According to Øvretveit (2014), measuring the quality of health care services is a vital function in establishing the overall performance of health sector. It is however not an easy task. It is the complex issue affecting the entire sector. Indeed providing quality services is a tricky thing and hence it carries a lot of sensitivity to it. This is because it necessitates the coordination of various stakeholders including healthcare providers and organizations. It may include some practices and processes. Remember every patient has a different situation and attention. All the stakeholders involved have to coordinate to give a clear and precise evolution of the entire sector. This will include tee alt providers, suppliers, patients and other healthcare professionals. Comparing the quality of the inputs, output of health services and the output of the same. This is so because of the intangibility services (Øvretveit, 2014).
The services depend on the medical provider and the patient receiving the services. This may be remarkably different and may not be possible to gauge and measure the performance and quality of the services delivered (Scott & Marshall, 2016). When measuring the quality of healthcare services, the satisfaction of a customer is measured regarding loyalty and the productivity and profitability of healthcare organizations. This calls for healthcare organizations to build competitive advantage by defining measures and improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare services.The general process of measuring the performance and quality of healthcare services, it is important to consider these two aspects. These two methods are most popular, and most healthcare organizations use them to measure the quality of the services they offer to their patients. They are categorized as structural, the process and even outcome of healthcare processes (Scott & Marshall, 2016).
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Because the health services provided to patients cannot be physically determined or measured (World Health Organization, 2013). This justifies these methods. Regarding the structural measure, the consumers of tee alt services get a rough idea of the nature and capacity of tee alt provider and hence they can make a sound decision when sourcing for the service provider. Essentially physical aspects and infrastructural features of a medical provider build the confidence of consumers. Patients will look as to what clinical equipment does the hospital use. Record keeping procedure by the providers, the number of medical personnel in that particular health organization, the number of physicians certified by the medical practitioner board that service in the healthcare facility they are about to seek services(Scott & Marshall, 2016).
The process measure
To effectively measure the quality of health services in the healthcare sector, World Health Organization (2013) recommends that it would be important to measure the performance regarding the process itself. The process of providing these care services determines how qualified the practitioners include all the best health facilities and equipment are. The process matters a lot as it dictates how successful the outcome of the process will be. Poor and Awkward processes will lead to poor results. This owes to the fact that tee alt care services are compassionate. The perfect process will give good results. The method of delivering or instead practicing medical services determines the quality of the service (World Health Organization, 2013).
The process will give a measure of what a health provider does to improve and maintain health care for the patients diagnosed with health care problems or even the healthy people (Mainz, 2012). These measures should give a reflection of the general recommendations for clinical/ medical practice. The tests can also give patients information concerning the medical care that they can expect to receive concerning their conditions or diseases. This can contribute can greatly influence the health outcome of the Medicare process. This approach can be best used when treating the quality of service for the outpatient services or those undergoing surgical and other diagnostic treatments.
The outcome measure
Mainz (2012) argued that the end of a process justifies the means. This means that the outcome will indicate the quality of the whole process of providing health care services. The method can, however, be perfect and satisfactory to the patients receiving care services but if the outcome is not adequate, the quality of the entire activity if questioned. The impact of the service delivered to the patients is indicated by the outcome or the results of the process. Most healthcare organizations prefer to use the outcome approach to give reports on the quality assessment of their services (Colla & Weeks, 2015). Some of the possible outcomes that may result from a health care service that this technique may be used to measure quality include:
The number of patients who died from the process of surgery
The number of surgical complications or the infections acquired from the hospital.
The outcome measure is most preferred as it is believed to represent a better standard in measuring the quality of a service (Colla & Weeks, 2015). Although the outcome of a service results from some factors, it is believed to give an accurate clue about the quality of the service provided. It is essential therefore health providers, and organizations account for the variety of their services based on the results of their services. This is notwithstanding, the process itself since both measures are interrelated. The method determines the quality of the outcome and the outcome dictates the process
References
Colla, J. B., Bracken, A. C., Kinney, L. M., & Weeks, W. B. (2015). Measuring patient safety climate: a review of surveys. Quality and safety in health care , 14 (5), 364-366.
Mainz, J. (2012). Defining and classifying clinical indicators for quality improvement. International Journal for Quality in Health Care , 15 (6), 523-530.
Øvretveit, J. (2014). Total quality management in European healthcare. International journal of health care quality assurance , 13 (2), 74-80.
Scott, T., Mannion, R., Davies, H., & Marshall, M. (2016). The quantitative measurement of organizational culture in health care: a review of the available instruments. Health services research , 38 (3), 923-945.
World Health Organization. (2013). Oral health surveys: basic methods . World Health Organization.
