The types of care and services that the Greenville VA health care Center (GHCC) focuses on is high quality care for the Veterans of the United States military. This center offers primary and specialty care service specifically to the Veterans in Eastern, North Carolina. The GHCC is an outpatient clinic of the Durham VA Medical Center. The mission of the facility is to “honor America’s veterans by providing exceptional health care that improves their health and well-being” (United States Department of Veterans Affairs, 2014, Para. 1).
The quality improvement goals the organization has in place are “to strive for the highest quality and continuous improvement. Be thoughtful and decisive in leadership, accountable for my actions, willing to admit mistakes, and rigorous in correcting them” (United States Department of Veterans Affairs, 2014, Para. 9).
Roles of Consumers and external quality Indicators
The roles of patient, family, and friends in the organizations quality improvement process are to themselves be accountable for informing health care providers of changes in their health status and their health care needs. There are several external quality indicators that are available to consumers regarding the VA health care system. One quality indicator is the hospital quality report card. This report card is composed of raw data from patient satisfaction reports, quality reports, and safety data that is available for Veterans and the public to track changes, improvements in care, and results of initiatives to address issues in previous reports. Another external quality indicator that can be accessed by the public is the hospital compare report presented through the medicare.gov website. This site allows the public to compare different hospitals against each other to see how they differ and can help them determine which facility gives the best care.
The Essay on Health Care Quality
This paper examines area of quality and patient satisfaction linked to reimbursement in the article by Nanda, Malone and Joseph (2012), where they describe strategies for changes needed in Health Care Design in response to the Affordable Care Act. The article notes that the main shift in reimbursement model will be tied into financial reward for patient experience as measured by the Hospital ...
The Joint Commission is another external indicator that can be accessed by the public to help determine the quality of care the organization is delivering. Complaints can also be given to the Joint Commission for them to investigate. Also all veterans as well as the general public can contact their local congressman or woman with any complaints who in turn will contact the facility and provider associated with the complaint. Once the congressional inquiry is received whoever gets the complaint had 72 hours to respond. Unfortunately, this is much misused. Veterans who are denied pain medication because of suspected abuse will contact their congressman complaining they cannot get their pain medication and the congressman will contact the provider then the provider has to justify why the Veteran was not given his or her pain medication. Using Quality Indicator Feedback
Quality indicator feedback can be used in the quality improvement process by pointing out where issues of the organization are so these issues can be fixed. This feedback can be used as a guideline by most all stakeholders as a blueprint for how to proceed to make improvements like with the patient satisfaction surveys. Regulatory agencies give feedback so that facilities know whether or not they are operating within the guidelines to remain open or receive compensation for services rendered. Conclusion
The Essay on Joint Commission- National Patient Safety Goals
The Joint Commission focuses on certain goals each year. For patient safety and positive outcomes, hospitals are required to follow certain standards. National Patient Safety Goals were established in 2002 to help identify areas of concern with patient safety. This group is made up by a panel of experts including nurses, doctors, pharmacists and many other healthcare professionals. They advise the ...
The VA offers many different services and types of care to the Veterans. The important part is keeping the public informed and allowing consumers access to quality indicators that demonstrate how the organization is working to improve the quality of care for the consumers. This can be achieved through internal and external quality indicators. The most important goal for any organization is to maintain transparency for the consumers.
References
Medicare.gov. (2014).
Hospital Compare. Retrieved from http://www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/search.html The Joint Commission. (2014).
The Joint Commission Home. Retrieved from http://www.jointcommission.org/ United States Department of Veterans Affairs. (2014a).
About Durham VA Medical Center. Retrieved from
http://www.durham.va.gov/about/index.asp United States Department of Veterans Affairs. (2014b).
Veterans Health Administration. Retrieved from http://www.va.gov/health/hospitalReportCard.asp
