Quality Assurance As A Measure Of Quality In Health Care

Quality assurance focus is placed on the outcomes of a particular practice or service where a corrective action may be needed to resolve an adverse outcome. An adverse outcome would typically be caught prior to a service being performed or after the fact in regards to products. Quality improvement concentrates on process changes to cultivate continuous improvement or enhancing a service. It requires developing measures and cross checks so that a health care facility can identify a potential problem before it results in harming a patient. An example of quality improvement in health care would be identification of near misses. In radiation oncology if you uncover a potential error during the quality assurance check that could have resulted in a misadministration or treatment error it is reported as a near miss. When a near miss is reported the radiation oncology team comes up with a remedial action …show more content…
The process of care is the relationship between the patient and the health care provider where quality is defined as the outcome of care given. Structure relates to the organizational structure of the practice in which the health care provider delivers services as well as to the resources they have available to them that aids in providing the best possible care. Lastly, the outcome is the end result of a patient’s previous medical care as it relates to any deviation in their health (Kelly, 2011). Let’s use a patient prevention measure such as reducing bed sores as an example of the relationship among these three measures. The hospital staff on the floor would be the structure that would be responsible for preforming the risk assessment or process measure to identify those patients at risk. The outcome would be to take the appropriate measures such as using a special air pad for a patient that has been identified as being at risk of getting bed