Tools and Practices in Long-Term Care Quality Assurance

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Efficiency and Effectiveness of the Quality Improvement Plan of the Facility

The current quality improvement plan undertaken by the facility is dubbed the On-Time Quality Improvement for Long-Term Care Initiative. The effectiveness of this quality improvement (QI) plan is proven in some ways. The plan has significantly reduced the prevalence rate of pressure ulcers among the residents of the facility. Second, it has increased the speed at which the facility’s staff access crucial information relating to the residents. Before the implementation of the plan, access to critical information was an extremely slow process that took days. But presently, it only takes a matter of minutes for data to be accessed thanks to the web-based database. Third, the QI plan has significantly increased the job satisfaction levels of the facility’s staffs mainly because their work has become easier and they are actively involved in the entire process. Efficiency of the QI plan is illustrated by the amount of resources required to carry out certain activities. For instance, at present it only requires one staff to access and retrieve crucial data. In the past, the process was handled by more than one staff. As a result, the facility is now able to provide more services using the same resources (Ralston & Larson, 2005).

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Quality Improvement Plan

One of the key strengths of the QI plan of the facility is that it is a plan that is being undertaken by all the facility’s employees. As a result, all employees have a role to play in the quality improvement of the facility. This has tremendously increased the workers’ satisfaction as well as their team work ability. Most importantly, the QI plan enables the facility’s staffs to recognize any deteriorating health conditions of the residents and thus take the most appropriate actions before it is too late. This was impossible before the implementation of the plan. The main weakness of the QI plan is that it makes use of advanced computer and web-based technologies. Hence, employees who lack such skills are limited in the plan’s implementation.

Recommendations to Improve the Weaknesses Identified Above

To improve the weakness mentioned earlier, the facility should carry out regular training sessions for its employees to ensure that they are at par with the technologies and skills. New employees should go through training sessions to make them proficient not only in the technological skills but also in the plan’s execution.

The Organization’s Practices for quality management: PDCA

The facility makes use of the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) approach to quality management. The PDCA cycle is a tool that helps the facility to identify the processes and measure the outcomes for improvement, assess the approach for change, evaluate the data collected, and implement the QI strategy (Motwani, Klein & Navitskas, 1999). During the ‘Plan’ phase the facility: plans to inform the facility’s employees and families informing them of the new QI plan; plans for education of its employees regarding the QI plan; and plans for the training of its employees regarding the implementation of the QI plan.

During the ‘Do’ phase the facility implements the above-mentioned propositions. During the ‘Check’ phase, the facility measures the effectiveness of the QI plan. Specifically, the facility collects data pertaining to the prevalence rate of pressure ulcers among the residents, the level of satisfaction among the employees, and the amount of time it takes to access crucial data. These data will be collected for both before and after the implementation of the plan. The analysis of the collected data determines whether or not the QI plan is effective in addressing the facility’s current problems. During the ‘Act’ phase, the plan is reviewed after every six months. Based on the results, the facility decides whether or not to make the changes permanent or whether to make the necessary improvements. If the results are positive and encouraging, the changes will be made permanent (Ralston & Larson, 2005).

Benefits to the Organization for its Problem Solving Process

The problem solving process of the facility makes use of the PDCA tool. This tool is a cycle and thus an ongoing process. One of the benefits of this process is that it makes use of tangible rather than abstract data. The facility collects and analyzes data and this forms the basis upon which decisions regarding the problem are made. The process is thus evidence-based. Second, the process is a cycle and thus an ongoing process. This enables the facility to identify any arising problems or areas that need further improvement and take the necessary actions to do so. In other words, the process creates room for further improvements (Ralston & Larson, 2005).

Barriers to the Organization’s Quality Improvement Activities and Recommendations to Eliminate the Barriers

The greatest barrier to the facility’s QI improvement activities is resistance to change among its employees. This results from the fact that the employees were accustomed to working in a particular manner since the inception of the facility. The situation is made worse because the QI activities entail extensive use of computer- and web-based technologies which the employees were not familiar with. It thus requires the facility to constantly and fervently facilitate the change process using effective strategies (Briscoe & Arthur, 1998).

Reference List

Briscoe, G., & Arthur, G. (1998). CQI teamwork: Re-evaluate, restructure, and renew. Nursing Management, 29, 73-80.

Motwani, J., Klein, D., & Navitskas, S. (1999). Striving towards continuous quality improvement: A case study of Saint Mary’s Hospital. Health Care Manager, 18(2), 33-40.

Ralston, J., & Larson, E. (2005). Crossing to Safety: Transforming healthcare organizations for patient safety. Journal of Postgraduate Medicine, 51(1), 61-7.

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