Question

Describe quality improvement tools that are used in healthcare. provide an example of how a quality improvement tool is used in the past and its effects on patients and organization. provide examples.

Answer 1

Quality improvement tools are

1. Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a kind of group discussion to identify problems, produce ideas for the solving of problems. This will helps to get various ideas, form that the management can choose one good idea, and apply in health care to improve their quality.

2. Multi voting

Multi voting is a technique for selecting a good problem-solving method after prioritizing form the ideas which are given by all the staff. This helps to get proper ideas to improve the quality of health care.

3. Data collection tools

data collection tools are used to collect the information needed to improve the quality. This include checklist, check sheets, survey, logbooks, medical records. This helps to get information about previous years and the current year. It can able to show any changes and in which area there is a need to improve quality.

4. Flow charts

It is a graphical presentation of the process to follow in the hospital regarding any procedure or topic. This is shown in step by step process to follow. This helps to improve the quality of the hospital by following the same steps and prevent many errors.

5. Cause and effect diagram

It is a tool for analyzing the cause and effects of any problem. This helps to understand the cause and provide a solution for it to prevent an effect on health care. This improved the quality of health in health care.

6. Pareto diagram

This provides a graphical representation in the raking of the significance in health care. This helps to improve the quality of care.

7. Histogram

It is also a graphical representation of the data collected in health care. It represents in a more organized way and able to identify the differences in each distribution.

8. PDCA cycle

This is also called a trial and error cycle. Any ideas or solutions are applied in a small scale and see the solution. If it is working then it will be used in large scale and if not working then it will stop using it. This helps to decrease any error and improve the quality of care.

Quality improvement tools used in the past result in good outcomes. For example, using the checklist before the patient going to the operation theatre. This helps to get adequate data regarding the patient, any investigation needs to do before the procedure, any preparation is done or not. This all helps to reduce the chance of error. This is benefits for both the patient and the organization.