Ethical and Legal Concepts to Ensure High Quality Healthcare
Sherry Heide
HCA 340 Managing in Health and Human Services
Instructor: Wanda Carter
13 June 2011
Ethical and Legal Concepts to Ensure High Quality Healthcare
All organizations should have room to improve the quality of healthcare services to ensure patient safety. Healthcare is a highly competitive market environment and healthcare providers are forced to improve their service quality due to the ever increasing expectations of their customers (Yesilada, 2009).
This paper will investigate the term “healthcare organization” (HCO) and the role they play in delivering quality patient care and their role in improving the quality of the care they deliver based on patient satisfaction. This paper will also examine both the ethical concepts as well as the legal concepts that drive improvements in today’s healthcare market. This paper will analyze and discuss findings on what regulations have been set forth to ensure the delivery of high quality healthcare that protects patient safety. And lastly, it will analyze a research paper to show what has been tried in the past and the conclusion of that trial.
The term “healthcare organization’ (HCO) applies to a wide range of organizations, including hospitals, provider organizations such as Preferred Provider Organization(PPO’s) and Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO’s), physicians group practices, visiting nurse association’s, nursing homes and home care agencies, as well as organizations that support the infrastructure wherein health care is delivered (Agich, 2007).
The Research paper on Healthcare Organization Email Key Encryption
Solving HealthCare's e Mail Security ProblemAbstractWhile healthcare organizations have come to depend heavily on electronic mail, they do so without a significant email security infrastructure. New Federal law and regulation place new obligations on the organizations to either secure their email systems or drastically restrict their use. This paper discusses email security in a healthcare ...
Although HCO’s have a variety of different structures, operational processes, business models and agendas, they share a common thread that ethically differentiate them from other social entities. In the healthcare arena persons involved in the delivery of quality care can expect to have ethical concepts to follow. With the dynamic work on becoming ethically sound to match their title of being the leader in Healthcare quality and Organizational change, VA is an enormous public health care system that has managed to set National standards in care that subsequently are being adopted by other organizations (Integrated Ethics, 2008).
If an organization is determined to make the necessary changes needed to act in excellence in ethical standards then the VA system is the one to be followed.
In order to accomplish an excellence in ethical matters the VA has designed a plan to systematically prioritize, promote, measure and reward ethical aspects of performance through the use of Integrated Ethics model. This model was designed to meet their need for an innovative national education and organizational change initiative is based on established criteria for performance excellence in HCO’s, methods of continuous quality improvement, and proven strategies for organizational change (Integrated Ethics, 2008).Integrated Ethics targets all three levels of ethics quality through its three core functions: ethics consultation, which targets ethics quality at the level of decisions and actions; preventive ethics, which targets the level of systems and processes; and ethical leadership, which targets the level of environment and culture (Integrated Ethics, 2008).
All organizational change was tested before implementing this to a National level for effectiveness. There isn’t a set of ethical regulations or rules to follow other than the organization wanting to excel in the quality of care delivered.
The Term Paper on How does lack of information technology affect quality of Healthcare?
How does lack of information technology affect quality of Healthcare? Abstract As per Institute of Medicine, “healthcare quality” is defined as the extent to which health services provided to individuals and patient populations improve desired health outcomes. The quality of care which is offered by the US Health Care lags much behind its competitors at the international level, on all measurable ...
VA knows that ethics is closely related to quality and a healthcare provider who fails to meet established ethical norms and standards is not delivering high-quality healthcare. And with that in mind a healthcare provider failing to meet minimum quality standards raises ethical concerns. Donabedian, who is widely regarded as the father of quality measurement in healthcare, defines quality to include both technical and interpersonal components (Integrated Ethics, 2008).
Failure to maintain an effective ethics program can seriously jeopardize an organization reputation, its bottom line, and even its survival. So it is that statement alone that would make an organization want to the do the right thing even if there aren’t mandates to do so.
As stated in our text the law is a body of official rules of conduct, subject to interpretation and change over time and in most cases, federal laws take precedence over state laws, although the U.S. Constitution in the Tenth Amendment does reserve some areas specifically for state decisions, and states can always be more stringent than the federal government (Buchbinder & Shanks, 2007).
The states each have a regulations board that governs the licensing of Physicians, other healthcare workers, and large institutions which is the first set of standards that must be met to allow entrance into the vast arena of healthcare and the healthcare organizations that deliver the care. During the administration of the former president George W. Bush, quality healthcare was a high priority, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
In November 2001, HHS announced the Quality Initiative to assure quality health care for all Americans through accountability and public disclosure (hospital quality Initiative, 2008).
The Term Paper on Institute For Quality Healthcare Improvement
The provided scenario gives an account of a busy emergency department with competent staff, and the multiple errors that led up to the most severe error possible in healthcare, unnecessary death of a patient. A root cause analysis (RCA) can be utilized to help understand the systems at fault within the facility so that improvements can be determined and implemented to prevent any future ...
The Hospital Quality Initiative intent is to give the consumer quality of care information to aide in the decisions one makes on their own health care and to help encourage providers and clinicians to improve the quality of healthcare. CMS is working in conjunction with the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA, wwwhospitalqualityallince.org) public-private collaboration on hospital measurement and reporting. Included collaboration the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, and the Association of American Medical Colleges and is supported by Agency for Healthcare Research Quality (AHRQ), CMS and other organizations such as the National Quality Forum, the Joint Commission, American medical Association, Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project, AFL-CIO, AARP and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. All of the above mentioned groups helped to gather a robust, prioritized and standardized set of hospital quality measures for use in voluntary public reporting in the debut of Hospital Compare in April, 2005 at www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov and www.medicare.gov (Hospital Quality Initiative, 2008).
Hospital Compare is voluntary but the federal Government set money initiatives to encourage participation in reporting. Section 501(b) of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 provided a strong incentive for eligible hospitals to submit quality data for ten quality measures known as the “starter set” (CMS, 2008).
The law stipulates that a hospital that does not submit performance data for the “starter set” will receive 0.4 percentage points reduction in its annual payment update from CMS for FY 2005, 2006 and 2007. The hospitals, providers, and clinicians are set for ongoing regulation and enforcement conducted by State survey agencies and CMS, the testing of rewards for superior performance on certain measures of quality, continual, community-based quality improvement resources through QIO’s and collaboration and partnership to leverage knowledge and resources. This is the first of its kind and is continually being updated and is a joint effort of the federal and state governments to ensure safety and improve the quality in care in health care facilities. And it is also the first time that consumers have the three critical elements: quality information, patient satisfaction survey information, and pricing information—they need to make effective decisions regarding their healthcare and the value of quality available through local hospitals.
The Essay on Patient satisfaction and quality of care
... decisions about where one gets your health care, and encourages hospitals to improve the quality of care they provide. Like health insurance, the safety net contributes ... to eliminate healthcare-associated infections, promote health IT, and provide data and information for decision making. The evidence developed through AHRQ-sponsored research ...
AHRQ is the lead agency charged with supporting research designed to improve the quality of health care, reduce its costs, address patient safety and medical errors, and broaden access to essential services (Healthcare.gov, 2011) AHRQ sponsors and funds research projects to help build a roadmap for healthcare professionals and healthcare organizations make more informed decisions on healthcare. AHRQ along with 300 groups and 50 organizations are working together under the Affordable Care Act to lower healthcare costs, increase patient safety, decrease medical errors, and make health care affordable to all Americans. The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services formed the National Quality Strategy to help guide healthcare to achieve improvement goals and strategies.
HealthCare.gov is where patients, providers, stakeholders, and even family members can go to get education, reports and even compare hospitals in their local area. It is a governmental website managed by the Department of Health and Human Services for anyone that wants to update on the Affordable Care Act and the progress being made nationally and even locally within your own community. Here you will find materials to help individuals make informed decisions regarding healthcare and to live a healthier lifestyle. It empowers the consumer with knowledge, reports and education. The common link in ideas to improve healthcare quality all put the power of your own healthcare back in the patient’s hands and encourage families to be your co-pilot. It is the first of its kind and before now there has not been just one website for consumers to log on to find answers to common questions and updates to the Affordable Care act passed in 2010. Learn about provisions already in place, changes that have been made, changes that will happen in the future and how the new provisions and changes will affect you, the consumer.
The central goal of health care quality improvement is to maintain what is good about the existing healthcare while focusing on the areas that need improvement. Improving the quality of care and reducing medical errors are priority areas for AHRQ. Today computer systems exist to aide the clinician in managing, organizing and retrieving medical information on patients. Many of the AHRQ funded studies have been on Medical Informatics which deals with all aspects of understanding and promoting the effective organization, analysis, management, and the use of information in healthcare (AHRQ, 2002).
The Term Paper on Healthcare Quality
The goal of Greenville Healthcare Systems is to improve outcomes, create more satisfied patients and better value all across the hospitals system. We are focused on developing data-based, patient-focused metrics for every aspect of quality that includes clinical care, patient satisfaction and safety and improving our process development. We are dedicating our teams of top professionals to find ...
Paper based systems are becoming a thing of the past and are inefficient for managing enormous amounts of medical and patient information.
Computer systems improve quality of care and reduce costs. In an AHRQ –funded study within a primary care internal medical clinic, 13 guidelines were incorporated into the COSTAR program to remind physicians to perform specific screening and preventive measures. As a result, physician practice improved significantly for 10 of these 13 health maintenance measures between 1992 and 1993, and 7 out of 10 continued to show significant improvement in 1997. COSTAR (Computer Stored Ambulatory Record) was developed in 1968 at Massachusetts General Hospital and is still in use today. Another study funded by AHRQ indicated that automatically showing clinicians their patients previous test results reduced duplicate testing by 16.8 percent and test costs by 13 percent. There are numerous studies indicating improvement in overall patient safety because of reminders to physicians and their staff. It would be consistent to say that computers in healthcare are an absolute must to improve quality and cut down on medical errors. Several different systems have been studied by AHRQ and continuing to sponsor research promoting the use of informatics to ensure patient safety. All future grants and sponsored studies can be found at their website www.ahrq.gov.
In conclusion health care is a highly competitive business forcing its providers to improve their services and provide excellence to all. There will be regulations to follow both ethical and legal concerns to the future of healthcare. The passing of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 will the leader in quality improvement for everyone. As a consumer of healthcare many provisions and regulations will fall under this new law to ensure improvement. Today changes in the market environment and the property gained by economic developments will bring forth new consumer requirements. Consumers will be placed in the drivers seat and the consumer will be in charge of their own healthcare for the first time in history and will not only demand the best but will actually be able to receive the best in care.
The Essay on Maintaining Quality Standards In The Health Sector
Section 1: Know how legislation, policies and procedures determine quality standards of work 1. Using the table below, identify how quality standards link to legislation, policy and procedures in your current health sector organisation (or one that you know well). Legislation Key point Which policy is affected by the legislation? Which quality standard does it affect in your organisation, and how? ...
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References
Baily, M.A. (2008). Quality Improvement Methods in Health Care. Thw Hasting Center, (), para.147-152. doi:
Centers For Medicare & Medicaid Services. (December 2005). Hospital Quality Initiative Overview. Retrieved from http://www.allhealth.org/briefingmaterials/HospitalQualityInitiativeOverview-CMS-512.pdf
Jennings, B., & Bailey, M. A., B. (2007). Healthcare quality Improvement: Ethical and Regulatory Issues. The Hasting Center, (), para..
http://health.state.tn.us/whatwedo.htm
Kass-Bartelmes BL, Ortiz E, Rutherford MK. Using informatics for better and safer health care. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality; 2002. Research in Action Issue 6. AHRQ Pub. No. 02-0031.
Veteran’s Administration. (2007). Improving Ethics Quality in Health Care. Retrieved from http://www.ethics.va.gov/docs/integratedethics/IntegratedEthics_monograph–20070808.pdf
Yesilada, F. A. (2009).
Improving Healthcare Service Quality: An Application of Integrating Servqual and Kado Model into Quality Function Deployment. International Journal of Business Research, 9( 7), .
