Executive Summary

Executive Summary

The purpose of the program or project

The purpose of this program is the quality improvement in heath care organizations. Quality improvement is a hospitals process to advance the quality of care and outcomes for patients using an explicit set of philosophies and procedures (Walker, 2012). This paper attempts to describe some of the areas of potential advances for quality improvement at Washington County Regional Medical Center (WCRMC) nursing unit. One principle of quality improvement is measurement, which is the collection of data to improve patient care. Using these measurements and tools can help leaders understand the direction of quality in the organization.

The areas of consideration for improvement at WCRMC are emergency room wait times and discharge instructions. Both of these improvement areas have financial and influence for the health care organization. Emergency room wait times can reduce the market share and financial stability of the health care organization. Discharge instruction if given appropriately by the nursing staff can reduce the readmission rate for WCRMC, along with financial gain and improve the satisfaction of the patient experience. These are just of couple of measures WCRMC can use to align the mission of the organization and the commitment of improving performance. There are several models and tools for collecting data.

The creation of something different in healthcare requires a determination to unite the entire facility in order to achieve a warm, caring, knowledgeable environment. When an organization is considering a strategic plan, these goals must remain the overall focus for each step of the process. Without the creation of a quality service, the organization stands to lose patients to other facilities more in tune with the needs of the patients as well as the environs that the facility serves.

The target population or audience

The new system deployed by this healthcare facility has created chaos because employees had been fully trained in the old process and were comfortable with the old system. The new system, created to save human resources and extra payroll, was implemented and started without any field work done prior to creating the system. No communication or training was done about the new system, yet the system was set up and expected to work on the first day installed. Hence, there has been much frustration not only for the employees, but for the patients as the new system entailed mistakes - some that take costly time to fix - and a ...