HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT
Kaplan School of Business
Unit Code: MBA623
16/04/2024
Executive Summary
The purpose of this case study is to analyze the impact of applying National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standard 1 –clinical governance to GP healthcare setting (Ritchie et al., 2020). The data collection method was a mixed method (quantitative and qualitative analysis) to evaluate the impact of applying standard 1 to the facility. The findings showed significant improvement in patient-centred care and increased healthcare quality (Murray and Barnes, 2023). The research concluded that standard 1 helps shape GPs practices by increasing patient satisfaction, provide high-quality services, and ensure proper resource management and outcomes for employees and patients (Doherty et al., 2022). Clinical governance centers on improving the quality and safety of patient care, ensures that there is continuous monitoring and evaluation as a means of improving the safety and quality of clinical care. The recommendation of establishing clear governance structures that assign each professional to their roles while making everyone accountable for their jobs was proposed.
Australian NSQHS Standard 1 – Clinical Governance
Australia strives to achieve safe and high-quality healthcare services across its healthcare providers. The mandated body that provides the required framework for quality and safe health service organization is the Australian (NSQHS) Standards (Ritchie et al., 2020). Standard 1-clinical governance, which helps improve the quality and safety of patient care. Clinical governance ensures that there is continuous monitoring and evaluation as a means of improving the safety and quality of clinical care. Clinical governance enjoys the general purpose of standard 1, which helps provide a fully functional and practical clinical system of governance.
Standard 1 focuses on improving healthcare quality and safety through knowledge sharing, improving leadership training and commitment. Additionally, embracing cultural awareness among the leaders improves healthcare delivery and focuses on future improvements (Sweatman et al., 2022). Secondly, clinical performance and effectiveness concentrate on monitoring and evaluatingance, efficacy and outcomes. Continuous monitoring and evaluation of clinical performance is insightful as it eventually maintains the quality and safety of clinical governance. Another critical component is identifying clinical risks and managing patient safety through risk management. Another key component for standard 1 is the provision of a physically safe environment to allow health service organizations to deliver clinical services (Murray and Barnes, 2023). Training and education ensure that the staff are well-trained and equipped with the latest information relating to the delivery of clinical services. A well-trained personnel plays an essential role in delivering clinical services in a safe manner. Clinical handover is another critical aspect that allows for effective communication and coordination, resulting in improved care and patient safety. When staff change shifts, clinical handover comes into play to provide smooth and seamless continuity of patient care. Lastly is patient-centred care, which primarily puts the interests and preferences of the patients first.
Measurement
Assessment of the NSQHS Standards is two-fold: self-assessment by the healthcare organization and the accreditation process by external accreditors. Organizations measure the compliance levels of their organization regarding clinical governance systems vis-à-vis that of standard 1 (Ritchie et al., 2020). The assessment process includes reviewing policies and procedures, auditing reports and procedures, and clinical reviews.
Continuous Improvement
Standard 1 compliance involves continuous improvements in clinical governance. Based on the findings from their assessments, standard 1 mandates organizations to formulate the best alternative policies to improve health care safety and quality delivered to the Australian people.
GP Practice and St. John GP Cockburn Central Healthcare Setting
All over the world, GP (General Practice) is a fundamental aspect of healthcare that provides all-inclusive, coordinated, and continuous care to families, communities, and individuals. In an outline of St. John GP Cockburn Central, the overview of the GP Practice healthcare setting includes the following;
Primary healthcare: for patients seeking healthcare services, the GP (General Practice) are the primary contact for many. GPs offer their patients a wide range of healthcare services, including diagnosis, treatment and management. Additionally, GPs manage patients with acute and chronic diseases, making their role a central part of healthcare services.
GPs are well-trained to take care of different illnesses from different demographics. Moreover, the GPs have a special relationship with the specialist and the patients, linking the patients with the right medical specialist (Javanparast et al., 2021). GPs play a central role in the provision of safe and quality medical care through their participation in preventive medicine that includes vaccinations. Like every medical practitioner, the GPs provide continuity of services through the long-term relationships they build with their patients. Maintaining a continuity of healthcare services significantly improves the management of chronic diseases.
St. John GP Cockburn Central
St. John GP Cockburn Central is one of the best medical facilities in Western Australia, in Cockburn Central, and serves the people surrounding that area and the local community. The facility is affiliated with St. John, WA, and runs many other GP medical clinics throughout Western Australia. These GP clinics’ network aims to provide high-quality and accessible healthcare services to the surrounding community.
Services Provided
St. John GP Cockburn Central offers a variety of services that include Mental health support and consultations; Pediatric care, men’s and women’s health; Wound care and minor procedures; Management of health issues that are ongoing, such as asthma, hypertension and diabetes; Preventive healthcare services that include screenings, health checks and vaccinations and Consultations for chronic and acute health conditions.
The facility has an experienced team of clinical staff and practitioners, including nurses, general practitioners, and support staff, who are committed to providing patient-centred care. The facility is also equipped with modern medical machines to help manage various conditions and diseases for patients. The medical equipment generates data on patient treatment history, which plays a crucial role in the accuracy and efficiency of patient-centred care.
The Role Leadership Plays in Clinical Governance, Healthcare Management, and Outcomes for employees and consumers
Leadership is fundamental in all organizational levels and settings, ensuring accountability, proper resource management, and a positive working environment (Ayatollahi and Zeraatkar, 2020, P.110). Leadership ensures that there are positive outcomes for consumers and employees, efficient healthcare management, and effective clinical governance. Here is a clear discussion of each category in detail:
Leadership Development in Health Care: The Role of Clinical Leaders (Source: https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=108936)
Clinical Governance
Clinical governance is one of the fundamental departments in the general practice healthcare setting. Leadership is essential as it establishes a culture of safety and excellence within the general practice in healthcare (Malakar et al., 2023). Good leadership builds solid and effective reporting and communication strategies by ensuring current regulations, guidelines, and practices (Moldskred et al., 2021). The leadership involves developing clear clinical care protocols and standards, ensuring adherence to these protocols is in order, and promoting an environment that allows continuous improvement (Javanparast et al., 2021). Effective leadership reduces or eliminates the chances of healthcare problems such as near misses and instead promotes community trust, patient satisfaction and care and prevents future occurrences of healthcare problems by prioritizing quality of care and patient safety (Sweatman et al., 2022). However, with poor leadership, many management challenges arise such as conflict, incomplete works that might lead to death of patients, mismanagement of resources and losses incurred by the facility (Gordon et al., 2022). The clinical governance resource allocation and utilization become detrimental; thus, focusing on patient quality and safety is no longer a priority.
Healthcare Management:
Healthcare management is the center focus for many medical institutions. Hurting healthcare management means a threat to organizational operations. It is critical to understand that nearly all activities running in a healthcare organization depend on the practice of its leadership (Malakar et al., 2023). Therefore, there is growth when the organizational leadership offers good leadership skills to the facility compared to bad management practices that results in failures and loses for poor leadership management (Gordon et al., 2022). Influential leaders strategically spearhead the healthcare organizations towards their goals by solving problems, team building, collaborating with other professionals, sustainability in healthcare, proving strategic decisions and utilizing available resources accordingly (Button et al., 2023). Leaders also manage daily resource allocation, scheduling, budgeting, staffing and supervision. Healthcare management includes promoting high standards of care for the patients, which can be made possible through effective leadership that ensures smooth, cost-effective and patient-centered operations (Ghosh et al., 2021). Leadership also plays a crucial role in adapting to changes in healthcare technologies and policies, promoting innovation in service delivery, and fostering collaboration among multidisciplinary teams to meet the ever-changing health demands from the patients and the community.
Outcomes for Employees and Consumers:
Leadership has a direct impact on both the patients and the employees or the practitioners. Strong and effective leadership promotes a culture of inclusivity where all the employees feel motivated, empowered and valued to deliver their best towards achieving organizational goals (Doherty et al., 2022). Therefore, a good leader improves patient care outcomes, lowers employee turnover and boosts employee morale. GP leadership encourages team work, create a collaborative working environment for inter-professional engagement, recognize and rewards performers, provides coaching and mentorship, and promotes professional development opportunities to enhance employee retention and satisfaction (Ayatollahi and Zeraatkar, 2020). A strong leadership develops the best working conditions for their workers to improve on their performances and thus achieving organizational goals.
Patient safety and quality systems ensure that the patient is the center focus of the setting by reporting, monitoring and identifying quality and safety measures in the outcomes and the performances (Button et al., 2023). Through good governance and environmental leadership, GPs are able to identify the risks, provide reports to the governing bodies, employees and consumers to promote health equity (Gordon et al., 2022). Hence, such leadership creates an environment where patient’s health is the priority by considering patients with high-risks, reports on incident management, diversity, complaints and feedback (Malakar et al., 2023). All these actions makes the patients feel cared for, respected and heard because leaders practice compassion, empathy and patient-centred care. Leadership builds long-term relationships with the surrounding community, increases patient satisfaction, and enhances healthcare outcomes by involving the patients in decision-making and fostering a culture of patient engagement (Javanparast et al., 2021). For the organization to function properly, the two crucial parties should feel comfortable being a part of the organizational culture (Ghosh et al., 2021). Otherwise, it will bring instability and imbalance which is risky for the sustainability of the organization now and in future.
Clinical Governance Recommendation
The best recommendation for clinical governance would be establishing clear governance structures that assign each professional to their roles while making everyone accountable for their jobs. Specifically develop a clear structure in clinical audits for all services across departments (Ghosh et al., 2021). The GP healthcare setting needs to draw lines for accountability and responsibility that then leads to continuous improvements in clinical practices. The current situation that GP practices lack a clear governance structures might result to confusion, division of worker (Resistacne) and
Clinical governance promotes trust among the stakeholders, the staff, and the patients as they demonstrate the organisation’s commitment to accountability and transparency in providing high-quality healthcare services (Ayatollahi and Zeraatkar, 2020). Fostering regular audits showcases a positive method for the management of quality healthcare provision. Clinical governance provided continuous learning and create professional chances for various departments, which contributes to career advancements (Button et al., 2023). With evidence-based practice, workers participate in developing a quality improvement culture, build a positive working environment and reduce employee turnover.
According to many accreditation agencies’ and regulatory bodies’ quality assurance regulations, organizations must have clear duties and responsibilities of the workers to avoid confusion and lack of accountability (Javanparast et al., 2021). Therefore, utilizing the recommended strategy on standardized audit protocol will enhance the organisation’s reputation and ensure that the facility complies with the requirements of the regulatory bodies. Quality assurance allows the organization to monitor and improve its processes and outcomes of services offered by regularly reviewing clinical governance (Moldskred et al., 2021). The reviews might lead to identifying problem(s) within the clinical processes or outcomes and thus provide for implementing corrective actions for improvement (Gordon et al., 2022). Problems and potential risks to the patient’s safety, such as procedural lapses, misdiagnoses, and medication errors, should be addressed proactively, thus enhancing patient safety.
Conclusion
In summary, clinical governance is a fundamental part of organizational leadership that focus on patient care and quality of healthcare provided. Service delivery and patient care improvement are significant through the leadership of any organization when using the guidelines of the NSQHS Standard 1 Clinical Governance. Clinical governance ensures that there is continuous monitoring and evaluation as a means of improving the safety and quality of clinical care, reduced conflicts within the working space and foster for collaboration and teamwork in implementing NSQHS measures within the healthcare setting. The case of applying NSQHS standard 1 to GP practice clearly shows how organizations can improve their service provision by strictly adhering to the standards and regulations in place. The recommendation to establishing clear governance structures by implementing standardized protocols provides the organization with the basis for continuous improvements in quality of patient care. It helps organizations in delivering patient-centered, effective and safe care. However, more research still needs to be done to analyze how to understand and improve the quality of healthcare services and leadership qualities while maintaining organizational goals.
References
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Button, E., Baniahmadi, S., Chambers, S. and Yates, P., 2023. Addressing the end-of-life actions in the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards (2nd ed): a national survey. Australian Health Review, 47(5), pp.574-585.
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Gordon, J., Britt, H., Miller, G.C., Henderson, J., Scott, A. and Harrison, C., 2022. General practice statistics in Australia: pushing a round peg into a square hole. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(4), p.1912.
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Murray, M. and Barnes, A., 2023. Safety and Quality in Healthcare. Leading in Health and Social Care.
Ritchie, A., Gilbert, C., Gaca, M., Siemens, G. and Taylor, J., 2020. Hospital librarians’ contributions to health services’ accreditation: An account of the health libraries for the National Safety and Quality in Health Services Standards (HeLiNS) Research Project, 2016-18. Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association, 69(2), pp.215-245.
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https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/standards/nsqhs-standards