Clinical governance provides fundamental components needed to facilitate the provision of quality care where excellent leadership is provided, and staff members are appreciated and supported as they attend to their patients. According to Travaglia and Braithwaite (1), clinical governance ensures sustainable use of resource available resources, appropriate behavior, accountability, and effective results. Additionally, Brennan and Flynn (2) assert that clinical governance enhances efficiency and management and examines the roles and boundaries between healthcare staff members. For instance, it distinguishes the roles between clinicians and managers, doctors and patients, and nurses and health professions. In other words, it promotes best practices while eliminating the confusion in the roles of healthcare providers. However, quality improvement and Pathways to Excellence initiatives are the actions taken to enhance quality in the manner in which care is administered to the patients. They include initiatives such as using technology to provide healthcare and also the use of Evidence Based Practice (EBP). In short, it focuses on improving the quality of patient’s health.
Clinical governance exists in the office I work for. Over the past decade, the organization has focused on enhancing accountability within its systems. According to Lee et al. (3) the accountability is mainly provided by the vigilant governing boards that have clear roles as stipulated in the organization’s constitution. The bodies provide checks and balances and ensure that every person is held to account for their actions (4). Additionally, the organization has focused on enhancing ethics and regulating qualified privileges, and they are the aspects of clinical governance. Moreover, the organization has numerous steps to ensure that quality assurance is conducted and the standards are met using the clinical indicators that are only applied when clinical governance is used. Therefore, the organization that I work for has widely used clinical governance to promote quality of healthcare.
References
Travaglia J, Braithwaite J. An overview of clinical governance policies, practices, and initiatives. Australian health review. 2008;32(1):10–22.
Brennan NM, Flynn MA. Differentiating clinical governance, clinical management, and clinical practice. Clinical governance. 2013;18(2):114–31.
Lee DW, Lai PB. Case of Ian Paterson: Reflection and perspective on clinical governance. Surgical Practice. 2018;22(1):5-9.
Phillips C, Hall S, Pearce C, Travaglia J, de Lusignan S, Love T, et al. Improving quality through clinical governance in primary health care. Report of a systematic review addressing drivers for quality in primary healthcare, 2010.