Performance Improvement
Performance improvement involves measuring the output of specific processes and procedures and modifying them so as to enhance output and increase efficiency. It also helps improve effectiveness of the process. Performance improvement has become common in many health care organizations. In most organization, performance improvement involves managers and governing bodies of the organizations. The managers and governors are supposed to put in place various programs to measure the current level of performance of the organization. This helps produce information that is used to modify the organizational behavior and resources so as to improve output.
Performance improvement in health care helps improve the effectiveness of the health care organizations and efficiency. Thus, this helps improve the ability of the health care organization to provide services. Like other organization, Sanders-Stone cancer center needs to improve the quality of services offered to cancer patients. Sanders- stone cancer center offers services to patients having cancer. The organization unites resources from various hospitals in the area so as to offer quality care. For instance, it unites resources from Norton’s hospital and Norton’s East hospital to ensure patients having cancer get the best care possible.
In order to improve the quality of services offered to patients having cancer, the organization will improve diagnosis of the disease. This will help n improve the incidence of cancer and enhance patients experience in life post treatment and care (Corrigan &Parsley, 1999).The Sanders-stone cancer center has to implement various quality improvement strategies so as to improve the quality of care provided to patients. For instance, it should adapt a strategy to improve diagnosis of cancer. The strategy will ensure the health care organization is able to detect cancer among patients early, hence reduce the incidences of cancer among the population.
It will also help improve the survival of patients having cancer and their experience during post treatment and care. Most organizations have adopted diagnosis and detection strategy to improve the quality of care provided to patients. Most patients having cancer have not received the right care due to poor diagnosis and this has affected patient outcome and even led to death in some cases. Improving diagnosis will help overcome such challenges by providing quality care.There are various methods that can be used to implement quality improvement strategy in health care organizations.
The quality improvement methods include six sigma methods, lean thinking method and customer inspired quality methods. The methods differ a lot. The six sigma method is aimed at improving the quality of process output by identifying errors and eliminating the causes of the errors. The six sigma focuses of minimizing the variations in business processes. The six sigma method uses statistical methods to identify the errors through collection of data and analysis. The six sigma consists of various steps that organizations can follow when improve the quality of health care services. First, organizations are required to define the area that needs to be improved.
After defining the area, the next step is measuring the performance of the area. Measuring the performance of the area makes it easy for the organization to identify an area and look for ways to solve them. For instance, the organizations can integrate quality improvement strategies to solve the problem. The next step is analyzing the information gotten from the measurement process. Analyzing the information enables organizations to develop the right strategies to help overcome the issue. After analyzing data collected, the next step is improving. In this case, the organizations are supposed to integrate quality improvement strategies to help improve the services.
The last step is control. The six sigma method can be applied in sanders stone cancer center. The management and the committee should follow the steps listed above to integrate quality improvement strategies to help improve diagnosis of patients having cancer. The six sigma methodology has various advantages. First, the six sigma ensures uniform process output unlike other methodologies used in quality improvement. Moreover, the six sigma reduces the flow time and hence improves efficiency and effectiveness in the organization. It also helps improve the through put in most organizations hence improving their performance.
In addition, the six sigma method helps in improving customer loyalty and satisfactions. Most health care organizations are aimed at improving the customer satisfaction by providing quality services. For instance, the sanders stone cancer center is aimed at enhancing the services offered to patients having cancer by improving the process of diagnosis. Thus, this helps improve customer satisfaction (Corrigan &Parsley, 1999).Though six sigma has various advantages to the organization, it also has some disadvantages. First, the six sigma method dopes not take into account the interaction of various systems. This might make it difficulty for the organizations to improve the performance and quality of services offered.
In addition, the six sigma method does not encourage improvement of multiple processes, but the processes are enhanced independently. It also ignores the consumers. The six sigma methodology does not consider consumers during the improvement process (Corrigan &Parsley, 1999).Another method that can be used to integrate quality improvement strategies into performance measurement is the customer inspired quality. The customer inspired quality methodology is meant to help organizations improve the patient care process. The methodology enables organizations to focus on work process evaluation. Most organizations have used the customer inspired quality methodology to improve quality of services offered to patients and patient safety.
The customer inspired quality methodology has proved effective in improve quality of care and patient safety. This is because it has helped improve various departmental services that are linked to the system of care. It has also helped improve productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. The methodology has various advantages and disadvantages.First, the customer inspired methodology helps improve customer loyalty and satisfaction. This is because it considers customers when improving services. The improvement of the services in the organization is based on customer needs. It also gives long term results and short term results.
Additionally, the methodology helps reduce waste and cost. The customer inspired methodology can only be applied in service industries like health care industries.Further, health care organizations also use the lean thinking methodology. The lean thinking method is aimed at exposing activities that do not add value to the organization. The lean thinking approach has been used to improve quality of services offered to patients in health care organizations. Most of the health care organizations that have implemented lean thinking have had efficient process flow and flow charting of their activities. The lean thinking methodology helps eliminate defects that affect services offered in the organization. The lean thinking methodology has some merits and demerits.
First, the lean thinking method helps improve performance by eliminating defects. It also allows organizations to make small changes to the system instead of changing the whole system. It also promotes uniform output. However, the lean thinking method does not encourage use of statistical methods (Ersoz &Leebov, 2003).The best method to use is the customer inspired methodology. This is because it gives considers customers during process improvement. The method is important in health care organization as the improvement of services is based on customer requirement. For instance, when improving the diagnosis of cancer, Sander stone cancer center should use the customer inspired methodology.
This will make it easy to identify customer needs and tailor the services offered to meet the needs of the customers. The customer inspired methodology has a lot of benefits compared to six sigma and lean thinking (Ersoz &Leebov, 2003).The quality management has four components. That is quality planning and quality improvement. Other components include quality control and assurance. The improvement of various services in health care organizations requires collection and analyzing of data. There are various information technology applications that can be used to improve the quality of services. First, the web based information technology can be used to collect data and analyze it. The web based technology provides data analysis tools. The tools make it easy for health care organizations to analyze data effectively.
Analyzing data manually is time consuming and it might affect the outcome of the process. Hence, the web based information technology improves the capability and capacity of health care organizations to carry out projects and make decisions. The web based applications and data analysis tools will help in integrating quality improvement strategies into performance management in sanders stone cancer canter. This will make it easy to analyze data and produce reports in the organization (Kaluzny &McLaughlin, 2006).Benchmarking and milestones are important in the organization as they help determine how the organization is progressing in terms of quality improvement and performance improvement.
In benchmarking the organization compares its performance and quality with other organizations in the industry. It helps maintain the use of quality indicators as organizations are able to monitor how the quality indicators are being used. For instance, they are able to determine the progress of various quality indicators. There are various benchmarks and milestones from quality indicators that can be used. The indicators include screening, survival and mortality for cervical cancer, breast cancer and other types of cancer.
In this case, the health care organization will benchmark its progress in cancer diagnosis and improve of survival with data available on screening, survival and mortality of patients having different types of cancer. Other indicators include clinical indicators and administrative indicators and patient safety. The organization can also determine its performance using safety indicators (Kaluzny &McLaughlin, 2006).
Reference
Kaluzny,A.D.,&McLaughlin,CP.(2006).Continuous quality improvement in health care. Jones & Bartlett Learning
Ersoz,C.J.,&Leebov,W.(2003).The Health Care Manager’s Guide to Continuous Quality Improvement. Universe
Corrigan,P.,&Parsley,K.(1999).Quality improvement in healthcare: putting evidence into practice. Nelson Thornes
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