[ANSWERED 2023] Definitions of the quality of medical care are no longer left to clinicians who decide for themselves what technical performance constitutes "good care." What are the other dimensions of quality care and why are they important?

Last Updated on March 5, 2023 by Admin

Definitions of the quality of medical care are no longer left to clinicians who decide for themselves what technical performance constitutes “good care.” What are the other dimensions of quality care and why are they important?

Definitions of the quality of medical care are no longer left to clinicians who decide for themselves what technical performance constitutes "good care." What are the other dimensions of quality care and why are they important?

Assignment Description:

Complete ALL of the bullet points below:

• Definitions of the quality of medical care are no longer left to clinicians who decide for themselves what technical performance constitutes “good care.” What are the other dimensions of quality care and why are they important? What has changed since the days when “doctor knows best?”
• Quality in medical care may be defined as achieving the greatest benefit at the lowest risk. How have the priorities of our health care system and the allocation of resources addressed this goal?
• Contrast the definitions of implicit and explicit criteria in assessing health care quality. How is each type of criterion useful in quality assessment?

Please submit one APA formatted paper between 1000 – 1500 words, not including the title and reference page. The assignment should have a minimum of two (2) scholarly sources, in addition to the textbook.

Expert Answer and Explanation

Factors in the Assessment of Quality of Care

Good health is a source of happiness, and in the United States (U.S.), the efforts to improve the quality of care reflects in a wide range of clinical programs focused on reducing adverse health incidences. Health care tend to have variable implications, and while it can restore the health of patients, and it can cause medical-related complications. Surgical operations, for instance, can help remove tumor from a patient’s brain and restore their normal health.

Alternately, an issue of negligence during surgical intervention on the brain can result to bleeding, which could cause stroke. To prevent medical mistakes, caregivers and physicians need to follow the due guidelines involved in administering clinical procedures (Sultz & Young, 2017). Part of the measures focused on the advancement of quality involve measuring of the dimensions of the quality of care, as well as allocation of resources for this cause, as well as measuring clinical outcomes, as this study highlights.

Significance of Dimensions of Quality

The health care which caregivers provide have to meet the expectations of patients, and be consistent with the existing professional standards as well as the current evidence, and patients’ experience as well as their perceptions can help gauge the quality of care. A patient’s view of quality, in some aspects, differs from the perception caregivers have on quality, and when delivering care, the latter needs to ensure that this care is compassionate and is delivered on time.

Unfortunately, not every patient can tell when the care they receive is substandard, and in this case, their exposure to harm considerably increases (Sabin, Riskind, & Nosek, 2015). Given the issues associated with measuring of quality based on the patients’ view, it is imperative that this dimension of measuring the goodness of care be used together with other dimensions such as clinical performance measurement (CPM).

As a medical quality dimension, the CPM inherently measures the means of delivery of care as well as its appropriateness, and it is based on outcomes as well as the benefits linked to costs of care. Essentially, this dimension is important in the sense that it can help determine the effectiveness of an intervention strategy with respect to the delivery of quality-based care.

This dimension, unfortunately, has weaknesses considering that it does not measure performance at individual level. This is because it measures outcome by considering that the combined efforts of the various groups of caregivers, and it therefore presents the challenge of providing a measure of the individual efforts which each member of the caregiver team provides (Sabin et al., 2015).

Traditionally, patients believed that the doctor knew everything concerning the delivery of care, and under the contemporary care system, individuals are discarding this notion. Physicians are not perfect, and they can make clinical mistakes, and some of these mistakes can result from negligence. Thus, in the contemporary health care, there is increased emphasis for patients to become part of the health decision-making process. This reflects in the increased emphasis on the adoption of the shared decision making to improve performance outcomes by involving patients in deciding the best approach to care.

Compare and contrast each of the three questions related to Managed Care Organizations, Medicare, and Medicaid with one another and explain how they were similar and different to each other

Impact of Priorities on Health Care

The U.S.’s government has a duty to ensure that every American receives quality care at lower costs, and in alignment with this mandate, it focuses on key priority areas, and this is having implication on advancement of quality. For instance, the U.S.’ government requires providers to track and report quality-based issues, and this is creating a culture where the feedback acquired from the measurement of clinical outcomes, guide decision-making activities.

Another area of focus that is having considerable impact on quality is the engagement of patients in all aspects of the health care delivery. With the participation of patients in the clinical activities, they become informed on factors that affect their health, and they take personal initiatives to adhere to treatment instructions. This effectively results to improved patient care outcomes (Abdeldayem, 2018). These measures and initiatives provide greatest outcomes at minimal risk considering that they reduce compliance risks.

Part of the quality improvement efforts involve the allocation of resources to help attain greatest benefits at reduced risks. The allocation of the information technology resources, for instance, is having a significant impact on the delivery of care considering that these technologies enhance documentation, and as a consequence reduce duplication of diagnosis.

Similarly, the allocation of the human resources into emergency and critical units is reducing the number of cases of mortality because of the favorable patient-provider ratios (Abdeldayem, 2018). The use of technology and the reliance on the caregivers to deliver care are contributing to the delivery of optimal and quality-based care at reduced costs.

Implicit and Explicit Care

One can explicitly or implicitly assess the quality of care, and the difference in these two approaches of assessment is inherent in their definitions as well as their roles. The implicit criteria, for example, describes the quality assessment criteria that one does not have to state, but is nevertheless part of the process involved in the assessment of the quality of care. Conversely, explicit criteria is one that an individual states and spells out when using it to measure the quality of care (Lau & Ng, 2014). Based on the definition of the two criterions, the difference between the two emanates from the fact one is implied and the other is not implied.

The two criterions are individually useful in the assessment of the quality. Considering that the implicit criteria is non-implied, it can be useful in scenario where the measurement of the quality involves the assessment of behavior, feelings and emotions. In clinical settings, for example, this criteria can be helpful where the patient express satisfaction through emotions. In contrary, the fact that the explicit criteria is stated makes this type of criteria effective when assessing specific and definite elements of quality measurement.

Conclusion

In summary, the measurement of quality is important to organization’s performance, and elements such as dimension of quality improvement, as well as implicit and explicit criterions inherently play out in the measurement of the quality. It is imperative that the care which patients receive meet their medical needs, and a wide range of factors determine whether this case is of good quality.

For instance, the improvement of the quality outcomes in clinical settings is one of the dimensions that would use to measure the quality of care. Besides, one can determine the quality of care by assessing the level to which this care results to patient satisfaction. Essentially, the priorities which the government and hospitals place on the delivery of care are having considerable impact on the improvement of quality of care. The government, for instance, allocates resources, which providers utilize to reduce clinical errors, and improve patient care.

References

Abdeldayem, H. (2018). The management of clinical trials. London : IntechOpen.

Lau, L. S. W., & Ng, K.-H. (2014). Radiological safety and quality: Paradigms in leadership and innovation. Dordrecht : Springer.

Sabin, J. A., Riskind, R. G., & Nosek, B. A. (2015). Health Care Providers’ Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Toward Lesbian Women and Gay Men. American journal of public health, 105(9), 1831–1841. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302631.

Sultz, H. A., & Young, K. A. (2017). Health care USA: Understanding its organization and delivery (9th ed.). Boston: Jones & Bartlett.

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