Quality assurance in the health care industry

The purpose of this article is to explore the quality assurance methods commonly used in the health care industry. Factors that influence the delivery of quality patient care is explored as well as factors that affect implementation of quality control measures. The importance of quality patient care to the economic success of the health care industry is described. Quality improvement efforts that are utilized by health care institutions are described including: independent performance audits, internal audits, outcomes analysis, consumer reports, industry guidelines, and consumer satisfaction surveys. Highly effective hospital managers exhibit management roles, behaviors, and a range of activities that correlate strongly to institutional commitment to quality and improved patient care outcomes. By reinforcing their involvement in quality improvement efforts, hospital managers were able to enhance their effectiveness in promoting and sustaining quality care.     

Managing competition in the health care industry

Health-care decisions made by consumers are generally not made by informed choice. Hospitals, expanding their market beyond physician referrals, are discovering that consumers are interested in taking a more active role. Managed-competition programs may be one of the first concepts to fine-tune a new broad-based health-care system.     

The health care industry

This series of articles is concerned with technological changein industry over the last 20 years, its effect on the healthof the worker, and the measures taken by the employer to controlany risk arising therefrom. Technological change cannot be viewedin isolation. Although advances in technology and the introductionof new processes are the outward and most visible sign of changein work practices, in most cases it is managerial restructuring,political pressures, and changes in legislation which bringabout far greater change and which in the long term may havea greater effect on the health of the worker. No industry illustratesthis better than the National Health Service and more recentlythe rapidly expanding private health care sector.     

Tobacco and the health care industry

The 1964 US Surgeon General's report was the first from the medical profession to document tobacco as a cause of cancers and other serious illnesses. Over the next 40 years, numerous health care groups have worked to decrease tobacco use and lower the associated morbidity and mortality. Registered nurses are the largest group of health care providers and have one of the highest rates of smoking among health care professionals. As such, registered nurses are an important population to target and treat for nicotine addiction. Hospital-based tobacco control programs can provide nurses and other health care professionals with convenient on-site treatment. The chronic care model provides a useful framework for enhancing tobacco control activities and improving outcomes.     

Perceptions of health care quality in Central America.

OBJECTIVES: To examine user perceptions of health care delivery in selected rural and urban areas of three Central American countries. DESIGN: Three focus group studies were conducted in 1997-98 in Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama. In each selected region, 10 to 15 groups met to discuss health services available, access to and use of the services, satisfaction with different aspects of care and suggestions for improvement. SETTING: Regions chosen represented the poorest areas in each country and the dominant health care systems in Central America: the Ministry of Health system and the Social Security system based on mandatory contributions. PARTICIPANTS: 351 residents from rural and urban communities represented different genders, ages, occupations, health, and socio-economic status. RESULTS: Participants considered private care to be the best, but too costly. Their main preoccupations focused on prompt access to trusted physicians, effective and inexpensive medication, and quality attention in public hospitals. Hondurans favor the personal care offered in public clinics and rural hospitals, and hope for improved medical services. In Costa Rica and Panama, users prefer Social Security clinics for the medical specialties and perceived sophisticated technology, despite delays and poor attention. The rural poor, especially indigenous people, voice basic needs with little regard for quality. CONCLUSIONS: Health care quality is extremely variable in the three regions, requiring increased community participation to improve. Focus groups offered important, confidential and cost-effective information on quality and breadth of health care delivery and should be part of quality monitoring initiatives.     

我国医疗卫生事业公平性分析

对我国医疗卫生事业公平性现状的考察，分析其产生的原因，进而为实现全体国民的医疗卫生公平提出相关建议。     

The context of ethics in the health care industry

Examines ethics in the health care industry from the perspectives of investors, employees, patients, competitors and the environment. Ethical behaviour in the health care industry is essential and desirable; however, determining which behavioural actions are ethical and which are unethical is difficult. Although never will everyone agree on specific ethical standards, everyone should agree that setting ethical standards is vital. Therefore, administrators of health care institutions and health care providers should work together to establish codes of ethics which define boundaries for ethical behaviours in the health care industry.     

Financing reform and structural change in the health services industry

This paper reviews the major trends in financing reform, emphasizing their impact on those characteristics of the market for health services that economists have viewed as monopolistic, and discusses the implications of structural change for the allied health professions. Hopefully, by understanding the fundamental forces of change and responding to uncertainty with flexibility and imagination, the allied health professions can capitalize on the opportunities afforded by structural change. Overall, these trends should result in the long-term outlook for use of allied health services to increase at an average annual rate of 9% to 10%. Allied health professionals may also witness an increase in independent practice opportunities. Finally, redistribution of jobs will likely occur in favor of outpatient facilities, home health agencies, and nontraditional settings. This in turn will have an impact on allied health education, which will need to adapt to these types of reforms.