International journal of health care quality assurance
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Int J Health Care Qual Assur · Jan 2014
Developing a hospital quality improvement initiative in Lesotho.
Hospital-based quality improvement (QI) programs are becoming increasingly common in developing countries as a sustainable method of strengthening health systems. The aim of this paper is to present the results and lessons learned from a QI program in a large, rural, district hospital in Lesotho, Southern Africa. ⋯ The design and early implementation of QI programs should focus on easily achievable, locally-relevant improvement projects. It was found that early successes helped to fuel further QI gains and the authors believe that the work building sustainable QI skill sets within hospital staff could be useful in the future when attempting to tackle larger national-level quality of care indicators. The findings add to the existing evidence suggesting that an increased use of locally-relevant quality improvement programming could help strengthen health care systems in low resource settings.
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Int J Health Care Qual Assur · Jan 2013
Simulation team training for improved teamwork in an intensive care unit.
This study aims to describe implementation of simulator-based medical team training and the effect of this programme on inter-professional working in an intensive care unit (ICU). ⋯ The present results broaden our understanding of how to create and sustain an organizational system that supports medical team training.
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The paper aims to provide a simulation optimization solution to improve patient scheduling that accounts for varying ancillary service time such as x-ray to minimize patient wait time. ⋯ This article presents a unique approach to considering the required ancillary services in outpatient scheduling system that minimizes patient wait times. The approach will strengthen the existing scheduling methods to allow the time for ancillary services.
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The Uganda Makerere University provides clinical laboratory support to over 70 clients in Uganda. With increased volume, manual data entry errors have steadily increased, prompting laboratory managers to employ the Six Sigma method to evaluate and reduce their problems. The purpose of this paper is to describe how laboratory data entry quality was improved by using Six Sigma. ⋯ This innovative QI method of reducing data entry errors in medical laboratories may improve the clinical workflow processes and make cost savings across the health care continuum.
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Int J Health Care Qual Assur · Jan 2013
Randomized Controlled TrialWhat constitutes a good hand offs in the emergency department: a patient's perspective.
The aim is to determine, from the patient's perspective, what constitutes a good hand-off procedure in the emergency department (ED). The secondary purpose is to evaluate what impact a formalized hand-off had on patient knowledge, throughput and customer service ⋯ The researchers evaluated an ED physician specific hand-off process and illustrate the value and impact of involving patients in the hand-off process.