Improving Patient Outcomes with Better Quality Control Measures

Posted on January 20, 2020

According to a 2016 study published in Health Affairs, $15.4 billion is spent by the medical industry each year on reporting quality measures. Even with this being the case, though, current quality control measures are simply not doing enough to improve patient outcomes.

In this article, we’ll take a look at where current quality control measures are falling short and how better quality control can be used to improve the quality of care and promote better patient outcomes.

The Shortfalls of Current Quality Control Measures

As it currently stands, the medical industry’s approach to quality measurement is both expensive and time-consuming. What’s worse, though, is the fact that it delivers insufficient results. According to the same 2016 study cited above, a majority of physicians do not trust the current quality control measures and do not use those measures to guide their patient care practices.

A big part of the reason why the current quality control measures deliver insufficient data is the fact that they do not consider information such as ambulatory care, patient-reported outcome measures, and other key sources of data. The end result is a quality control system that is both expensive and time-consuming, but not one that delivers what is truly needed to improve patient outcomes via quality control measures.

How Quality Control Measures can be Improved

At this point, it is clear that new quality control measures need to be developed. Simply developing new quality control measures alone, though, is not enough. In addition to developing quality control measures that are able to capture the full scope of what needs to be measured and improved, it’s essential to also translate those new measures into better patient care. This can be done in four essential ways:

  • Introducing more quality control measures that are actually relevant and useful in a clinical setting.
  • Working to increase buy-in from physicians.
  • Investing in more tools and putting more effort into taking full advantage of quality control measures.
  • Working to demonstrate improvement in clinically relevant measures.

Developing quality control measures that are more clinically relevant is certainly a great place to start. A new set of standards for quality measures – one that actually prioritizes patient outcomes and one that delivers relevant and actionable data – needs to be developed.

Once this new set of standards is developed, increasing buy-in from physicians and encouraging them to take advantage of quality control data to improve their care is vital if better quality control measures are actually going to translate into better patient outcomes.

Developing a better set of quality control measure standards and working to get physicians on-board with these new standards will pave the way for more investment into quality control tools and more effort being placed into using quality control in order to improve a facility’s quality of care. If all of these things are down, demonstrating the effectiveness of quality control and showcasing real, quantifiable improvement will solidify this new system of quality control and reward medical facilities for their investment.

How to Begin Improving Your Facility’s Quality Control Measures

As you can see, there is much work to be done before quality control measures are able to be used to their full potential for bettering patient outcomes. If you would like to begin taking better advantage of quality measures, though, it certainly isn’t too early to start. To learn more about how we can help you leverage the latest advances in quality control measures to improve patient outcomes at your facility, feel free to contact us today.

Source:

Improving Quality Measures Can Lead to Better Outcomes: https://www.healthcatalyst.com/insights/better-quality-measures-can-improve-patient-care

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