Organization And Systems Leadership Discussion
Continuous improvement in patient safety and quality of care is a highly sought-after initiative in the healthcare domain. To accomplish this goal, various healthcare stakeholders join hands, heralding the concept that the strength of a team outweighs an individual’s effort. Even as stakeholders work together, there are relevant tools, or key pillars, that aid in improving the quality and safety of patient care. These include technology, communication, shared decision-making, law, regulations, and policies. The following is a discussion of how the aforementioned factors contribute to the development of a culture that promotes patient safety and quality. Organization And Systems Leadership Discussion
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Technology
The healthcare sector has seen massive development and improvement in technology in the twenty-first century, a milestone that has spearheaded health education, practice, and research. However, this advancement was preceded by the invention of Electronic Health Records (EHR) in the 1970s in the United States, from which multiple innovations have resulted (Mathews et al., 2019). The EHR innovation has revitalized how health information is entered, stored, and shared. The impetus for the EHR innovation was that the traditional paper-based documentation of patient information is marred by flaws such as vulnerability to natural disasters such as fires and difficulty retrieving information (Akhu-Zaheya et al., 2018)Organization And Systems Leadership Discussion. On the other hand, EHR allows for simple documentation, storage, and sharing of information, thereby improving patient care and safety. Again, biometrics can be used to protect electronic systems, allowing only authorized people to access patient information; this improves privacy and confidentiality and the quality and safety of patient care.
Technology has also had a significant impact on medication prescriptions to patients. Medication errors in healthcare are a common problem, and they can happen at any stage of the medication process, including ordering, dispensing, administration, and monitoring. Part of the reduction in medication errors can be attributed to computerized physician order entry systems. This reduction in medication errors is attributed to the systems’ ability to detect errors in drug calculations or dosages, as well as auto-correction of drug spellings, thereby eliminating errors caused by doctors’ poor penmanship (Classen et al., 2020)Organization And Systems Leadership Discussion. As a result, the safety and quality of patient care improve as adverse drug reactions, drug-drug interactions, overdosing, and underdosing are reduced.
Communication
Communication is a critical component of care delivery. Despite being a recurring topic in healthcare, it is still a widely misunderstood concept. The majority of the schisms observed between care providers, as well as the resulting breakdown in care coordination, are the result of ineffective communication. The World Health Organization principles are put into action to foster a culture of communication among the care team. Accuracy (statement of facts, next steps, and actions), relevance (tailoring communications to the right audience, patients, or healthcare professionals), timeliness (frequent, regular, well-planned scheduled communication), and understandability (clear language, minimal acronyms), are among the principles. If communication is effective, it ensures proper coordination of care, limits wrangling between care providers, and ensures patients get the most out of the education they receive (Ratna, 2019)Organization And Systems Leadership Discussion. Furthermore, effective communication ensures that patients and family members are empowered, encouraging them to participate fully in their care. Despite the current emphasis in healthcare on patient-centered and family-centered care, such modalities of care delivery cannot be realized without effective communication.
Collaboration
Health professionals frequently refer to the healthcare industry as a “no-hero” field. To put it another way, no individual can succeed on their own without the assistance of their coworkers. The involvement of various people, professions, and specialties in providing care to patients is referred to as collaboration (Karam et al., 2018). Respect, communication, partnership, and negotiation are the guiding principles for achieving inter-professional collaboration (Karam et al., 2018)Organization And Systems Leadership Discussion. Views of colleagues are respected, communication is done in the most accurate, relevant, timely, and unadorned prose, everyone, including patients and families, is considered a partner, and finally, care providers negotiate when to do tasks and fulfill their duties.
The advantages of collaborative practice extend to both patients and providers of care. Patients receive better care and have better health outcomes, which is most noticeable in patients with chronic illnesses such as diabetes mellitus. A diabetic patient, for example, requires the services of a physician, podiatrist, nutritionist, nephrologist, cardiologist, and social worker—a comprehensive set of collaborative practices. According to the findings of a study by Matzke et al. (2018), the involvement of a physician, a pharmacist, and a podiatrist was associated with significant improvements in the patients’ blood sugar levels, HbA1C, medication adherence, and foot care. A collaborative practice improves both job satisfaction and productivity for healthcare providers (Matzke et al., 2018)Organization And Systems Leadership Discussion. However, implementing a collaborative practice necessitates considerable effort on the part of patients, caregivers, and the hospital. Nevertheless, the benefits outweigh the risks.
Shared Decision Making
Decision-making in healthcare is a collaborative effort that involves more than just doctors. When faced with the task of making decisions, shared decision making is an approach in which physicians and patients share the best available evidence, and patients are supported to consider options to achieve informed preferences (Hughes et al., 2018). Shared decision-making is fraught with stumbling blocks that impede its successful implementation. Some of the challenges, as reported by Shoesmith et al. (2020) in a Malaysian hospital, include low literacy levels among patients, which hampered their participation in shared decision making, and different approaches to shared decision making among various medical specialties, and poor communication of health information to patients. Organization And Systems Leadership Discussion
In areas where shared decision-making has been successful, the documented benefits include decreased patient anxiety and decisional conflict, improved knowledge of patients, more active patient involvement, more confidence in decisions, decision making based on accurate expectations, and consistency with personal preferences (Hughes et al., 2018). For example, a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis may be made aware that the disease is terminal, that there is no cure, and that the average life expectancy after diagnosis is two to five years. This patient will thus benefit from palliative care, and their family will be involved to assist them with daily functioning. To alleviate pain and suffering, the patient can be given the option of voluntary euthanasia, a decision he/she must self-deliberate on and include families, heralding the concept of shared decision making. Organization And Systems Leadership Discussion
Laws, Regulations, and Policies
Healthcare is one of the most strictly regulated industries in history. The impetus for the stringent regulations is to ensure patient safety and quality of care. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is one of the most long-standing laws in the United States (HIPAA). The privacy and confidentiality rules for patients’ protected health information are included in the law. The HIPAA privacy rule establishes national standards for protecting individuals’ medical records and other personally identifiable health information (Hester & Schonfeld, 2022). On the other hand, the HIPAA confidentiality rule established national standards for keeping patients’ protected health information secret and out of the hands of unauthorized people (Hester & Schonfeld, 2022)Organization And Systems Leadership Discussion. Both rules recognize that humans should be treated with respect and dignity and that patients should be protected from potential harms such as psychological harms, including embarrassment or distress, and social harms such as financial harm.
The Affordable Care Act is another policy that has been widely implemented in healthcare in the United States. This act was enacted during the Obama administration and has since accomplished enormous goals. Among its goals were to expand health insurance coverage to people with middle and low incomes, as well as to extend and expand Medicare coverage for the elderly population, both of which were accomplished (Lee & Porell, 2020)Organization And Systems Leadership Discussion. This is an example of a health policy being used to solve a population problem by increasing access and utilization of care services. Healthcare laws, in general, create the impetus for action, and policies aid in the establishment of guidelines that benefit patients, healthcare organizations, and the entire health system.
Conclusion
The quest for high-quality, safe healthcare is never-ending. The struggle is not only born by the healthcare providers but also extends to the patients and the family members as well. As the healthcare sector evolves, so does technology, a tool that has aided in the sector’s revitalization. Aside from technology, communication, collaboration, shared decision-making, and policy skills are required to improve the quality and safety of patient care. With reports of patient safety concerns from all over the world, there is still a great deal of uncertainty at both the individual practitioner and global levels about how to achieve the best patient safety and quality of care. One thing remains to be hoped for: that technology will provide an acceptable and feasible low-risk method of achieving the goal. Organization And Systems Leadership Discussion
References
Akhu-Zaheya, L., Al-Maaitah, R., & Bany Hani, S. (2018). Quality of nursing documentation: Paper‐based health records versus electronic‐based health records. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 27(3–4), e578–e589. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.14097
Classen, D. C., Holmgren, A. J., Co, Z., Newmark, L. P., Seger, D., Danforth, M., & Bates, D. W. (2020). National trends in the safety performance of electronic health record systems from 2009 to 2018. JAMA Network Open, 3(5), e205547. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.5547
Hester, D. M., & Schonfeld, T. L. (2022). Guidance for healthcare ethics committees (D. Micah Hester & T. L. Schonfeld, Eds.; 2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108788250
Hughes, T. M., Merath, K., Chen, Q., Sun, S., Palmer, E., Idrees, J. J., Okunrintemi, V., Squires, M., Beal, E. W., & Pawlik, T. M. (2018). Association of shared decision-making on patient-reported health outcomes and healthcare utilization. American Journal of Surgery, 216(1), 7–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjsurg.2018.01.011 Organization And Systems Leadership Discussion
Karam, M., Brault, I., Van Durme, T., & Macq, J. (2018). Comparing interprofessional and inter-organizational collaboration in healthcare: A systematic review of the qualitative research. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 79, 70–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2017.11.002
Lee, H., & Porell, F. W. (2020). The effect of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion on disparities in access to care and health status. Medical Care Research and Review: MCRR, 77(5), 461–473. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077558718808709
Mathews, S. C., McShea, M. J., Hanley, C. L., Ravitz, A., Labrique, A. B., & Cohen, A. B. (2019). Digital health: a path to validation. NPJ Digital Medicine, 2(1), 38. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-019-0111-3
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Matzke, G. R., Moczygemba, L. R., Williams, K. J., Czar, M. J., & Lee, W. T. (2018). Impact of a pharmacist–physician collaborative care model on patient outcomes and health services utilization. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy: AJHP: Official Journal of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, 75(14), 1039–1047. https://doi.org/10.2146/ajhp170789
Ratna, H. (2019). The importance of effective communication in healthcare practice. Harvard Public Health Review, 23, 1–6. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48546767
Shoesmith, W., Chua, S. H., Giridharan, B., Forman, D., & Fyfe, S. (2020). Creation of consensus recommendations for collaborative practice in the Malaysian psychiatric system: a modified Delphi study. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 14(1), 45. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13033-020-00374-7 Organization And Systems Leadership Discussion
