Outcome Measures Issues and Opportunities
Analyze organizational functions, processes, and behaviors in high-performing health care organizations or practice settings.
Functions and processes of high-performing organizations.
The functions and processes of any successful organization are well aligned with the organization’s vision and mission and often reward and embrace innovative ideas aimed at bettering the organization. The leadership structure is clearly spelled out and clearly defines objectives and goals, taking into account an individual’s strengths and weaknesses.
Communication is not only done effectively, but it is also timely to minimize communication gaps that may bring about confusion and misunderstanding (Yabroff et al., 2019). Quality processes in high-performing healthcare organizations are designed to improve both the quality and safety of care.
Financial management is designed to not only manage but also take risks with the overall aim of achieving the organization’s goals while minimizing losses. Strategic planning, safety, and risk management strive towards minimizing costs, improving both the quality and safety of care while promoting access to care.
What makes these organizations high performers?
High-performing health care organizations are high performers because of several reasons. These organizations have a strong organizational culture in place that strives towards continuous improvement of the quality and safety of care. Having clear and achievable goals and objectives combined with a strong sense of purpose amongst all employees is essential in guaranteeing high performance (Aron et al., 2018).
These organizations have roles and duties that are clearly defined, and there is an elaborate interrelationship between the organization’s duties to the institution’s vision, mission, and moral values. Work is managed appropriately and based on established deadlines that facilitate efficiency as employees continually strive to achieve goals and expectations before set deadlines.
What are these organizations doing that less successful organizations are not?
In these high-performing organizations, roles and responsibilities are clearly spelled out. In less successful organizations, this is not always the case. In such instances where roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined, a few things are left undone since no one is assigned. Shared or joint accountability is often witnessed in high-performing organizations, unlike in less successful ones where blame is often shifted in case of failure.
Constructive conflicts aimed at improving performance as well as transparent and timely communication are witnessed in high-performing organizations and greatly contribute to the success of these institutions (Vaughn et al., 2018). Engaged leadership is also common in high-performing organizations.
Unlike less successful organizations where leadership and management hardly engage employees, highly successful organizations have a leadership in place that continually strives to engage employees and ensure that they receive input from all employees which makes each and every individual take an active part as they feel important in the overall scheme of things.
How does your organization or practice setting compare to these high-performance benchmarks?
Despite communication within my practice setting being done effectively most of the time, it is often not done in a timely way. This usually leads to misunderstanding and confusion that greatly derails the performance. As highlighted above, joint accountability is one of the features of a successful organization. Within my practice setting, the focus is often shifted to one individual, especially those in leadership positions, in instances of failure.
This lack of accountability by most of us when things do not do well is often one of the reasons we lag behind while other organizations achieve great success. Active involvement and engagement of employees by the management in decision-making are not done that often within my practice setting. This often means that most people perceive that their input is not needed, consequently affecting morale and overall job satisfaction.
Determine how organizational functions, processes, and behaviors affect outcome measures.
What is the extent of the positive and negative effects on the outcome measures?
Organizational functions, clear processes, and behaviors facilitate the creation of clear visions and objectives that positively influence outcome measures. Cohesion and teamwork as a result of clearly defined processes and behaviors also positively affect outcome measures. They are also vital in establishing effective and efficient support systems and processes that positively impact outcome measures.
As Nguyen and Malik (2020) point out, poor organizational functions, processes, and behaviors affect outcome measures negatively due to reduced productivity, minimal work delegation, and centralized decision-making.
What are the reasons for these effects?
Organizational functions, processes, and behaviors directly impact decision-making, which directly influences the implementation of strategies to improve outcome measures (Hermes et al., 2019). Teamwork and effective communication resulting from streamlined functions and processes are key factors determining outcome measures. These functions, processes, and behaviors further define how things are done within the organization, including the day-to-day running, which significantly affects the outcome measures.
Identify the quality and safety outcomes and associated measures relevant to the performance gap you intend to close.
Create a spreadsheet showing the outcome measures.
| Practices aimed at reducing Hospital-acquired infections. | Frequency | Percentage |
| Use of reusable equipment
Yes No |
||
| Proper handwashing before and after handling patients.
Yes No |
||
| Use of personal protective equipment
Yes No |
||
| Cleaning of frequently touched surfaces.
Yes No |
Identify performance issues or opportunities associated with particular organizational functions, processes, and behaviors and the quality and safety outcomes they affect.
What issues or opportunities are relevant to the systemic problem that you are addressing?
As discussed earlier, hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are a common occurrence within most health care facilities and have been associated with several complications. According to Healthy People 2020, issues arising related to hospital-acquired infections include objectives assessing the incidence of central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) and methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections, with much work still requiring to be done (Liu et al., 2022).
Research indicates that a majority of these infections are preventable. Therefore, it is necessary to further the implementation of strategies known to address HAIs while advancing the development of effective prevention tools and mechanisms and looking into newer preventive mechanisms. all these are to be achieved through
What factors give rise to these performance issues or opportunities?
The increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria is one of the major factors presenting issues and opportunities that need to be addressed. It is estimated that approximately 3 million antibiotic-resistant infections are experienced within the United States annually, with a mortality of about thirty-five thousand people within the same time period (Hayward et al., 2020).
This recent surge in antibiotic-resistant infections has propagated the need for coordinated action and interventions across various issues to address these issues that are greatly undermining the pharmaceutical sector and health care in general.
Several innovations have been designed over the recent past and continue to be designed to address hospital-acquired infections. As Pearson (2021) notes, inventions, including coated catheters, have been developed while further research is still going on to come up with equipment that reduces or completely eliminates hospital-acquired infections. This necessitates collaboration while also fostering the application of evidence-based research to develop strategies and interventions to address this issue.
The recent focus on the major impact of hospital-acquired infections on the whole health care delivery system has aroused interest in major vital players within the health sector. This means that health care facilities are more united with the aim of addressing HAIs. This provides an opportunity to engage all involved parties in minimizing and completely eliminating hospital-acquired infections.
This entails educating all involved individuals on the role they have to play in addressing this issue. Active participation and teamwork increase the likelihood of success in implementing strategies aimed at addressing hospital-acquired infections while also triggering the need to conduct further research aimed at coming up with newer and more innovative ways of addressing the problem.
What are their potential effects on outcomes?
Highlighting the impact of antibiotic-resistant disease and its spread will enable health care practitioners and patients to take an active role in combating these infections. The use of personal protective equipment (PPEs) to protect themselves and susceptible patients from contracting these infections is critical in improving the quality and safety of care.
Hand hygiene and cleaning of surfaces that frequently come into contact with humans are other key measures that will significantly reduce the occurrence of hospital-acquired infections and consequently improve both the safety and quality of health care.
Research aimed to develop equipment and other interventions to reduce hospital-acquired infections and positively impact healthcare. The development of gadgets such as coated catheters that minimize the risk of catheter-acquired urinary tract infections leads to a decrease in the occurrence of hospital-acquired infections (Pearson, 2021). This is a major step toward improving the quality and safety of care and, consequently patient outcomes and patient satisfaction.
Outline a strategy for ensuring that all aspects of patient care are measured and that knowledge is shared with the staff.
What are the critical steps needed to implement your strategy?
Implementation of strategies entails putting into action a plan or objective to accomplish the organization’s short-term and long-term goals. Implementation of any strategy within an organization requires a well-thought-out plan to achieve the intended objective. Mitchell (2013) points out Lippitt’s theory as one of the most effective change models during the implementation of a strategy aiming to influence transition within an organization.
This theory points out assessment as one of the key initial steps that are vital during the initiation of a change model. This entails a detailed assessment of the patient or the issue that needs to be addressed. This is followed by the planning phase. This entails collaboration with key stakeholders with the aim of coming up with ways of addressing the issue at hand.
The implementation stage entails carrying out previously documented and discussed strategies during the planning stage. Evaluation is the final stage and often provides a link back to the assessment stage. It provides a chance to regularly assess implemented strategies for any areas of weaknesses that may require to be addressed (Mitchell, 2013).
How will information, knowledge, and best practices be shared?
Sharing information and knowledge entails the creation of spaces and forums that foster the sharing of relevant knowledge and information (Chan et al., 2020). Engaging well-versed and well-informed experts regarding the topic of interest means that people are more alert and receptive to sharing information.
Using the most effective tools and channels is another key consideration to take into account if one wants to relay information and knowledge within an organization or practice setting. Several factors need to be considered when choosing the tool to use to relay information. The target audience is one of the most important factors to consider when sharing knowledge and information.
References.
Aron, D. C., Wilson, B., Tseng, C.-L., Soroka, O., & Pogach, L. M. (2018). Positive deviance in Health Care: Beware of pseudo-equifinality. Putting Systems and Complexity Sciences Into Practice, 189–198. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73636-5_14
Chan, A., Nickson, C. P., Rudolph, J. W., Lee, A., & Joynt, G. M. (2020). Social media for rapid knowledge dissemination: early experience from the COVID-19 pandemic. Anaesthesia, 75(12), 1579–1582. https://doi.org/10.1111/anae.15057
Hayward, C., Ross, K. E., Brown, M. H., & Whiley, H. (2020). Water as a Source of Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare-Associated Infections. Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland), 9(8), 667. https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens9080667
Hermes, E. D. A., Lyon, A. R., Schueller, S. M., & Glass, J. E. (2019). Measuring the implementation of Behavioral Intervention Technologies: Recharacterization of established outcomes. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.2196/11752
Liu, X., Ren, N., Ma, Z. F., Zhong, M., & Li, H. (2022). Risk factors on healthcare-associated infections among tuberculosis hospitalized patients in China from 2001 to 2020: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Infectious Diseases, 22(1), 392. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-022-07364-9
Mitchell G. (2013). Selecting the best theory to implement planned change. Nursing management (Harrow, London, England: 1994), 20(1), 32–37. https://doi.org/10.7748/nm2013.04.20.1.32.e1013
Nguyen, T.-M., & Malik, A. (2020). Cognitive processes, rewards and online knowledge sharing behavior: The moderating effect of Organisational Innovation. Journal of Knowledge Management, 24(6), 1241–1261. https://doi.org/10.1108/jkm-12-2019-0742
Pearson, M. (2021). Automation of healthcare-associated infections (HAIS) areas for opportunity through the use of Technology. Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology, 1(S1). https://doi.org/10.1017/ash.2021.6
Vaughn, V. M., Saint, S., Krein, S. L., Forman, J. H., Meddings, J., Ameling, J., Winter, S., Townsend, W., & Chopra, V. (2018). Characteristics of healthcare organisations struggling to improve quality: Results from a systematic review of qualitative studies. BMJ Quality & Safety, 28(1), 74–84. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2017-007573
Ward, M., Knowlton, M. C., & Laney, C. W. (2018). The flip side of traditional nursing education: A literature review. Nurse Education In Practice, 29, 163–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2018.01.003
Yabroff, K. R., Gansler, T., Wender, R. C., Cullen, K. J., & Brawley, O. W. (2019). Minimizing the burden of cancer in the United States: Goals for a high-performing health care system. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, 69(3), 166–183. https://doi.org/10.3322/caac.21556