The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Institute of Medicine’s Quality Dimensions of Healthcare Provision
Healthcare is critical to the well-being of the human race. It enhances the quality of life and treats illnesses that interfere with the body’s regular operations. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Institute of medicine is one of the many healthcare stakeholders mandated to develop various remedies to streamline the healthcare sector. As a result, the agency has developed six quality dimensions that act as a framework through which healthcare should be provided. The quality dimensions include safety, equitability, efficiency, patient-centered, timely, and effectiveness.
The primary goal of providing healthcare is to assist patients in recovering from any ailment that may be afflicting them. To guarantee that the patient receives the benefits from the service, those who work in healthcare should exercise an exceptionally high level of equitability while performing the service (Hughes). It ensures that there is no prejudice shown toward the patient when providing healthcare services since it emphasizes the requirement for equity. It is beneficial to advocate for quality care regardless of the status of the individual patient who is seeking the service. The service must be effective at any time when the patient requests it. Because of this, the providers need to deliver services founded on scientific understanding and refrain from offering unproven care services that patients could find inappropriate for them.
In addition, the organization promotes patient-centered care to provide services that guarantee proper treatment for an individual. The dimension serves as a guide for clinical decisions and guarantees that the patients’ values are upheld. Patients should not be required to wait long before receiving medical attention. It guarantees that services are supplied on time, preventing potential harm, which is especially important in an emergency. The final dimension is the healthcare system’s efficiency requirement (Hughes). It ensures that no resources, including equipment, supplies, and materials, are wasted in healthcare facilities.
Assessing and Managing the Dimensions of Healthcare Provision
Safety
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and other bodies that care about patient safety endorse using valid and reliable quality and patient safety measures to improve health care. They advocate for quality and patient safety indicators that are reliable and valid (Hughes). These measures are typically developed by evaluating the scientific strength of the evidence found in peer-reviewed literature. External benchmarks involve using comparison data between different health facilities to find improvements that have proven successful in other organizations.
Equitability
When examining health care equitability, it is required to analyze horizontal and vertical equity components to identify whether patients with varying levels of medical necessity are given the same treatment. It will be performed by identifying the factors contributing to inequality and examining whether any differences discovered have therapeutic implications (Raine et al.). Increasing data communication across medical facilities and contexts is critical to enhancing patient equity. Machine learning and interactive multimedia approach to examine social variances in healthcare decision-making are two examples of what could be done. Therefore, measuring horizontal equity components necessitates measuring both horizontal and vertical equity.
Efficiency
The efficiency evaluation process can use various methodologies, including ratio analysis, least-squares regression, total factor productivity, stochastic frontier analysis, and envelopment analysis. When using data collection, the researcher can establish an empirical efficiency frontier in place of a best practice frontier. It is a linear programming technique that does not require any parameters to be estimated to be used. This frontier incorporates all other data and serves as a standard to measure up against for performance.
Patient-Centered Approach
The Institute of Medicine highlighted the patient-centered approach as an essential component of high-quality medical care. Raine et al. note that the Institute advocates for several different patient-centeredness aspects to assess and manage how patients are cared for at medical facilities, including the need that reasonable care should:
- Maintain coordination and a sense of integration.
- Serve as a source of information, facilitate communication, and impart instruction.
- Promote victims’ physical comfort.
- Provide emotional assistance.
- Include the patients’ loved ones and close friends.
Measures based on patient reports investigate issues from the patient’s point of view and are critical components of an appropriate evaluation of patient-centered treatment.
Effectiveness
Evaluating healthcare effectiveness requires thoroughly examining all components to assess whether they accomplish their stated objectives. An in-depth investigation of a healthcare component is required while evaluating it. Patient safety, the time it takes to deliver the service, and patient-centered care, among other dimensions, require evaluation to determine the effectiveness of the healthcare program. Effectiveness refers to the overall improvement in a patient’s health resulting from medical care.
Timeliness
When discussing medical care, timeliness refers to the ability of the system to offer treatment as soon as a need is identified. When chronic illnesses like kidney disease are treated promptly and appropriately, it is possible to lower the risk of death and morbidity associated with the condition. Researching the amount of time, it takes for patients to receive care from the moment they enter the healthcare facility until the moment they are attended to is one example of a measure that can be used to evaluate promptness (Evidence-based Practice Centers, 2017). It is feasible to make it better by ensuring that the facility operates leanly and that patients are cared for in the least amount of time possible.
Summary of Remediation Efforts of Health Programs Developed by AHRQ
Cultural Targeting
Both cultural targeting and cultural tailoring are viable approaches that can be taken when it comes to delivering medical treatment to individuals and groups. If cultural targeting is successful, people who are members of racial or ethnic minorities will have better access to medical care, and that care will be delivered more effectively (Evidence-based Practice Centers, 2017). Overcoming the organizational and clinical barriers that stand in the way of providing patients with efficient and effective care requires cultural competency that healthcare professionals possess.
Patient-Centered Care
When an individual receives patient-centered care, the practitioner providing them medical care will thoroughly review all available treatment choices. The care is known to focus on the requirements of the patient. It is about how organizations that deliver healthcare and governments establish and support policies that put individuals, rather than hospitals, at the center of the treatment process. It is a method that emphasizes the individual’s rights regarding the medical care they get.
Technical and Interpersonal Processes as Essential Elements of Providing Quality Health Care, Synergy Between Them
In the field of healthcare, interpersonal processes are complementary to technical procedures. On the other hand, patients are more open to trading off interpersonal processes for technical ones regarding the quality of service they receive. Both quality and interpersonal processes are necessary for providing high-quality healthcare; this is the synergy between the two. Technical processes offer aspects of healthcare such as screening, medical procedures, and disease treatment. The opposite end of the spectrum includes interpersonal procedures such as patient care geared toward giving the patient a sense of ease. Both factors are significant for the provision of medical treatment. When forced to choose between the technical and interpersonal quality of services, patients would choose the technical quality more often than the interpersonal quality. Healthcare practitioners must recognize this fact. Patients not only want to be treated with care and compassion by medical professionals but also want assurances that they are receiving the best medical care.
References
Evidence-based Practice Centers. (2017). Improving cultural competence to reduce health disparities for priority populations. Improving Cultural Competence to Reduce Health Disparities for Priority Populations | Effective Health Care (EHC) Program. Web.
Hughes., R. G. (n.d.). Tools and strategies for quality improvement and… – NCBI Bookshelf. National Library of Medicine. Web.
Raine, R., Or, Z., Prady, S., & Bevan, G. (n.d.). Evaluating health-care equity. Web.