Introduction
Quality assurance can be referred to as a set of activities taken to ensure that healthcare organizations’ standards are maintained. It also entails evaluating the situation to improve performance. The ultimate goal is to provide effective and safe care. The Healthcare industry is characterized by an exorbitant amount of protocols. Quality assurance (QA) programs are therefore used to monitor and ensure services offered are of quality standard. QA programs are key areas in healthcare organizations and are thus emphasized. The department of the same is managed by a dedicated team of professionals headed by the medical director.QA program department is responsible for analyzing healthcare requirements and ensuring protocols are observed within the organization. To meet their goals as a department, the team employs a quantitative approach to collecting and analyzing data necessary for the task (Nelson, et al., 1999).
QA Program in Hospitals and their Importance
QA programs have been the center of attention for many healthcare organizations. This has seen most of them lay workers off. They have concentrated on this department at the expense of others. This is because many organizations allocate most of their resources and funds to this department. Moreover, the proposed policies and projects are carried out without much consideration of other departments. All this is done for the good of the organization. It is recorded that negligence of these programs has led to failure of many healthcare organizations.
QA programs ensure the harmonization of all the other departments in the hospital. It ensures that things run well in the hospitals by identifying areas in the departments that need quality improvement and coming up with policies to rectify the situation as well as outlining procedures of doing things in the organization. A quality performance is used to measure performance during auditing. In case the collected data indicate that the expected standards have not been met, the department comes up with quality improvement projects to address the issues affecting them.
The programs also ensure that the healthcare organization complies with crucial requirements such as legal procedures. These programs thus ensure that the organization is committed and maintains compliance. QA programs need to be efficient and effective. For this reason, many health organizations use measurability in order to get a level of evidence. In addition, it ensures that more relevant information is collected hence quality improvement is easier (Hess, et al., 1999).
Health systems need Quality Assurance to attain the objectives of the organizations. This can only be achieved by improving service delivery as expected by the public. In other words, healthcare services provided are of high quality. This also means that every staff performs his/her duties to the best of their knowledge with an aim of satisfying the public.
Being in between the management and the organization itself, the department is seen as a hindrance to good coexistence especially when enforcing policies. Resistance is another challenge faced by the QA programs team. This is because members of the staff are involved in quality improvement projects. In addition, performance is emphasized (Donald and Douglas, 2000).
Improving and Maintaining Quality Care
There are some aspects of QA programs that are important in improving and maintaining quality healthcare. For example, the programs should be patient-based. That is, the policies and projects established should aim at improving the conditions of the patients. Once the patients are satisfied with the organization’s services, the public will and thus the healthcare will gain self-confidence.
The performance of the staff in another area should be evaluated since it contributes immensely to the quality of care. The QA programs should evaluate the performance of staff. The most productive members of the staff should be the only ones maintained and awarded. Good staff performance translates to improved quality care.
Healthcare Coverage Debates in Congress
The ongoing debate on healthcare also emphasizes QA programs. In ensuring its promotion, the committee proposes some recommendations. For example, they suggest that healthcare organizations should promote and support Quality Improvement Boards. This will work for hand in hand with the QA team in improving the quality.
QA programs depend on data gathered to improve. Healthcare organizations should therefore continually give support towards this process and provide the best facilities for the task. In addition, they should invest in the training of this team. The staff should be encouraged to participate in the reviewing of the policies influencing the Quality and selection of the QA members.
Conclusion
Modern trends and the high population seeking medical attention have influenced the healthcare industry today. The health organizations, therefore, have to adopt the new protocols to offer efficient services to the public. Quality assurance programs have thus been put in place to address this issue. With the information gathered, the team can monitor quality based on performance. The programs are also responsible for implementing policies and projects that improve care quality. Any health organization should therefore invest in QA programs more than any other department because their impacts, positively influence all the others.
References
Donald, E. & Douglas, C. (2000). Principles and methods of quality management in healthcare. Aspen publishers: Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Hess, A. et al. (1999). Building and Idealized Measurement System to Improvement Clinical Office Practice Performance. Managed Care Quarterly, 7(3): 26-38.
Nelson, E. et al. (1999).Building Measurement and Data Collection into Medical Practice. Annals of Internal Medicine, 128: 460-466.