Quality Management in Healthcare Industry: Challenges and Opportunities

Introduction

The Healthcare Industry is quite complex as you cannot categorize it as merely a centric industry, and you must provide quality customer service. First, realize that your clients are patients seeking the greatest treatment from your healthcare providers. Healthcare quality management requires that patients receive the greatest treatment and that staff are well−rested and energized. You can guarantee quality service by balancing the workflow and evaluating employee and customer satisfaction within parameters. This is where quality management comes into play, and herein lies the opportunities and the challenges.

How Can You Ensure That Quality Service is Given To Your Customers?

The primary challenge in incorporating quality management protocols in the healthcare industry is ensuring all customers get standardized services. You must maintain the quality of the service. However, this can also be a challenge because the international standards will differ based on the country to which the healthcare industry belongs. According to a World Health Organization (WHO) survey, the quality of care across low and medium−income countries is below the set standards as most hospitals and healthcare facilities record nearly 15% of hospital deaths. Compared to that, you have the data from high−income countries, which have almost 15% of their annual economic expenditure on healthcare facilities.

If you incorporate quality management protocols, you can evaluate the loopholes in your service to your patients. Some of the data generated from these methodologies will be actionable, where you can change existing facilities to provide better patient service. You will find that sometimes this data can even provide you with long−term solutions, such as providing support through telehealth that can impact the quality of services offered by your healthcare centre. Thus, you can incorporate quality management protocols irrespective of the country where your healthcare facility is situated. You can perceive this challenge even as an opportunity and begin to provide standardized care to your patients.

Image 1 : Health care systems

Shortage of Personnel and Burnout Due to Extended Work Hours

Quality management protocols in the healthcare industry help evaluate your employees' mental and physical health. One of the most significant challenges the healthcare facility faces is meeting the need for more professional nurses, doctors, and caregivers. In most cases, the employees in a healthcare facility are overworked and exhausted. In such a scenario, when you use a quality management protocol, the data generated will always show that the employees cannot provide the necessary services. Moreover, acquiring qualified nurses and doctors on short notice can be a significant challenge for any healthcare facility. According to the American College of Healthcare Executives surveys, governments must increase the financial spending on healthcare if this challenge is to be overcome. However, these are challenges that require significant executive intervention before you can reduce burnout among your employees.

If you want to manage this problem with quality management, then one of the ways would be better workflow management. As the number of registered nurses in your healthcare facility is limited, you can develop automated workflows that reduce the chances of burnout. It gives the nurses and doctors a chance to rest so that they can renew their work energized. The primary features of quality assurance are reliability, security, and responsiveness. Hence, an essential step in quality management in healthcare facilities will be to prevent employee burnout and retain employees.

Opportunities Offered by Healthcare Industry in Quality Management

Just as the challenges and opportunities for quality management in the healthcare industry are interconnected, some options are unique to the industrial sector. These opportunities have developed not because of the challenges of the industry but for the unique nature of the industry. Some of these opportunities are as follows:

• Ensuring compliance: When working in the healthcare industry, following rules and regulations is essential. Running into legal problems can be expensive for the healthcare facility. Hence, with quality management protocols, you can ensure complete compliance. It will be difficult for your employees to keep up with the legal aspect of treating a patient.

  However, if you have quality management protocols, you can automate the entire process, and you will have the necessary patient consent before he proceeds with a diagnosis. Thus, you can use quality management methodology for the compliance requirement of your healthcare facility.

• Integrates the vendors through software: A healthcare facility must deal with third parties to get the necessary medical equipment, drugs, and other similar items. Here you need a well−integrated system so your patients get the essential items in the hospital. Acquiring these products from the outside can be tiresome and disappointing for your patients. Thus, integrating your vendors and patients through software can simplify the process, especially when acquiring medical equipment.

  It also helps you validate your supplier, and you are assured of the source of the products. With the help of an integrated quality management system, you can ensure increased customer satisfaction and meet their requirements.

• Reduce the number of post−operative deaths: According to significant research, quality management in the healthcare industry can help reduce the number of post−operative deaths. It has been observed that several deaths occur in the hospital due to a lack of quality care after an operation. But if you are to introduce a quality management system here, you will find that the defects and issues in caregiving can be easily identified and rectified. Thus, several opportunities remain in the healthcare industry for quality management protocols.

Conclusion

When evaluating the challenges and opportunities for quality management in the healthcare industry, you must understand that it is dynamic. It is a competitive marketplace where you must ensure that your employees and patients are satisfied with the quality management methodologies. Thus, it is essential to be consistent in your approach when you make changes to the quality management system and, at the same time, regarding the requirements of your patients as well. When you have the necessary information, you can decide how to improve your service's quality and stay within the compliance requirements.