Leading Organizations for Quality Improvement Initiative

Identifying Practice Gaps for Quality Improvement

Quality improvement refers to the systematic approach to improving quality, where performance is measured using standardized indicators and challenges their root causes are identified and the appropriate solutions are implemented and later assessed for effectiveness (World Health Organization, 2019). One of the ways of identifying practice gaps for quality improvement is the use of data on previous care performance and this data can be from patients or hospital records. World Health Organization (2019) indicates that going through patients’ surveys on their experiences, administrative databases, and medical records provides critical data for looking at quality improvement projects. Quality improvement requires data collection and reporting, where inter-operable systems can measure the quality of service and identify quality improvement gaps. Older data can be compared to newer data to find gaps and respond to them and the data can be collected from various stakeholders in psychiatric health settings.

A potential quality improvement practice gap I might use for my DNP project is the undertaking of service evaluation. According to Backhouse and Ogunlayi (2020), the purpose of a service evaluation is to compare a service with its stated aims or to assess the quality of patient care. Service evaluation provides an opportunity for quality improvement in a health setting or care situation by highlighting the opportunities for change. It is also an assessment tool for the outcomes of the changes made during or after QI to know how sustainable the changes are (Backhouse and Ogunlayi, 2020). Such an evaluation in my organization would assess how vital monitoring of vital signs or physical patient monitoring is undertaken and whether quality improvement interventions on the same have been meaningful. Some other areas related to service evaluation in a mental health care setting are communication during service provision, service provision with dignity and compassion, and satisfaction with service in clinical settings among the recipients of care.

One of the tools for addressing the quality improvement gap in healthcare service provision is the SERVQUAL instrument. This model is a multidimensional survey instrument with many items for understanding clients’ expectations and perceptions of service and for identifying gaps to improve service (Lu et al., 2020). The tool is essential in gathering and measuring the opinions of patients in nursing care in health care settings. Another tool for addressing the quality improvement gap in healthcare service provision is importance-performance analysis. (IPA). This tool focuses on attribute importance and performance to highlight strengths and weaknesses in service provision and for the development of meaningful marketing strategies (Lu et al., 2020). IPA is important as it can be used in general practice and is relevant for measuring quality improvement gaps for my DNP project.

According to Lu et al. (2020), the SERQUAL instrument and IPA can be used to gain feedback from family members. These tools can be used on both patients accessing psychiatric care through telemedicine and their family members to find out their perception of the care services they have received and the areas they would like the providers to improve on. The application of the tools will allow organizations to improve service delivery in areas like outsourcing to laboratory testing centers and treating mental care patients with dignity and compassion for the best care delivery and the closing of quality improvement gaps in service delivery in psychiatric settings.

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