All HCOs should continuously strive for QI. According to the Institute of Medicine, quality healthcare is defined as “the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge.†I agree with this definition of quality healthcare. The outcome of the care the patient experiences after treatment should meet or exceed their expectations.
However, this is not always the case. Patients have negative experiences that impacts their quality of life. According to Strome (2013), value should always be defined in relation to the customer, in this case patients. If patients don’t experience a positive outcome by the care they receive, it’s not valuable to them. In order to improve the quality of care patients receive, an HCO must measure and analyze their data. Quality must be measured, monitored, and analyzed. Healthcare managers can use this data to make decisions and act to improve the quality of care patients receive.
Healthcare is continuously in a state of transformation. Because of continuous changes that are occurring in healthcare, HIT must keep up and ensure that the data contains some value for those who use it. According to Strome, (2013) there are four main activities associated with maintaining a data system that supports the needs of the HCO. They are data modeling, data creating, data storage, and data usage. All four activities must operate synergistically to ensure that the data is high-quality and can be used by healthcare leaders to make decisions. Data governance is used within an HCO to ensure the integrity of analytics. Healthcare data governance and stewardship can evaluate data quality, identify issues, and make changes as needed (Strome, 2013). They can also maintain storage for the data and ensure that the data is used properly and is accessible to the people that need it.