Health Care

Health Care



How cost, quality, and technology compare and differ in the world of health care

There is no right or wrong definition of quality. There are really multiple dimensions of value, depending on the variety of perspectives on value (for example, the perspective of the client/family, the community, the provider or the organization/healthcarea dministration). It is also important to acknowledge that the differences and seemingly opposite definitions of value can operate at once and may need to be reconciled (e.g.,a  provider's technical accuracy of not giving injections conflicts with a parent's expectations of a shot as the best available treatment).Still, compliance with standards (technical accuracy) is a major underpinning of quality.Anything you do to measure (assess) or improve value can be considered as Qualitya ssurance (QA). For example, supervision, keeping medical and facility records, reminding each other of proper diagnostic techniques, doing patient education, teaching staff in standards of care, repairing problems, gathering monitoring (MIS) data and so on canall be thought of being quality assurance activities. Quality assurance can consist of three different levels:a  QA tool (such as flowchart),a  QA a pproach (sucha s problem-solving teams) to a QA program (teams,an accreditation program, etc).QA looks for sources of problems in systems and processes, not awful performers. For instance, giving the patient the incorrect medication from the dispensary might happen if the medicines are not properly labeled. The following is an excerpt froma  Qualitya ssurance Project publication on institutionalization of QA in healthcare. The excerpt provides some additional explanation of quality and QA principles.

 

Concepts on Cost and Quality

As with the definition of value - which varies based on the perspective we are looking from (i.e., whether it is from the perspective of the client, the provider, the health care facility or the community in general)there can be multiple definitions of cost. (Loeff 2008) The definition may also alter slightly based on who incurs the cost. In non-technical terms, the word “cost” connotes a loss or a sacrifice, that may or may not be quantifiable, but is usually incurred in the course of profiting something.” Cost” also implies the value of that something that is disbursed to obtain benefit or is the amount of one thing that is exchanged for a service or product. In more technical jargon, cost can be defined in economic and financial terms described below:- Monetary or financial cost expenses incurred for an input or to provide a product or service,at a  ...