Discuss how micro-level quality initiatives can influence how health care organizations define and address quality issues?

In the module overview, we learned that the responsibility for ensuring quality and safe outcomes for patients, customers, stakeholders and employees is the responsibility of all health professionals. Yet, those working at the forefront of providing care sometimes see things differently than those responsible for managing quality. As you discuss aspects of this brief case study, think about 1) how organizational (systemic) quality of care issues presented through the case can create a chasm between people working toward the same goal ; 2) what can help all stakeholders find common ground; and 3) how micro-level quality initiatives can influence how health care organizations define and address quality issues? Use the following case study as the basis of this discussion. Following the case study is a set of discussion questions. Please start with the first question. We will work our way through the questions together. CASE STUDY You are a unit manager in a 200-bed community hospital. You have just been asked by your hospital’s executive director to join a quality improvement task force. The director has recently learned that Medicare hospital payments will continue to be trimmed for patients who experience harms considered to be largely preventable, such as blood clots, surgical infections, ventilator-associated pneumonias, and others. Both you and your director want to be sure that your hospital prevents all possible avoidable harms to patients. The director summarizes the key issues for you: denied payments focus exclusively on additional care required to treat the injury (e.g. when a second procedure is required to retrieve a surgical instrument). To date, the denied payments are for hospital care only, but some analysts have recommended that the same policy be applied to physician payments. One measure your hospital has already taken is to require that all workers who interact with patients wash their hands, in order to prevent hospital-acquired infections. Though this would seem a simple and obvious initiative, yet it has met with limited success. In response to additional queries, you learn that the hospital’s safety department does not track the kinds of events for which it may be financially penalized. You also learn that the Affordable Care Act will affect hospital payment in another way: trimming reimbursements for potentially avoidable hospital readmissions. Your hospital serves an older population and many patients currently have had multiple readmissions for acute exacerbations of chronic illnesses, such as congestive heart failure and diabetes. In the future, these multiple admissions may become very costly. Your director informs you that the hospital’s profit margin last year was razor thin; the combination of the economic downturn and any decreased reimbursements could result in closure. (Case excerpted / adapted from text) 1.Based on your opinion and personal/work experiences, whom would be important to invite onto the task force? 2.How might the task group address the quality of care at the hospital using measurable outcomes-driven approaches? Be sure to apply what you have learned from your readings. Work together to come up with measurable and practical ideas. In addition to your initial response to this topic, be sure to engage with at least two of your classmates. Compose your work using a word processor and save it, as a Plain Text or an .rtf, to your computer. When you’re ready to make your initial posting, please click on the “Create Thread” button and copy/paste the text from your document into the message field. Be sure to check your work and correct any spelling or grammatical errors before you post it. Your participation in the discussion forum will be evaluated according to the SHS Discussion Rubric