Continuous Quality Improvement and Risk Management in Hospitals

Continuous Quality Improvement and Risk Management in Hospitals

Introduction

Continuous quality improvement consist of three important stages that are namely taking corrective actions for resolving issues and preventing them from recurring, preventive actions for identifying problems in advance and finally continuous improvement for dealing with issues for overall improvement in hospital customer processes, operational and clinical business.

Discussion

Summary of Hospital Initiatives

The main problem faced by the emergency department of the hospital is the increased waiting time and time consuming procedures of registration, brief examination and case history taken by the nurse at different stages which resulted in waste of time for both the patient and the hospital staff. The Administrator suggested the physician directors that the staff and department must be organized efficiently while the physician directors suggested that wait times must be given as per the severity of illness. Improvement director suggested developing performance improvement programs by measuring the wait times against certain set standards. The initiatives taken by the hospital included hiring of greeter who could look after the patients waiting time and direct serious patients to the triage nurse while skipping the registration step. Greeter was supposed to keep an eye on every person in the waiting area from the time they entered for appropriate guidance, feedback and direction. Every staff member from greeter to nurses was empowered to take necessary actions for immediate attention to patients with serious condition. Additional triage nurses were hired to increase the capacity of handling more patients at one time. The registration step was eliminated by getting it completed while examination of patient with the help of wireless computer so that diagnosis and treatment could be started as soon as possible and an electronic sign was posted telling patient about their wait time depending upon their registration.

Continuous ...