Health Care Quality Improvement (Nursing)

00:01 Welcome back, everyone.

00:02 The health care system is facing significant financial and operational pressures with services struggling to maintain standards of care.

00:10 Now more than ever, local and national leaders need to focus on improving the safety, effectiveness and experience of care.

00:18 At the heart of these plans should be quality improvement.

00:22 Quality improvement consist of systematic and continuous actions that lead to measurable improvement in health care services and the health status of targeted patient groups.

00:32 A successful QI program always incorporates the following four key principles: that QI work as systems and processes, that it has a focus on patients, a focus on being part of the team, and focus on use of data.

00:49 To make improvements, an organization needs to understand its own delivery system and key processes.

00:56 A health service delivery system can be small and simple, for example, an immunization clinic.

01:03 Or it can be large and complex, for example, a large managed-care organization.

01:08 QI can assume many forms and it's most effective if it's individualized to meet the needs of a specific organization's health service delivery system.

01:18 Activities or processes within a healthcare organization contain two major components.

01:24 It asks, "What is done?" Meaning, what care is provided? And, also, "How is it done?" Meaning, when, where, and by whom care is delivered? An important measure of quality is the extent to which patient's need and expectations are met.

01:41 Services that are designed to meet the needs and expectations of patients and the community, include systems that affect patient access, evidence-based care provision, support for patient engagement.

01:55 Coordination of care with other parts of the larger healthcare system, patient safety, and cultural competence, including assessing health literacy of patients, patient-centered communication, and linguistically appropriate care.

02:13 At its core, QI is a team process.

02:17 Under the right circumstances, a team harnesses the knowledge, the skills, experience, and perspectives of different individuals within the team to make lasting improvements.

02:30 A team approach is most effective when the process or system is complex No person in an organization knows all of the dimensions of an issue The process involves more than one discipline or work area.

02:46 Solutions require creativity and staff commitment and buy-in are needed.

02:52 Data are the cornerstone of QI.

02:57 Data are used to describe how well current systems are working, what happens when changes are applied, and to document successful performance.

03:05 Quantitative methods.

03:07 That involves the use of numbers and frequencies that result in measurable data.

03:12 Qualitative methods that collect the data with descriptive characteristics, rather than numeric values that draw statistical inferences.

03:20 So, remember, when an organization wants to narrow its focus on specific data for its QI program, one strategy is to adopt standardized performance measures.

03:30 Nurses are directly involved in almost all aspects of hospital quality including patient care, bedside and medication management, assistance with surgeries and other major operations, data collection, reporting, and more.

03:43 Nurses are directly responsible for monitoring and assessing patients and performing immediate interventions to reduce risk or prevent medical complications.

03:53 Therefore, nurses play a critical role when it comes to improving hospital quality.

03:59 So in thinking of everything we've covered today, I'd like for you to consider this question.

04:04 What are four principles of quality improvement? That QI work as systems and processes, a focus on patients, a focus on being part of the team, and a focus on use of data.

04:23 I hope you've enjoyed today's video on quality improvement.

04:26 Thanks so much for watching.