Quality Of Care

Quality of care has always been a driving force in the healthcare market. What determines quality of care is largely affected by one's perspective. Hospitals and physicians view quality in terms of outcomes and standards of care. Patient’s view quality based on their experience and perception. As the healthcare market has become increasingly competitive, hospitals have become increasingly aware that it is no longer adequate to give care that meets standards and has good outcomes, but that care must also provides patients with a positive experience. It is the patient experience that drives the consumer market. There is no better advertising than a satisfied customer. Many hospitals realized this and seek to provide the best patient
It is likely for this reason that in 2017 for clinical care and processes will make up 30% of the domains. By evaluating processes and clinical care there is a direct improvement in patient care by monitoring outcomes. Hospitals are forced to implement processes that will improve the overall treatment of patients to improve its outcomes. Secondary to clinical care and process evaluation is patient safety. Safety would fall as the next important domain with regard to the overall value obtained by by the patient. Quality care is safe care. By increasing overall patient safety, quality care is directly affected. While care coordination and patient experience are lower on the scale of than clinical care and safety, it would still range above efficiency and cost reduction with regard to the value perceived and realized by the patient. The domain which least affects the value obtained by the patient would be the efficiency and cost reduction as there is little impact directly on the care received by the patient. It is possible that this domain could potentially be detrimental to patients, if important services are cut in order to reduce
There is significant waste in the Medicare process. Improvement of efficiency and cost reduction could stand to substantially save Medicare significant dollars. Patient safety improvements also has a high cost reduction ratio. According to CDC hospital acquired infections affect over 2 million patients every year with an annual cost of as much as 11 billion dollars every year. According to Healey (2011) By reducing Medical errors and increasing patient safety we significantly improve the quality of the care and the cost of healthcare. Monitoring things such as C. difficile infections are both easy and beneficial both financially and from a quality standpoint. In order to decrease C. difficile infections hospitals have established Antibiotic Stewardship Programs which decrease the over usage of antibiotics thus decreasing C. difficile infections. As Aston (2013 Showed antibiotic stewardship programs reduce the number of C diff infections. They also decreases antibiotic resistance. The end result is a higher quality of care and significant savings to Medicare patients, and hospitals by decreasing