Introduction to health care
Healthcare is a fundamental aspect in the life of every citizen of a given country. To protect this and ensure that every citizen enjoys this vital service, the government usually stipulates certain legal issues that are meant to protect it and ensure that its implementers do it accordingly. The importance of law in health services has grown radically in the recent years; as a result there has been an increased attention to the healthcare sector because of the increased human services, number of problems addressed and the funds allocated to the health sector.
Legal issues governing healthcare
Providers of healthcare services must take the following measures into consideration: obtaining data on performance, performing pattern analysis (which involves identifying time, place, person and function), providing interpretation by advancing hypothesis that might explain the patterns observed, taking preventive, corrective or promotive actions based on casual hypothesis that have been advanced, and lastly obtaining data on subsequent performance to determine the consequences of the actions taken. Another important role to be considered is that of formulation of criteria and standards. These actions as the measuring levels of the quality of services provided by any given health institution (Donabedian & Bashshur, 2003). In reference to quality services, we will discuss the Hoboken University Medical Center and the Memorial Hospital.
Meaning of quality assurance in relation to healthcare
Hoboken University Medical Center in New York is a general hospital, which deals in a wide range of illnesses hence it is not specialized. It has been commented for its high quality and standards healthcare services. It has research facilities which enable it to prepare and handle sudden outbreaks. This can be depicted in the way the hospital handled the swine flu virus (H1N1) adversity, it stipulated its dire efforts to eradicate the virus or to find an enduring solution to its spread among people. This has led to more of laboratories test which have led to the discovery of yet other similar viruses the H3N2 and H1N2. With this knowledge, the hospital is able to device a better vaccine to use against the virus.
Role of providers in quality assurance
This shows clearly how the hospital is committed to ensure its role as a medical center is to provide better and quality services to the people. Furthermore, the hospital is equipped with the necessary machinery to ensure it is always alert and ready to provide the required services for its casualties. To improve on its operations, the hospital can come up with a structured system of analysis where they are able to define a problem, its causes and its preventive mechanisms limited on the legal structure or framework spelt out to them by the US Government. This is a high level of quality assurance services offered by the hospital which ought to be emulated by other health institutions in other places.
On the other hand, there is Memorial Hospital also located New York. Memorial Hospital deals with acute terminal illness, for instance cancer and allied diseases unlike Hoboken University Medical Center, which is a more general research hospital specializing in sudden outbreaks and has a modified system to deal with the inpatient causalities. Memorial Hospital has a highly-improved survival and chemotherapy response system for patients with AIDS related non_Hogkins lymphoma, who are receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy. This is meant to reduce mortality rates and enable patients to regain their health and be able to live at least longer with the virus. However, the hospital has faced accusations on its laxed way of handling emergency cases.
Comparison between North Bay medical center and North BayVaca valley Hospital
Notably, these two hospitals share some similarities. Both Memorial Hospital and Hoboken University Medical Center has been faced with series of scandals due to inefficiency and corruption. Doctors and nurses in both institutions have been accused of cunningly holding on the patients so they stay in the hospital for a longer time and pay more. These laxities, not only seen in these two institutions but also in other health institutions, should be condemned and a call made for more commitment and diligence by the hospital staff (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2010). In addition, the two hospitals store their patients’ records in the same manner, whereby they have a hard and soft copy of their patients’ records. Also, there are central hospital administrations that comprises of medical practitioners, who are involved in the day-to-day running of the hospital.
Although, both hospitals are situated in the same state and city, there services and mode of operation are quite different. Whereas Hoboken Center is a general hospital concentrating more on medical research, Memorial Hospital is a specialized hospital handling terminal illness and relevant diseases (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2010).
Conclusion
In conclusion, to maintain a high level of quality assurance in the health sector, we must ensure competency and integrity are upheld. A defined system of regulations and laws should be set out to ensure that the hospital staff is performing their mandated duties diligently. A system of measure (mode of standards) should be put in place in every hospital, which will act as a yard stick on measuring how services are delivered and to what quality. This will see our health sector expand greatly due to good service delivery. Another vital thing is to have staff that is committed and friendly to the patients as the non committed staff is incompetent. Also worth noting is the supervision of the health facilities by the health officers so as to ensure operations run effectively to the expectations of the patients (Shi & Singh, 2008).
Reference list
Donabedian, A. & Bashshur, R. (2003). An introduction to assurance in health care. New York, NY: Oxford University Press US.
Shi, L. & Singh, D. (2008). Delivering health care in America: A systems approach. New Jersey, NJ: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. (2010). Medicare.gov. Hospital Compare. Web.