Risk and Quality Management Assessment - Essay Example

?Risk and Quality Management Assessment Introduction A hospital is basically a community that provides medical, surgical treatment and nursing care for the sick and the injured. In a hospital, diagnostic studies such as x-rays, lab testing and ultra sound imaging are also performed. Hospitals also provide teaching services for medical experts and instruct patients on self health care and ailment management. They also train about community service to improve the health of the surrounding community. Hospitals often provide 24 hours daily services and, therefore, regular inspections and approvals for services and operations by the authorities is an important routine. Hospitals usually contain specialized personnel and equipment that need a lot of training and experience. Apart from their treatment services, they also provide rooms and beds for patients and always have emergency and trauma sections. Discussion Quality management is basically about the patients’ confidence whereas risk management is about patients’ needs and priorities, and protection of hazards. Quality management puts more focus on the effectiveness of results and efficiency in utilizing the resources whereas risk management is more focused on the potential effectiveness of results and potential efficiency to utilize resources. Patients’ safety is generally very important to both the patients and the authorities (Joshi, 2009). This is why governments and medical practitioners including other professionals have launched a lot of researches to assess the severity, occurrence and reasons behind many adverse events. Ways to enhance safety and reduce risks in health organizations through quality and risk management range from good coordination, human resources, good communication, updated information technology, standardization and improvements of the health organization. Quality management could include fire safety or any other system making the institution safer while risk management could include any system designed to identify potential hazards (Lighter and Fair, 2004). Hospitals are especially hazardous institutions for both patients and the staff. Risks and adverse events are dealt with day in day out. The potential risks are mostly related to surgery, sedatives and anesthetics and patient transfers. These include wound infections, wrong site surgeries and medication errors. There is therefore a relatively high risk of unsafe situations in hospitals and thus calls for measures to prevent them through quality and risk management (Kavaler, 2012). Hospitals should have flexible, participative and customer focused administrations. They should also possess values that are associated with participation, affiliation and teamwork in each and every improvement to make the quality if the services given better. There should also be a developmental culture based on risk-taking innovations that are supposed to improve the overall services of the hospital. Therefore the idea is to improve the institution while keeping the patients and the staff out of hazards that may be brought about by errors and other causes in the hospital. The key concept of quality management in the hospital is the development of the systems to prevent hazards, and of risk management is the process of minimizing risk by developing the systems to identify and analyze potential hazards (Lighter and Fair, 2004). Risk management, being an on going activity, should not only be about identifying the risks upfront and then forging ahead regardless. It plays a critical role in identifying, managing and containing risks related to patients’ safety. In a hospital environment, communication and good governance together with a systematic and an integrative approach will make risk management easy and adjustable according to the size of the organization. The steps followed in risk management start with a risk strategy which is basically the establishment of the internal and external risk management context and defining its structure. The second step is risk identification which is identifying how, when, what and why any event could occur. The third step is risk analysis which is determining the consequences and the levels of the risks. The fourth step is the risk evaluation which is the comparison of the risk against the criterion and deciding on the nature and the degree of the necessary actions. The fifth and last step should be risk treatment which is basically the identification and assessment of options and the preparation and implementation of action plans. This is the risk monitoring process (Kavaler, 2012). The risks in a hospital may include medical errors, fall incidents and diagnostic errors. Medical errors or medication errors are where a patient is erroneously given different type of medication from the ones he or she requires (Kavaler, 2012). This is very risky in the fact that the different medication could worsen the patient’s condition or even react badly and kill the patient. Fall incidents are the typical falls by patients due to may be lack of stability due to the infirmity. Falling could cause deadly injuries and especially to the weak patients who can not support themselves. Diagnostic errors are where a doctor’s decision of a diagnosis in a hospital is wrong. This is where a doctor gives wrong directions of treatment for a certain ailment. This, like the medical errors, is very risky as it puts the patient in total danger of bodily harm and extreme reactions. The external factors that affect a hospital include transparency, accountability and quality reporting. Transparency is all about whether a hospital is ready to operate in a more transparent healthcare system. Accountability is whether the board and leaders of the hospital are responsible enough to ensure the institution is in compliance with regulatory requirements. Quality writing is about how information is passed to consumers and whether it is to the standard of hospital data. The internal factors include giving staff the right tools to do the job, instilling the right culture for quality to flourish and attracting and retaining the right people to do the job and promote quality. If not followed satisfactorily, the above factors will not only make a hospital look appalling but will also make it loose its prestige. A hospital’s long term goals would include organizational and structural changes which would include creating committees, commissions and councils that would be responsible for ensure and monitoring accomplishment of quality improvement. Hospitals would also in the long run want to achieve improved outcomes in their processes and operations, reputation and work environment. In the long run they would also change their protocol and practice by establishing systematic processes for problem solving. In the short run, hospitals should focus on appropriate utilizations in order to mitigate cost increases. There is also the engagement goal in the short run which is basically creating a relationship with the patients so that they can make health choices. This is through understanding the population and targeting specific goals. Another short-term goal is basically the day to day services to the patients. Patients should be treated with a lot of care and quality services (Heller, 2009). The fundamental quality management policies include making of a statement that will outline the values of the hospital, questioning and surveying the customers to get to know what to improve in order to satisfy them and also getting to know the needs of the employees and what could be done to improve their efficiency (Joshi, 2009). The fundamental risk management policies would include knowing the goals of the hospital to plan for the future, reporting incidences with no repercussions and preventing risks through the risk management steps. If implemented, the above will improve health outcomes (Heller, 2009). In a hospital risk management and quality management are related in that they are both analysis of adverse and sentry events and trends and deal with patients safety initiatives. They also deal with the organizations training and strategic planning. They are therefore both there to make sure that the patients are treated in a manner portraying quality and no hazards (Lighter and Fair, 2004). Conclusion For the hospital and any other health care organization, quality management and risk management are vital for establishing assurance of quality treatment for the patients. Since they also cover the staff members’ needs, the quality and risk managements are an important idea to an organization so as to improve its status, reduce costs and raise its standards. References Heller A. R. (2009). Dresden teamwork concept for medical high risk organizations. New York: Nova Science. Joshi S. K. (2009). Quality management in hospitals. New Delhi: Jaypee. Kavaler.F (2012). Risk Management in Health Care Institutions. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Lighter D. and Fair D. C. (2004).Quality Management in Health Care: Principles and Methods. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Read More