The hospital system has experienced numerous issues related to quality of care, including medical malpractice cases, low patient satisfaction, and a warning from its accrediting organization. To improve quality, the new hospital head would explore these issues, request data on patient satisfaction surveys, medical records, and staff feedback. Focusing on process improvements based on this information, implementing comprehensive patient surveys that identify specific issues with care received could help the hospital understand problems and work to prevent future issues.

1. Hospital System Quality Improvement
Imagine that you have recently been appointed as the head of a large hospital system. You’ve
been hired into this role by the Board of Trustees for your vast knowledge on how to improve the
quality of services. Over the last few years, the hospital system has had a number of issues arise
related to the quality of care it provides, including numerous medical malpractice cases, low
patient satisfaction ratings, and a warning from the national organization that accredits the
hospital, to improve the quality or risk losing its accreditation.
Based on this week’s reading:
 What are some of the issues that you would want to explore to help
improve the quality?
 What information/data would you ask for to help analyze the problem?
 What are some of the areas that you would want to focus on to help
improve the quality of the hospital?
 Suggest at least one solution to improving poor quality of care in a
hospital system.
One of the ways a medical facility can improve quality of care would be to hand out
questionnaires/ customer satisfaction polls. This poll can be sectioned by reason of visit, gender,
age groups, customer feedback for ways of improvement, and any other measurable variables
that a facility may want to add. This poll should also include what service they (the patient)
were not satisfied with and one would have to look at it as “would this have any commonality
with a malpractice case”.
"Process judgments include what was done, how appropriate it was, and how well performed, as
well as what was omitted that should have been done. The assumption underlying the use of
process criteria is that the quality of the actions taken during patient encounters determines or
influences the outcomes" (Sultz & Young, 2011).
All medical personnel and providers having direct and indirect contact with the patient would
also be seen as a great resource to tap and poll for a climate assessment. The structured
approach to identify factors such as - the behavior, nature, the magnitude of event,
location, action, inaction, and conditions that need to be changed to prevent
recurrence or/ and to improve current conditions. All valuable feedback obtained
from all of the groups listed above, whether it be negative or positive will give the
Chief of Staff and board of directors a clearer picture as to what the staff and patients
encounter on a day-to-day basis. All of this information will identify factors and work
towards ways to improve the medical services offered.
Sultz & Young (2011). Health Care USA: Understanding Its Organization and Delivery,
Seventh Edition