality Management on Organizational Performance: Exploring the Contingent Effects of Organizational Learning and Innovation” is another article that discusses the importance of total quality management (Proceedings for the Northeast Region Decision Sciences Institute (NEDSI), 2017). This article examines the effect that total quality management can have on organizational learning and improvement. This has become an important concept for health care organizations specifically because of globalization and the pressure from insurers, accreditation agencies,

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