Chapter 7 – Orchestrating the Clues of Quality Introduction: I would like to sha
ID: 350528 • Letter: C
Question
Chapter 7 – Orchestrating the Clues of Quality
Introduction: I would like to share with you a story about an experience my mother had, and how she reacted to the care she received. When she was 75, she fell and broke her wrist (climbing on a stool to get a candle out of a cupboard!). She had to have physical therapy on her wrist. When she came back from her appointment, she said to me, “The woman who came in to do the therapy on my arm was wearing shoes I wouldn’t wear to work in the garden!” Now, that was the highest insult my mother could give! She never said a word about whether she thought the physical therapy was performed competently – she only remembered how the woman looked and that caused her concern. Do understand that I am not “picking on” physical therapists and am only using this story as an example of how one patient viewed “quality” when being cared for by health care professionals.
Your assignment this week:
Part A: Talk to 2 people in your life and ask them about an experience they had receiving care – this can be in the hospital or a clinic. You need to address the 3 Clues discussed in the chapter on p. 161 (the section titled: Three Types of Clues) for each person – use a bold heading to clearly show which clue you are discussing when writing about each person. Talk to people from different backgrounds/age groups and provide basic demographic information (no names!).
You may find as you explain the “clues” that the people you talk to may have never thought about these issues in this way.
Format your response as follows:
Person # 1
Reason for seeking care (just a basic idea – surgery? cold/flu? injury? etc.)
Experience with functional clues
Experience with mechanic clues
Experience with humanic clues
Your opinion of their experience
Do the same format for Person # 2
Part B: Now consider if the people you talked to were actually patients that had visited your ambulatory care center (even if the people you talk to refer to hospital experiences) – what steps could you take to improve in these 3 quality areas? How would you present the issues to your staff? Write a dialogue as to how you would talk about this in a staff meeting.
Double-space assignment and use correct grammar and spelling.
Explanation / Answer
Person#1
Reason for visiting the hospital was to diagnose his father who had a mild heart attack.
This was a rather not so emergency case as it was a mild heart attack and the patient if cured immediately would have been fine. But the patient as well as their near ones were given an impression as if the patient was seriously ill and would need to be treated immediately with and admitted in the hospital for a few days. This shows how hospitals function not to give proper treatment to patients but to capitalise on their emotions and frighten them as they would be eager to keep the patient in the hospital for betterment. This is a breach of trust that the hospital had performed especially when top doctors are being involved in the same.
Coming to the mechanical issues, the process for enrolling a patient also took time as the hospital staff were more concerend if the payment was goinf to be done trough insurance or in cash. They had different strategy for payment to be made in cash and if made through insurance. Overall, the hospital authorities are more concerned in making money rather than giving the right treatement to the patients.
Person# 2
Reason for visiting the clinic for treatment of viral fever.
This is a story of one of my friend's wife suffering from Viral fever was taken to a local clinic for treatment. The place where they were staying was a village and the clinics were also maintained accordingly. In other words, the clinics were not maintained properly in terms of neatness or the equipments used for treatment was also very badly maintained. It is very important that clinics are maintained properly as the patients visiting the clinic are already being affected by viral infection and the improper maintainance of equipments and ambience of the clinic will further worsen their health. Improper maintainance of equipments was one important issue here, but the major issue that came out during this visit was that the syringes used for injecting patients was not being changed. This is a very serious issue as it has been mandated for clinics or hospitals to use unique syringes for each patient and reusable syringes are not accepted.
This would lead to high risk for patients as there would be transfer of diseases from one patient to another if the same syringes are being used for different patients. This wasa very experience for my friend and he was lucky to have identified this issue before his wife was injected with the same syringe.
Part B
If I am operating an Ambulatory care center, I would focus on serving patients with trust and ambiguity. Obviously money is important, but the money made by taking advantage of patient's emotions would not be a long run advantage for the hospitals. It is always advisable to work according to the expectations of patients and treat them with utmost care as that is the one major reason that the patient and his or her near ones would expect a hospital to do.
In the first case where hospital authorities are more concerned about making money rather than giving proper treatment to patients would be a dangerous ploy as the reputation of the hospital would go for a toss if the same is reported publically. Thus, staff members should be advised to work on treating and serving their best to the patients.
In the second case, the arrangements made at the hsopital for treatments should be kept clean and tidy and regular updation of medicines and equipments should be a mandate. A dedicated staff should be assigned to take care of updating proper equipments.