A Reflection on Contribution to Public Protection by Creating and Maintaining a Safe Healthcare Environment with Quality Assurance and Risk Management Strategies

A Reflection on Contribution to Public Protection by Creating and Maintaining a Safe Healthcare Environment with Quality Assurance and Risk Management Strategies

 

            Good health may be the most valued attribute of life, and being a healthcare professional, we express our concern for others by inquiring about their health and wishing them well. Material concerns are being overshadowed when our own health is threatened, for good health is determined as an essential element for our pursuit of happiness and life-long contentment (1990). With good health, we can seize a variety of opportunities in terms of our profession, family and personal lives. This aspect can be achieved with the help of healthcare professionals, being well-known experts in contributing to public protection and safety. In creating and maintaining a safe healthcare environment, quality assurance and risk management strategies are useful to improve healthcare services and provide with the public, a safe and secured environment.

            It has been reported that public health is concerned with threats to the overall health of a community, based on population health analysis, and the importance of programs concerning public health is on reducing the incidence of disease, disability, and the effects of aging (2006). With the concern of public health, risk management and quality assurance strategies take part in its preservation. In public health, risk management and risk assessment is important, for once risks in public health safety have been identified and evaluated, it would be easier to develop risk management strategies. In the context of public health, risk assessment is the process of quantifying the probability of a harmful effect to individuals or populations from certain human activities, and this includes assessing the use of specific chemicals and radiation, or the operations of specific facilities, such as power plants, factories and manufacturing plants (2006). Several organizations examine and evaluate this process to help save the environment and the public. However, to come up with risk management strategies in creating and maintaining safety in the environment and public health, it is essential to identify the principal types of risks in healthcare. These risks include clinical operating risk, which is the risk of variations in the costs incurred by a provider in providing clinical services; event risk, or the risk associated with fluctuating demand for the healthcare in the covered population; pricing risk, or the risk inherent in setting prices given the unpredictable expenses of event risk; and the financial risk, which are the basic business risks faced by all companies, such as capital, partner insolvency, cash flow, liability, and regulatory risks ( 1996).

            With these risks, healthcare professionals, such as doctors and nurses, can contribute to the creating and maintaining a safe healthcare environment by several risk management strategies.

In relation to financial and clinical risks, healthcare organizations can help reduce the costs in hospital admission and cost per day in hospital stay, by opting to use cheaper but high-quality hospital supplies. These risks are also related to providing the patients variations or choices of treatment to reduce costs. In line with this, is the improvement of treatment in hospitals, with additional training and education regarding treatment processes ( 1996).

Another contribution to public safety is by increasing healthcare insurances having long-term contracts. In relation to pricing and event risks, they are reduced by the fact that most health plan contracts are renewable annually, which means product design errors can be corrected relatively quickly, and thus providing the public cost-effective care while moving some long-term pricing risk back to the payer (1996).

Contribution to public health also entails the enhancement of roles of healthcare providers, by undergoing continuous training and update of new information and researches regarding treatment. The acquisition of great expertise in healthcare builds the confidence of the public knowing that they are being cared for, thus, helping them attain a safe healthcare environment.

Personally, my contribution would be developing a good relationship with my patients to ensure them and make them realize that they are being cared for. This would help them with their medical treatment and contribute to their recovery.

 

The primary goal of a quality assurance system should be to make healthcare more effective in bettering the health status and satisfaction of a population, within the resources which society and individuals have chosen to spend for that care, having a quality in which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge (1990). With quality assurance, the public can be assured of high quality healthcare services, to help them achieve a safe environment. With a quality assurance system, the public would be able to perform their tasks well concerning their family, profession and personal lives. Keeping in mind the goal of quality assurance, it would be easier to come up with quality assurance strategies that would help contribute to fostering a safe environment and public health.

Quality assurance is defined as covering all activities that contribute to defining, designing, assessing, monitoring, and improving the quality of healthcare, and these activities can be performed as part of the accreditation of facilities, supervision of health workers, or other efforts to improve the performance of health workers and the quality of health services (2006). With this definition, the contributions of healthcare providers can be evaluated and assessed.

Client-focused organizations meet client needs and expectations, thereby providing higher quality care (2006). I can do this personally by making sure knowing the needs of my clients or patients, to come up with strategies to meet those needs. This would lead to their satisfaction and in turn, would encourage them to return when they need additional care and to recommend the services to others (2006). This would not only enhance my skills in treatment and healthcare provision, but would also promote the reputation of the hospital, being able to provide satisfactory healthcare services.

In routine healthcare delivery, many processes occur simultaneously, so inefficiencies that occur often result to additional complexity, waste and extra work to a system, and reduce the overall quality of care (2006). I can avoid these inefficiencies by focusing on the protocols regarding treatment and seeking assistance if I lack the information on using an equipment. This would lessen casualties and errors, thus, helping create a safe healthcare environment.

It will also be beneficial to focus on measurements, such as analyzing processes, identifying problems, testing solutions, and measuring performance (2006). This is helpful in gathering and analysis of data obtained from the patients, which is useful in assessing and evaluating the treatment administered. In addition, it is important in determining problems in the future and finding solutions to them.

Lastly, I can focus on developing teamwork, for public safety cannot be achieved independently. It must be done with the help of a team, which would support the tasks of the organization as a whole. Working with a team would improve processes that often involves clarifying and incorporating the insights and needs of clients or patients into healthcare delivery (2006).

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