Custom essays on DESCRIPTION OF SOME QUALITY IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS

5 MILLION LIVES COMPAIGN
This quality improvement project is launched by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. It is known that more than 40,000 incidents of medical harm take place in the United States every day. Medical errors are the fifth cause of death in the whole world. In order to prevent this problem, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement developed a special project. About 3,000 hospitals participate in this campaign. For example, in Colorado, this project is supported by the Colorado Trust. It helps hospitals to strengthen their Total quality management programs. It is known that 46 hospitals in Colorado have already got $40,000. The improvements in healthcare include different educational programs for the staff, different interventions to improve care including preventing harm from different high-alert medications, reducing surgical complications and others. (The 5 Million Lives Campaign)
SURGICAL CARE IMPROVEMENT PROJECT
This program is launched and financed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. A number of other organizations such as the American Hospital Association, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement also take part in this project. This project has the major goal – to improve the safety of surgical care through the reduction of complications which can occur after the surgical operations. This project will help to save lives of a great deal of patients who need surgical operations. It is known that some surgical complications are unavoidable.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to improve surgical care. According to the statistical data, about 30 million operations result in serious complications. (Surgical Improvement Project)
SOME POTENTIAL BARRIERS THAT CAN MAKE THE SPECIFIC QUALITY IMPROVEMENT PROJECT DIFFICULT TO IMPLEMENT
• low level of education of the medical staff;
• lack of new information technologies;
• the healthcare providers do not have enough motivation to perform their new duties in this or that quality improvement project;
• old medical equipment;
• problems with financing;
• inefficient medications. (Gaucher & Coffey, 2003, p.32)
SOME RECCOMENDATIONS
• to raise wages of all medical staff who take part in the quality improvement project in order to increase their motivation. The healthcare providers should perform their duties in a proper way and should treat patients well.
• to implement new information technologies in healthcare organizations which will help all the medical staff to perform their duties more accurate.
CONCLUSION
Total quality management plays an important role in healthcare. As numerous healthcare services are based on certain quality aspects, they should meet the needs of the patients. In health care, the doctors and hospitals are the sellers of medical services, because their health services are sold at certain prices. The buyers of the medical services are the patients who pay for the offered health services. That is why it is very important to maintain all the necessary standards and norms in healthcare system including not only medical procedures but also food and housing, attitude of the staff and security. Total quality management pays special attention to quality of the medical staff, health care and management. Only in case the above mentioned aspects are observed in a proper way, the patients will be satisfied with the services in healthcare.

References
Baret, M.(2011) Continuous Quality Improvement as an Organizational Strategy – Total Quality Management in Healthcare Industry. FindArticles. Healthcare Financial Management. August 25, 2011.
Gaucher, E. & Coffey, R. (2003) Total Quality in Health Care.
Jossey Bass. San Francisco.
Kaluzny, A., McLaughlin, C., Simpson, K. (1992) Applying Total Quality management Concepts to Public Health Organizations.