Read Healthcare Worker's Perceptions of an Organizational Quality Assurance Program Implemented in a Resource-limited Setting: a Qualitative Study. Reflect on the document and share your perspective

Quality of care is extremely important in the healthcare industry. Being from Jamaica, I understand the need for a quality assurance program in developing countries. Quality assurance programs hold employees at a set standard that ensures a safe delivery of care. The methods used seem to be effective for the study as they included both medical and non-medical departments. The organization-wide indicators and the key performance indicators developed led to the positive results of the organizational quality assurance program. Some examples of these include infection prevention and control, medication errors, and waiting times.

The program was perceived to be very valuable for the Angkor Hospital for Children. However, if I was to conduct a study I would include all staff members at the hospital. I would develop quality measures that applies to each department. Also, making it a hospital-wide program will provide management with the real results as to how the organization is doing. A quality assurance program can very valuable as providing safe and quality care is now at the forefront of the organization. As mentioned by a non-medical Manager at Angkor, “…quality of care…is combining everything to make patients feel comfortable, to make the families of patients feel comfortable, and to help patients get better from sickness and make them feel happy as well.”  The goal of my quality assurance program would be to guide each department to maintain and improve safe and efficient care to all patients and family members.  

Reference:

Hiroko Henker, Shivani Fox-Lewis, Navy Tep, Dary Vanna, Sreymom Pol, & Claudia Turner. (2018). Healthcare workers’ perceptions of an organizational quality assurance program implemented in a resource-limited setting: a qualitative study. Health Promotion Perspectives, (3), 179. https://doi-org.ezproxy.umuc.edu/10.15171/hpp.2018.24

The study on healthcare workers’ perceptions of an OQA within a developing community is very interesting (Henker et al., 2018).  OQA’s take many forms depending on where they are implemented and I believe that in some form, all organizations have an OQA.  Within our unit, the OQA is our Command team.  They identify key performance indicators (KPIs), evaluate these KPIs, and then implement policy to improve efficiency.  Within healthcare, if there was no form of OQA, everyone would do the same process differently and it would lead to differing levels of quality care.  However, having a formalized OQA program allows for an organization have a focus group whose purpose is to identify weaknesses in quality care and address them.  In the study, this organization lacks the resources to implement a formalized OQA that has the sole job of quality assurance and instead must rely on employees to volunteer extra hours to conducting OQA work (Henker et al., 2018).  The organization-wide indicators and KPIs were a good set of measures to implement on OQA.  Additionally, the conclusion made that an OQA is necessary in standardizing and improving quality of care is a valid conclusion (Henker et al., 2018).  They also identified the short term of implementation for AHC’s OQA which leads to a lack of evidence in their OQA model’s success (Henker et al., 2018).

As a researcher, there is one key factor I would change, and another that may already be part of the researchers plan.  In addition to a focus group discussion (FGD), I would distribute surveys that provide a list of options that range from dissatisfied, to unsure, and to satisfied.  The study only evaluated the satisfaction of 29 participants, and although it had a good demographic distribution, the sample size was still small (Henker et al., 2018).  Opening the study to written surveys allows employees that are working odd shifts or do not have the time to participate, the opportunity to voice their opinions, lack of understanding, or suggestions for the OQA.  Additionally, because the survey was conducted on an organization that has only implemented the OQA for a year and a half, I would re-evaluate after several years to see if the program exceeded KPIs and identified new KPIs to address with success and approval from staff members.  Opening this study again will allow for comparisons of the data retrieved.  If the researchers decide to conduct the study where an OQA has been implemented for a long period of time may give similar results, but it still brings into question the model implementations level of success.

I agree with the conclusion of the study that OQA’s are necessary for maximizing quality care.  Another journal discussed the serious need for quality improvement in developing Pakistan’s health care system (Shaikh, 2005).  Another discussion brings up an excellent point though that challenges the idea presented within the study.  Quality problems are often approached with a one size fits all solution, this can be more detrimental than beneficial, as each organization may run into issues that are specific to their site (CHASSIN & LOEB, 2013).  The method of approach for the study with implementation of an OQA program is applicable to all organizations, but the specific measures that were identified and the structure may need to be altered based on the situation.

References

CHASSIN, M., & LOEB, J. (2013). High-Reliability Health Care: Getting There from Here. Milbank Quarterly, 91(3), 459-490. doi: 10.1111/1468-0009.12023

Henker, H., Fox-Lewis, S., Tep, N., Vanna, D., Pol, S., & Turner, C. (2018). Healthcare workers’ perceptions of an organizational quality assurance program implemented in a resource-limited setting: a qualitative study. Health Promotion Perspectives, 8(3), 179-186. doi: 10.15171/hpp.2018.24

Shaikh, B. (2005). Quality of health care: an absolute necessity for patient satisfaction. Journal Of The Pakistan Medical Association, 55(11), 515-516. Retrieved from https://jpma.org.pk/PdfDownload/969