DQ 4-1

DQ4-1

1. The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) is of the opinion that pharmacists in the hospitals and other health facilities like the retail outlets (retail Pharmacies) who are referred to as “health-system pharmacists” have an important leadership role in national health care quality-improvement processes. This is because they have the knowledge of drug therapy and medication-use systems needed to successfully carry out quality-assurance and improvement programs. Pharmacists are expected to use their abilities in accounting for medication management and its use in hospitals and health systems using the national health care quality agenda.  Pharmacists can bring practices and procedures together which help to monitor quality care. (ASHP, 2014) Examples of quality measures are those put in place by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and these are being updated regularly. (CMS.gov, 2017)

 

References

ASHP Statement on the Health-System Pharmacist's Role in National Health Care Quality Initiatives. (2014). Best Practices for Hospital & Health-System Pharmacy, 260-261 retrieved on January 1, 2018 from https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=103906309&site=eds-live&scope=site

CMS.gov, 2017. CMS Measures Inventory retrieved on January 1, 2018 from https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/QualityMeasures/CMS-Measures-Inventory.html

2.

One of the biggest organizations that help manage quality in healthcare is the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). AHRQ is in charge of researching to prevent errors in patient care and improve quality of patient care by developing different tools. In fact, between the years of 2010 and 2013, AHRQ has helped the U.S. healthcare system prevent 1.3 million errors, save 50,000 lives, and avoid $12 billion in wasteful spending (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2017). AHRQ also actively tackles the biggest challenges in healthcare such as reducing antibiotic overuse and how to better provide treatments for opioid addiction in rural communities. Their most helpful tool for this is the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (H-Cup). H-Cup is a family or databases and software tools that carry hospital data which enables researchers, insurers, policymakers, and others to study healthcare delivery and patient outcomes over time at a national, regional, state, and community level (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2017)

References

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2017, February). Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: A Profile. Retrieved from AHRQ: https://www.ahrq.gov/cpi/about/profile/index.htm

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2017, December). Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). Retrieved from AHRQ: https://www.ahrq.gov/research/data/hcup/index.html

3.

Health care literacy is a such an important topic for both health professionals and patients.  Organizations like the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality take this very seriously.  "Health literacy occurs when health information and services created for the public match with people’s capacity to find, understand, and use them." (AHRQ, 2018) The AHRQ puts resources together for healthcare organizations and professionals that makes information easier for patients to understand.  Medical care can be very complicated and difficult to understand without specific education, ensuring that everyone understands the care they are receiving is very important.  

 

The AHRQ has toolkits available for professional staff that cover many topics such as hospital discharge and CAUTI prevention.  These kits help staff reduce the complexity of healthcare for their patients, illness and hospitalization is extremely stressful which leads to difficulty in understanding alone.  The role of a healthcare provider is also to educate their patients, resources such as the ones provided by the AHRQ and other organizations help make this process easier.

 

Health Literacy (2017) Retrieved January 9, 2018 from https://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/clinicians-providers/resources/health-literacy.html

4.

Professional health care organizations play a role in monitoring the quality of care by providing a way of documenting and tracking the quality of care. This documentation and tracking helps establish ways to better the quality of care by monitoring patient outcomes and bringing to light negative outcomes. The numerous regulatory bodies protect the public from health risks and provide many programs for public health and welfare. An organization that helps in monitoring quality of care is the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, which conducts research aimed at improving health care quality, reducing costs, and addressing patient safety and medical errors (Youthtrainingprovider.com).

 

Dissemination of preventative health care measures and ensuring public literacy on health care issues is done by clinician reminders, computer generated reminders, and paper based reminders. Giving patients information on things such as vaccinations, immunizations, smoking cessation, mammography, and prenatal care during doctors visits and at clinics, or around communities are ways of ensuring dissemination of preventatie health care measures (NCBI.gov).

 

Quality of care is the responsibility of the provider and is the main concern for the patient. Today, there are health care standards and quality improvement initiatives underway at every level, that require measurements in order to identify opportunities for improvement. The providers must provide information to organizations such as CMS and NQF. The development of new measures that improve quality of care are directly related to the evidence based practices within the hospitals and health care facilities and rely on their feedback to gain knowledge in this area (Brookings.edu).

 

References:

 

Dexheimer, J. W., Talbot, T. R., Sanders, D. L., Rosenbloom, S. T., & Aronsky, D. (2008). Prompting Clinicians about Preventive Care Measures: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials. Retrieved January 10, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2410011/

 

Grimm, N. (n.d.). Healthcare Regulations: Who Does What? Retrieved January 10, 2018, from http://www.yourtrainingprovider.com/blog_main/bid/203291/health-care-regulation-who-does-what

 

McClellan, M. B. (2017, May 10). Improving Health Care Quality: The Path Forward. Retrieved January 10, 2018, from https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/improving-health-care-quality-the-path-forward/

5.

Healthcare being a challenging field, need for improved care system, quality measurements to establish and enhance proper services to patient and healthcare provider is vital. Hence, professional health care organizations are established to maintain not only quality measures but also to assist society and its various components to achieve the most effective and affordable services to patient and healthcare providers. When it comes to monitoring and measuring quality care, CMS (center for Medicare and Medicaid services) addresses the most effective, secure and improved patient- centered care. CMS main core value is to provide high quality care by initiating evidence based practice, cost saving procedure hence less burden to patient and providers, enforcing value based practice by supporting excellence care and promoting consumer decision making practices.

One of the effective innovation by CMS is the reporting program, which is developed to detect, prevent and reduce safety issues such as medication errors, adverse reactions etc. With the collaboration with National Quality Forum (NQF), already existed reporting system such as EMR (electronic medical record) system for long-term care settings and ambulatory care settings and new medication measurement initiation programs such as, the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program, the Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting (OQR) Program and the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) have been established to promote quality care (cms.gov, 2017).

Sante

CMS (2017). Retrieved from: https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/QualityMeasures/index.html?redirect=/QualityMeasures/03_ElectronicSpecifications.asp