An Introduction To Quality Assurance In Health Care

Avedis Donabedian's name is synonymous with quality of medical care. He unraveled the mystery behind the concept by defining it in clear operational terms and provided detailed blueprints for both its measurement(known as quality assessment) and its improvement(known as quality assurance). Many before him claimed that quality couldn't be defined in concrete objective terms. He demonstrated that quality is an attribte of a system which he called structure, a set of organized activities whihc he called process, and an outcome which results from both. In this book Donabedian tells the full story of quality assessment and assurance in simple, clear terms. He defines the meaning of quality, explicates its components, and provides clear and systematic guides to its assessment and enhancement. His style is lucid, succinct, systematic and yet personal, almost conversational.

Health care for the elderly American is among our nation's more pressing social issues. Our society wishes to ensure quality health care for all older people, but there is growing concern about our ability to maintain and improve quality in the face of efforts to contain health care costs. Medicare: A Strategy for Quality Assurance answers the U.S. Congress' call for the Institute of Medicine to design a strategic plan for assessing and assuring the quality of medical care for the elderly. This book presents a proposed strategic plan for improving quality assurance in the Medicare program, along with steps and timetables for implementing the plan by the year 2000 and the 10 recommendations for action by Congress. The book explores quality of careâ€"how it is defined, measured, and improvedâ€"and reviews different types of quality problems. Major issues that affect approaches to assessing and assuring quality are examined. Medicare: A Strategy for Quality Assurance will be immediately useful to a wide audience, including policymakers, health administrators, individual providers, specialists in issues of the older American, researchers, educators, and students.

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.

Second in a series of publications from the Institute of Medicine's Quality of Health Care in America project Today's health care providers have more research findings and more technology available to them than ever before. Yet recent reports have raised serious doubts about the quality of health care in America. Crossing the Quality Chasm makes an urgent call for fundamental change to close the quality gap. This book recommends a sweeping redesign of the American health care system and provides overarching principles for specific direction for policymakers, health care leaders, clinicians, regulators, purchasers, and others. In this comprehensive volume the committee offers: A set of performance expectations for the 21st century health care system. A set of 10 new rules to guide patient-clinician relationships. A suggested organizing framework to better align the incentives inherent in payment and accountability with improvements in quality. Key steps to promote evidence-based practice and strengthen clinical information systems. Analyzing health care organizations as complex systems, Crossing the Quality Chasm also documents the causes of the quality gap, identifies current practices that impede quality care, and explores how systems approaches can be used to implement change.

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/

This report presents a policy- and methodology-oriented discussion of factors involved in developing and analyzing quality assurance in European health care. Data are taken from research literature and interviews with representatives of national health authorities, professional organizations, and research and educational institutions. The first chapter of this report discusses a suggested conceptual framework, for a program of health care quality assurance, derived from evaluative research and industrial quality control. The second, third, and fourth chapters deal with three major variables in the framework: environment, conceptualization, and methodology. Examples of different approaches to quality assurance are given, and sources of information and measurement instruments and criteria are examined. The fifth chapter presents conclusions concerning the trends and state of quality assurance in health care. A bibliography of 179 items is appended. (FG)

Introduction to Healthcare Quality Management, Second Edition, explains the basic principles and techniques of quality management in healthcare. This second edition features a new chapter devoted exclusively to the use of high-reliability concepts that help organizations achieve safety, quality, and efficiency goals. By using this easy-to-read book, complete with helpful charts and diagrams, your students will examine a range of topics, from measuring performance to creating high-quality services that result in satisfied customers. The book is packed with practical examples and case studies that apply quality concepts and tools to real-life situations. Each chapter contains a list of key words and a glossary to help students understand the vocabulary of healthcare quality management. As an added bonus to this edition, each chapter includes an expanded list of websites to find additional resources to customize and enhance your education. Your students will learn about the following topics: Quality characteristics most important to healthcare stakeholders, including payers and consumers Regulatory mandates and accreditation standards that influence healthcare quality activities Proper techniques for gathering and effectively analyzing healthcare performance measurement data New technology-based services that will improve the patient experience Key tactics and strategies that organizational leaders and improvement project teams must implement to accomplish quality goals Methods for redesigning healthcare processes to achieve more reliable performance Patient safety initiatives that reduce harmful medical errors Resource management activities that improve continuity of care and prevent service over and underuse Organizational factors that affect quality management and performance reliability. Instructor resources include a test bank, PowerPoint slides, and answers to in-book questions. A transition guide is available in the tab above.