Quality Improvement Proposal

Working at Sacred Heart Hospital as the case manager, I signed up for the development of an implementation plan for Health Information Technology commonly known as HIT systems. This would be used in tracking quality measures which is one of the conditions that has to be met to qualify the facility as an ACO (Gallifant et al., 2023). The goal is to focus on the integration of comprehensive analysis into the healthcare processes and translate it into better patient outcomes, a more efficient organization of care, and the ability to keep up the performance level required from ACOs. It will give in this proposal a clear plan of implementation of enhanced HIT abilities that will demonstrate how data utilization innovation can enhance Health and the workings of a hospital.

Recommendation to Expand Hospital’s HIT

However, to attempt to expand Sacred Heart HIT systems to embrace quality indicators there are a few adjustments that need to be made. These enhancements are designed to be more consistent with ACO operational benchmarks, focused on cost containment, superior patient care, and enhanced health outcomes; in addition, to improve the methods employed for aggregation and analysis of data as well as patients’ incorporation.

Implementation of Integrated Electronic Health Records (EHRs) 

Since there’s no single unified EHR system across the departments it becomes challenging to retrieve and analyze complex data sets (Buford et al., 2022). The greatest solution to this problem is to implement a comprehensive and connected EHR system that ensures patients’ records from different service delivery points in the organization are brought together. This means that data can be collected in real-time and patients’ outcomes and service use can be tracked more heavily in areas where it will improve ACO performance such as readmissions, preventive care, and chronic conditions.

Development of Advanced Data Analytics Capabilities 

They do not possess the statistician data analysis gadgets for automating and processing large datasets on quality indicators. One of the realistic solutions is to invest in modern data analytics platforms that can properly handle large amounts of data and provide necessary computational features (Buford et al., 2023). These platforms offer data analytics to predict vulnerable patients, patient outcomes, and measures that can be undertaken to mitigate the adverse effects. This capability will help in decision-making activities as well as in anticipation of patient outcomes, to adhere to the goals of ACO.

Improvements to Patient Involvement Instruments

To address the problem of low patient engagement in health management, the hospital’s health information technology should be advanced with patient portals and mobile health applications that encourage patient’s involvement in their medical care management (Froggatt et al., 2020). It may include the function of communication with medical practitioners, notifications for prescriptions, setting of doctor’s appointments, and personal health records. Engaging patients increases patient satisfaction and helps patients adhere to the prescribed regimen the two critical measures in the success of ACOs.

Staff Development and Training

The probability that staff members will not get the required training to work with the new HIT system for documenting quality can affect the reporting algorithms and the broad training programs needed to be put in place (Mijares et al., 2020). For it to be very certain that every person is aware of the latest and modern HIT technologies and advancements, such courses have to be developed for the administrators and the healthcare providers. To perform this task, staff members have to be proficient in such systems for collecting and using data for the discharge of patient care coordination and quality metrics reporting, which can only be possible through training.

Application of Interoperability

Specifications Poor interaction between various HIT systems may create inconsistencies and delays in the acquisition and analysis of data. This problem has to be addressed by following the present legal requirements of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) as improved by the current interoperability standards of HIT (Ayaz et al., 2021). This would increase the loci of care coordination and efficiency as it would allow for the smooth use and sharing of health information by different cogs in an ACO.

Information Gathering in Healthcare

The purpose of information acquisition in the healthcare sector is mainly for data acquisition which can be used to enhance patient experience, safety, and efficiency and guide decisions that are made at all organizational levels (Seibert et al., 2021). The methodical gathering and examination of data about health are crucial for predicting needs, identifying trends, and developing future methods for constant improvements in the delivery of healthcare services.

Supervising and improving the treatment results in the process of collecting information in the sphere of healthcare services is aimed at. In a systematic record taking of information about the patient’s health, treatment given, and results achieved, healthcare givers can identify areas in need of improvement and/or effective procedures (Alharbi et al., 2022). For instance, people’s recuperation results after certain surgeries are used to enhance those kinds of surgeries and respective postoperative management directions to increase successful healing and minimize complications.

Safe patient information is an essential element in information gathering to enhance the safety of a patient. Collection of data regarding cases like medication errors, falls, post-operative infection, etc has to be done. Such data is employed to apply safety procedures to prevent further occurrences similar to the given case (Seibert et al., 2021). For instance, if data shows that falls repeatedly within a certain hospital unit, then further safety measures such as adequate lighting, flooring without slipperiness among other measures could be put in place or more frequent patient surveillance. Reduction of operational costs within the healthcare facilities is another objective of information collection which is targeted at improving the efficiency of existing organizational structures.

Potential sources of such inefficiencies are the use of information procedures of patient flow, work patterns of the staff, and the use of resources (Seibert et al., 2021). For example, if data reveals that there were several long waiting hours for some diagnostic procedures, management may decide to invest in additional resources, increase the number of staff, change the schedules, or rearrange workflow to make patients happier and flow through the system more efficiently.

Collected information enables the formation of policies on the spot and guides the development of organizational practice, creating strategies (Earl et al., 2020). Information gathered at the macro level is employed by institutional decision-makers to make additions, justify the necessity of more specialized services, and orient the treatment process in terms of community demand. Healthcare organizations increasing the use of telehealth services based on the data Thus, tendencies of patient satisfaction with remote consultations as an example.

Potential Problems with Data Gathering Systems 

Healthcare establishments must collect data regarding their clients and their performance to enhance the results for the clients and the quality of work accomplished, however, some problems may occur in this sphere. One important issue that can be mentioned is the problem of inaccurate or inadequate data collection, due to which it is possible to make unbeneficial decisions (Alharbi et al., 2022). These discrepancies can be attributed to a failure in data acquisition, manual recording of data, and wrong interpretation. There are other ways of controlling errors such as recording data and through the use of automated data-capturing methods.

Additionally, the program’s data validation checks can assist in locating and resolving issues before they have an impact on analysis and training as well auditing of personnel should be frequently done to ensure they are conversant with the use of the systems (Ayaz et al., 2021). Another problem is data fragmentation because the patient information is scattered across several systems that are not fully integrated; thus, it becomes almost impossible to compile and analyze patient records coherently.

The best way to solve the issue is to invest in integrated health information systems, which are data from a few different information systems in one record. Establishing standards and protocols for interoperability means that data will be transferable and retrievable across systems with no hitches (Froggatt et al., 2020). Patient privacy may be compromised for instance by unauthorized access or loss of data. That is the reason, that global cybersecurity solutions like encryption, solutions for access control, as well as regular security audits, should be implemented.

Education of the employees on the rules that govern privacy and the importance of the patient’s information, should also not be disregarded. This is a common phenomenon in the Healthcare sector where most professionals have been known to actively and vociferously resist change on the basis that new change is uncomfortable or they do not believe in change (Ayaz et al., 2021). This resistance can however be minimized by conducting sessions that fully explain just how beneficial these new systems will be and how easy it is to use them.

Having the important parties involved in decision-making and the implementation aspects will help increase acceptance. Another problem is that its focus is on achieving statistical measures of patients’ experience while at the same time eradicating all the qualitative aspects of patient care, which are critical in understanding patients’ needs and outcomes (Alharbi et al., 2022). To overcome this, employ qualitative means of data collection which may involve extended interviews and surveys of the health care patients to give a clear picture of the impact of health care and other areas of anchoring.

Conclusion

To progress toward accreditation, and enhance the quality of care patients receive at Sacred Heart Hospital that requires the HIT system to contain comprehensive quality data. Significantly better health outcomes, optimization of care management, and regulatory compliance levels may be achieved by the use of advanced analytics (Alharbi et al., 2022). This program positions Sacred Heart Hospital as an early adopter of the use of technology to make the healthcare setting safer and more productive with emphasis on national goals for healthcare enhancement. The ingredients of these advancements have been laid by this plan and by proper management, relative improvements in patient outcomes and processes are expected to accrue.

References

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