Successful Implementation of New Quality Measures, Research Paper Example

There are many tools and strategies that could be used to ensure a successful implementation of new quality measures. In modern health care settings, hospital administrators often look towards the private industrial sector to understand business practices that will help them improve the quality of patient care. Some of the most frequently implemented strategies include “Plan-Do-Study-Act, Six Sigma, Lean, and root-cause analysis” (Hughes, 2008). These methods are effective because they help the hospital administration understand what factors contributed to existing problems in addition to how current practices could be refined in a manner that offsets these difficulties. Furthermore, these plans help the health care organization determine how to efficiently allocate resources as costs so that patient care can improve not only due to enhanced practices, but as a consequence of advanced organization as well.

Six Sigma is a frequently used quality measure because it defines quality in terms of quantitative numbers. Therefore, it allows the hospital administration to understand the quality of its care on the basis of the amount of errors made. In order to achieve high quality practices in the business setting, a business “process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities” (GE, 2015). While different measures are set based on the patient population and quality guidelines of the individual health care organization, it is important to consider that all health care professionals are expected to implement practice in a manner that supports these quality goals. Such is also the case with the other quality methods mentioned. Overall, it is necessary to understand that quality is an institution wide practice, and it is the primary responsibility of the nurses to ensure that these requirements are carried out.

References

(2015). What is Six Sigma? Retrieved from http://www.ge.com/en/company/companyinfo/quality/whatis.htm

Hughes RG. (2008). Tools and Strategies for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.