Process Improvements in the Heathcare System

Medical reconciliation and process errors continue to be an integral aspect of waste within the healthcare industry. Technology, which is either antiquated or not properly integrated, has become cumbersome. This has created errors in processing that lowers customer service and delays treatment. The steps the often lead to error are simply and straightforward

Bring patient in or visit patient

Check paper work and blood group (ERRORS OCCUR WITH INPUTS AND PROCESSING HERE)

Meds OK?

(Errors with lack of actual information checking)

Check Meds

(Errors occur with meds, amounts, and administering treatment)

Provide treatment

Update Treatment Status

(Errors occur entering information properly)

Identification of possible prevention and recovery steps for the undesirable event

JCAHO will be surveying the agency in August of 2016. Quality must be improved prior to this survey. Prevention and recovery steps are both simple and straightforward. The general premise that underlines preventions is accountability. The organization must hold all stakeholders within the organization accountable for their overall performance. To do this, leadership must outline minimum, acceptable standards for all employees. These standards will set a quality floor as it relates to both service and treatment. Second, leadership must monitor the overall adherence to these standards. This will involve supervisory visits to clinicians who made at least one error over the past two weeks. Under these guidelines the supervisor will reschedule a visit to ensure that quality standards are being met. Finally, the strategy must be proactive in identifying errors prior to their occurrence. To do this, the plan includes hiring an agency to perform a MOCK survey prior to the actual JCAHO survey in August. This is to again insure that standards are being implemented and service is being properly administered.

SWOT ANALYSIS

SWOT analysis provides a clear and transparent perspective of the organization. What makes SWOT analysis so unique is its ability to clearly delineate between what the organization need to improve upon and what areas that it is performing well in. With a SWOT analysis, the organization is in a better position to be honest with itself as well. Too often, complacency and bureaucracy set in. This ultimately stifles innovation and process improvements. SWOT analysis therefore provides an honest assessment of our organization and a better understanding of how to improve it over time. For example SWOT analysis allows the organization to indentify key strengths relative to peers in the industry. Particularly for health care, strengths can be further expanded upon to provide more economic benefit for the firm. By identifying threats, the organization can better deter them in the future. Threats can come for literally anywhere. Through this analysis, the organization will be better able to identify them, and react if needed. By identifying both opportunities and threats, the organization can better develop business strategy and goals.

3. Accurately identify the barriers to using this tool in health care