Quality Improvement Plan

QI Plan

Quality Improvement Plan

Name

Class

Date

Professor

Quality Improvement Plan

The quality improvement plan is designed to improve the delivery of health care to patients. At Urgicare patients have access to emergency medical services when they cannot get a quick appointment with their regular doctor or they have an emergency medical situation after regular doctor hours. In order to improve the quality of healthcare delivery at Urgicare, the first step is to develop a quality improvement (QI) plan. QI plan is a comprehensive work plan to outline quality improvement activities at the healthcare organization. The QI plan uncovers any challenges being experienced by Urgicare in order to develop comprehensive solutions.

Two current challenges being experienced by Urgicare are long wait times in the waiting room and the exam room and high patient costs. A QI plan generally outlines the specific clinical focus area which in this case will be to improve the times the patient sits in the waiting room and in the exam room waiting to be seen and to lower the high cost of the emergency services provided at Urgicare (DHHS, 2014).

Three Data Collection Methods

When patients have to wait long periods of time for medical care they will find another healthcare facility in which to get a better quality of medical care. In order to reduce the time the patient waits, data on the time patient arrives is needed as well as data on when they actually see the doctor. One data collection method is to collect administrative data. Administrative data refers to the data collected through the administrative process. In order to collect this data, when the patient arrives they will sign their names and the time they arrived on the sign in sheet.

When the patient leaves the waiting room and is placed in an exam room will be noted on the file of the patient as well as the time the doctor arrived in the exam room to examine the patient. The doctor’s office does not have to expend any additional cost or time in collecting data on the time patients wait to see a doctor. The information is simply recorded by medical assistants and nurses before being collected by the researcher to analyze.

The times it takes for the patient to see the doctor will be analyzed statistically so the medical staff can understand the length of time patients are required to wait to see an Urgicare doctor. This information can then be used in the QI plan to develop better practices for reducing the time the patient is forced to wait to see a doctor. The cost to patients can also be statistically analyzed once billing information is collected and analyzed to determine the relative cost to patients of Urgicare. Once challenge in this data collection method is it does not yield information on the attitudes and opinions of the patient.

The second data collection tool is a survey. The questionnaire is given to patients after they leave a patient visit with an Urgicare. Patients can drop the survey in a box by the door or they can mail the survey back to the Urgicare location. The survey will yield information on how long the patients had to wait to see a doctor and the patient’s opinion on the cost of the healthcare. Through the survey Urgicare can better understand what changes in cost need to be made to encourage patients to select their emergency services over the competition. Questionnaires can be extremely helpful but they only yield surface data. This data collection method is cost effective but there is potential for researcher bias.

The third data collection tool is the interview. The interview will allow the researchers to develop more in depth data on the quality issues being experienced at Urgicare. Interviews employ open and close ended questions to yield different answers. Not only is the patients perspective important but so is the perspective of healthcare workers. The interview will collect information from patients willing to participate and healthcare workers at Urgicare who are willing to participate. The information it will yield will assist in the development of a QI plan that will change how long patients wait for care and the high cost to the patient will be reduced. Without sufficient data the QI plan will not be effective in changing the current challenges.

Tools that Measure and Display QI Data

The goals of measuring health care quality are to determine the effects of health care on desired outcomes and to assess the degree to which the health care provides quality (DHHS, 2014). Tools that measure collected QI quantitative data include descriptive analysis and inferential statistics. Descriptive analysis is an approach where the data is described. Researchers may use histograms or bar graphs to show the way data are distributed (Pierce, 2002). Visual displays of the data make it easier to interpret. Once the data is graphed the measures of central tendency is calculated. Using the mean the researcher adds up all of the scores and then dived by the number of scores. Inferential statistics provides inferences on the reliability of the research. Through inferential statistic the observed differences are measured. This will limit the likelihood the research results were by chance.

Analyzing information involves examining it in ways that reveal the relationships, patterns, trends, etc. that can be found within it (Rabinowitz, 2013). The qualitative data that was collected will be analyzed by uncovering themes in the raw data. There are no specific tools used to measure the data instead the researcher identifies similarities in order to draw findings on the research. For example if there is a large number of patients unhappy with how long they have to wait to see a doctor or the research finds patients are not happy with the high cost then the researcher can make inferences from the research. The researcher can graph the trends or similarities located in the research in order to develop findings.

Conclusion

Healthcare organizations have a responsibility to deliver only quality healthcare to patients. When an organization fails to meet the quality needs of the patient it is essential to determine why these failures are occurring and take immediate steps to correct the problem. At Urgicare patients expect highly trained medical staff to provide prompt medical help at a reasonable cost. The QI plan will guide the successful development and implementation of steps focused on reducing the current problems.

References

Pierce, C. (2002). Data interpretation Methods. Retrieved May 21, 2014 from

http://people.uwec.edu/piercech/researchmethods/data%20interpretation%20methods/data

Rabinowitz, P. (2013). Section Five: Collecting and Analyzing Data. Retrieved May 21, 2014

from http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluate-community-interventions/collect

United States Department of Health and Human Services. (2014). Developing & Implementing a

QI Plan. Retrieved May 21, 2014 from

http://www.hrsa.gov/quality/toolbox/methodology/developingandimplementingaqiplan/