Quality Improvement in Primary Care
Quality Improvement in Primary Care
Veronica Oglesbay
Davenport University
HCMG770
Lynn Szostek, PhD
November 20, 2010
Abstract
Primary care is medical care provide to patient on first contact with the medical system (primary care definition). Essential primary care provide health care for most of the simply illness before the patient need reference to a specialist. The actual health care environment has to deal with rapid constant changes. Changes that also affect the primary care practice, this means change how doctors, nurses and health care professionals practice medicine and improve their service. The purpose of this paper is provide an overview and opinion of how the primary care could improve the quality of the service and the health of the patients.
Quality Improvement in Primary Care
Report Summary
In the recent years the concern for the service provide by the health care system has increase and reports from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) support this concern in 2001 report Crossing the Quality Chasm. The report quotes “Between the health care we have the care we could have lies no jus in a gap, but a chasm”. This show the health care system needs change. Had been several attempts to improve the service provide by primary care. HMOs in the Twin Cities tried to improve the primary care with a project named IMPROVE (Improving Prevention through Organization, Vision and Empowerment). The project involved forty two clinics which received support from the leadership, training on Continuous Quality Improvement and prevention system.
The process of the IMPROVE project was identify the problem, collect data in order be able to understand the process and customer’s needs, analyze the data and identify the root causes, develop an action plant to try to solve the problem, implement the action plan, evaluate a new process and continue to improve. The improvement project did not go right as many would like. Many factors contributed to not achieve
Veronica Oglesbay
Davenport University
HCMG770
Lynn Szostek, PhD
November 20, 2010
Abstract
Primary care is medical care provide to patient on first contact with the medical system (primary care definition). Essential primary care provide health care for most of the simply illness before the patient need reference to a specialist. The actual health care environment has to deal with rapid constant changes. Changes that also affect the primary care practice, this means change how doctors, nurses and health care professionals practice medicine and improve their service. The purpose of this paper is provide an overview and opinion of how the primary care could improve the quality of the service and the health of the patients.
Quality Improvement in Primary Care
Report Summary
In the recent years the concern for the service provide by the health care system has increase and reports from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) support this concern in 2001 report Crossing the Quality Chasm. The report quotes “Between the health care we have the care we could have lies no jus in a gap, but a chasm”. This show the health care system needs change. Had been several attempts to improve the service provide by primary care. HMOs in the Twin Cities tried to improve the primary care with a project named IMPROVE (Improving Prevention through Organization, Vision and Empowerment). The project involved forty two clinics which received support from the leadership, training on Continuous Quality Improvement and prevention system.
The process of the IMPROVE project was identify the problem, collect data in order be able to understand the process and customer’s needs, analyze the data and identify the root causes, develop an action plant to try to solve the problem, implement the action plan, evaluate a new process and continue to improve. The improvement project did not go right as many would like. Many factors contributed to not achieve
References: McLaughlin, C. P & Kaluzny, A.D. (2006). Continues Quality Improvement in Health Care 3rd Edition Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc. “Primary care definition” Retrieved November 20, 2010 from http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=primary%20care