Introduction
To enhance the quality of services, healthcare institutions keep track of patient feedback. Because nurses spend so much time with patients, their interactions significantly influence how they feel about their care. Patients’ perceptions of the quality of care provided by nurses may be improved if nurses are aware of the elements influencing their work environment.
Patient happiness, loyalty, and the productivity and profitability of healthcare organizations are linked to the quality of the healthcare services provided. In turn, healthcare companies throughout the globe see it as a strategic difference for preserving competitive advantage. As a result, defining, measuring, and improving the quality of healthcare services is critical.
High-quality healthcare is a multifaceted, highly individualized concept with many facets. For Mosadeghrad (2018), excellent healthcare is “always pleasing the patient by offering efficacious, effective and efficient healthcare services that suit the patient’s demands and satisfy providers”. He thinks that excellent healthcare means “correctly offering the appropriate wellness services, in the right location, at the right time, by the right provider to the right person for the right price to obtain the right outcomes.” He says. A total of 700 healthcare stakeholders, including policymakers, managers, providers, and patients, were polled to identify the 182 attributes of quality healthcare. They were then evaluated using a pluralistic evaluation approach and categorized into five broad categories: the healthcare environment, empathy, efficiency, effectiveness, and efficacy. To be considered high-quality healthcare, one must have access to it when one needs it and pay it. One must also be able to accept it when one needs it and be able to get it. Securing safety and security, lowering mortality and morbidity, raising the standard of living, and involving patients are all considered high-quality aspects of care as well.
Healthcare Environment
In the sphere of medical services, the healthcare environment is always a key source of worry. When it comes to providing high-quality patient care, this factor must be taken into account. To preserve a healthy atmosphere, healthcare institutions give patients additional services to help them feel better and more energetic.
A safe, empowered, and gratifying work environment is what we call a healthy work environment. Following the World Health Organization’s definition of health, it is not only the absence of actual and perceived dangers to health, but rather a state of “physical, mental, and social well-being” that promotes and maintains optimum health and security. Every leader, manager, health care worker, and auxiliary staff member has a duty as part of the patient-centered team to act with a sense of professionalism, accountability, transparency, engagement, efficiency, and effectiveness.
There are two types of environments at a healthcare facility: the internal environment and the exterior environment. The internal environment is the environment inside the facility. The internal environment of a healthcare organization encompasses the working environment in which a healthcare service is provided and the resources and facilities required for the delivery of services. It is the environment that surrounds healthcare companies and influences their overall performance as well as the quality of services they give to their patients and clients. The health care environment, which impacts the quality of patient care, can be divided into three categories: the healthcare system, resources and facilities, and the growth of collaboration and partnerships. The first two categories are the healthcare system, resources and facilities, and the development of cooperation and teamwork.
Health-Care Delivery Systems
In addition to increasing communication between healthcare professionals, having suitable healthcare systems may also help promote quality of treatment by optimizing access to and adherence to recommendations and improving drug safety and monitoring. Health information technology (IT) systems enable data gathering for use in quality management, outcome reporting, and disease monitoring and reporting in the public health sector. However, improvements are required in all healthcare systems, particularly in design, implementation, and interaction across platforms in the workplace. Interoperability is essential for providing safe treatment, but achieving this aim has proven difficult. Significant patient safety problems have already been identified; patient safety and quality must be the primary focus of all efforts in the future.
Improvements in patient safety may be achieved by using drug warnings, clinical flags, and reminders, enhanced recording, and reporting of consultations and diagnostic tests, clinical decision help, and the availability of complete patient data sets. Data obtained via health information technology may be used to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments. It has been shown that it can contribute to advancements in medicine in certain circumstances. Alerts may help ensure that standards and evidence-based therapy adhere to the letter in certain situations. Aside from these applications, record consistency may be utilized to remove practice discrepancies, conduct systematic quality assurance audits, and optimize evidence-based care for common conditions, among other things.
Patient participation as consumers of health care is enhanced via the use of healthcare delivery systems. Seeing medical information provides patients with a greater understanding of their health and enables them to engage actively in shared decision-making.
Additionally, technologies may enhance follow-up for missed visits, consultations, and diagnostic tests outside of the patient interaction. A health care professional can identify particular cohorts of patients within a practice to monitor and improve adherence to recommended health care, such as mammograms.
Resources and Facilities Are Available
The availability of resources has an impact on the overall eminence of medical services provided. The mandate for medical services outstrips the ability of healthcare institutions to provide the need: While healthcare resources are constrained, the public’s expectations remain high. Participants presented actual instances of low-quality medical treatments given due to a scarcity of resources, including On the ward, there is just one [medical] manometer available. It has an impact on the overall quality of the job. Some medications are only available in restricted quantities.
Quality medical services are hampered by a lack of adequate infrastructure, resources, and equipment to provide them. Consider the following example of how a robust and persistent information system is required for successful enduring diagnosis and treatment: We need a computerized information system. We must keep a record of each patient’s medical history. It is quite beneficial, particularly for those suffering from high blood pressure or diabetes. Re-examining the patient’s record will allow us to determine the impact of the therapy on the patient’s condition.
According to participants, patients’ perceptions of the quality of treatment are influenced by several nurses that are accessible (Karaca, and Durna,2019). It is unclear what number of nurses they deem adequate, but the team believes that an appropriate nurse staffing level is connected to the makeup or mix of staff members on a given team. Participants, for example, provide information on the ratio of listed nurses to student nurses or the number of various nursing qualification levels present in a single team. Nurses with fewer qualifications are given many jobs and responsibilities to perform as effectively and productively as feasible. The outcome is that participants feel that treatment care is, in general, more moving in the direction of task-centered care, which employs a variety of various working styles. Patients’ perceptions of the quality and efficacy of nursing care, according to the researchers, are impacted by this.
The Establishment of Partnerships
According to Berning et al (2017) over the past decade, patient participation has been recognized as being crucial to enhancing the overall quality of treatment given by the healthcare system. Patient engagement, it is defined as the active participation of patients, their families, or representatives in actively collaborating with health professionals at various levels across the healthcare system (direct care, organizational design and governance, policymaking, and research) to improve health and healthcare outcomes. According to Appleton et al (2018), patient engagement has emerged as a vital component of developing the overall quality of health care. According to the literature, it is also a regularly articulated goal for healthcare organizations striving to control healthcare expenditures.
There are increasing attempts to include patients in the various improvement and redesign initiatives at the organizational level. Patients believe that they are true partners in their healthcare process. They are grateful for the opportunity to improve the care provided to other patients by drawing on their own experiences and bringing about changes in the patient-provider relationship, particularly in communication. They also get a greater understanding of the complexities of the healthcare system and its organizational structure.
Patients’ perceptions are distinct from one another. Because they have had their own experience with each step of the care pathway, they are in a genuine position to assess the care and services they have gotten regarding whether or not their needs and preferences have been satisfied. In contrast to this, health professionals often rated the quality of treatment and services while failing to recognize or understand patients’ expectations, needs, and perspectives, all of which were significantly different.
Give an example of how one can actively develop a health policy to benefit a patient’s outcome.
When one combines nurses with policy review, one may have difficulties. When one becomes a member of a professional group, one may have to deal with individuals’ viewpoints with which one does not entirely agree. Professional organizations may assist one in developing a solid networking team; but, if one’s thoughts and perspectives differ from others’, it may be challenging to create a strong team. A few of the barriers to health policy evaluation, according to Derouin et al (2021), are a lack of resources to conduct the assessment, a lack of comparison outcomes, and the use of social media platforms. Although a lack of resources may be a problem, becoming a member of a professional organization may give one a plethora of resources for a policy review. Although a lack of findings may provide a difficulty, doing evidence-based research may assist one in developing a recommendation to offer to the legislature to enhance policy review. With the forthcoming presidential election, health policy has received significant attention on social media platforms. Social media is an excellent tool for engaging in debate and learning about other people’s perspectives. Professional nursing organizations may communicate policy information to their members and followers using social media platforms (Waddell, 2018). The use of social media and constantly evolving technologies may assist nurses in dealing with difficult situations such as HIPPA breaches while engaging in the policy review. According to Peck et al (2017), policy assessment “serves as the key to enhancing the overall quality, safety, and efficiency of clinical practice, as well as analyzing the effect of innovations and research” (Derouin et al, 2021). To improve their profession, organizations, and communities as a whole, nurses must be active participants in the policy review. This may be accomplished by membership in a professional association, use of social media, or evidence-based research, among other methods.
It is critical to developing strategies for communicating concerns between nurses and policy reviewers. Gazarian et al (2019) advocated for research on how to put health policy into action to assist find strategies to enhance healthcare delivery. To aid in the preparation of policy review submissions to the legislature, one method would be to use writing services such as Grammarly, which can assist with grammar and plagiarism. Another way to take when creating laws would be to do evidence-based data research utilizing reputable and trustworthy databases and databases of evidence. The utilization of evidence-based research by nurses may help enhance health policy and the overall quality of health care. Having the capacity to look for reputable and current information can assist one in putting up an effective plan to offer to the legislature. Reaching out to other APRNs in one town might be an excellent way to advocate for professional organizations’ membership benefits. Communicate with them, find out whether they are members of any professional groups, and try to get them to join one. The ability to come together and function as a team will result in success.
At both the state and national levels, opportunities for a policy review in the nursing profession are given. Nurses who become members of state nursing organizations have the chance to develop information about policymaking and assessment. Nurses may generate their policy evaluation expertise by attending conferences, networking with other members around state, lobbying, speaking to the media on their behalf, safeguarding state’s Nursing Practice Act, and advocacy.
An additional opportunity for the professional nursing community is communicating with legislators at the local and federal levels. Working with elected officials on minor nursing concerns connected to one’s expertise helps establish credibility, making them more likely to come to one when they seek resources for more considerable nursing challenges in the future. Nurses may contribute to policy assessment by sharing personal experiences and evidence-based practice research with legislative branch members. This enables nurses to verify the value, efficacy, and impact of proposed policies. Difficulties may arise due to the inability to contact local and federal legislators and differences of opinion. Suppose one is unable to get Congress members, establish ties with policymakers inside one organization. In that case, members of the organization’s management, or even educational coordinator, may facilitate communication.
References
Appleton, L., Poole, H. and Wall, C., 2018. Being in safe hands: Patients’ perceptions of how cancer services may support psychological well‐being. Journal of advanced nursing, 74(7), pp.1531-1543.
Berning, V., Laupheimer, M., Nübling, M. and Heidegger, T., 2017. Influence of quality of recovery on patient satisfaction with anaesthesia and surgery: a prospective observational cohort study. Anaesthesia, 72(9), pp.1088-1096.
Derouin, A., Thompson, J., Gall, S., Jooste, K. R., … & Docherty, S. (2021). Evaluation of a Quality Improvement Intervention to Improve Pediatric Palliative Care Consultation Processes. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®, 10499091211026675.
Gazarian, P.K., Cronin, J., Dalto, J.L., Baker, K.M., Friel, B.J., Bruce-Baiden, W. and Rodriguez, L.Y., 2019. A systematic evaluation of advance care planning patient educational resources. Geriatric Nursing, 40(2), pp.174-180.
Karaca, A. and Durna, Z., 2019. Patient satisfaction with the quality of nursing care. Nursing open, 6(2), pp.535-545.
Mosadeghrad, A.M., Ferlie, E. and Rosenberg, D., 2018. A study of the relationship between job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intention among hospital employees. Health services management research, 21(4), pp.211-227.
Peck, P., Torous, J., Shanahan, M., Fossa, A. and Greenberg, W., 2017. Patient access to electronic psychiatric records: a pilot study. Health policy and technology, 6(3), pp.309-315.
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