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Quality Improvement Proposal

Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) acquire this status when they meet the criteria of delivering coordinated care and improved quality of care that enhances patient experience and safety. Healthcare organizations must integrate strategies and processes that promote quality improvement in healthcare services. This assessment entails a quality improvement proposal for Sacred Heart Hospital of Vila Health to acquire accreditation of ACO by improving its technological infrastructure and expanding the hospital’s health information technologies. This will be needed to include quality metrics that organizations can evaluate and assess to comprehend the quality of care delivered to patients. 

Health information technologies (HIT) can improve the quality of care within SHH by enhancing care coordination and facilitating communication among interprofessional team members. When adequate communication technologies are integrated within healthcare organizations, healthcare providers can efficiently and timely share patient health data, preventing treatment delays and medical or treatment errors (Qadri et al., 2020). ACOs also leverage technology within their healthcare systems to enhance care coordination in delivering high-quality care treatments to patients and meet quality metrics to maintain their accreditation.

Ways to Expand SHH’s HIT to Include Quality Metrics

Integrating HIT within SHH and improving currently outdated Electronic Health Records (EHRs) can improve quality. This can be done by integrating specific features within the EHR system to capture and track the quality metrics, such as medication errors, patient falls, patient satisfaction scores, and mortality rates. Enhancing EHR systems will help monitor these quality metrics efficiently and ensure the quality of care delivered (Maziarz et al., 2022).

Automated reporting processes can also be developed to extract relevant data for quality metrics. This will allow IT health professionals who can develop the software to automate the data extraction process to draw patient health data for regularly evaluating quality metrics (Hadasik & Kubiczek, 2021). Ultimately, SHH’s quality control department can monitor performance trends and lessen the quality of care. 

The HIT can be further expanded to integrate computerized Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) to prompt medical personnel about recommended diagnostic tests and preventive screenings to promote preventive care at SHH and improve the standard of care. This will result in efficient and coordinated care for patients unable to undergo diagnostic tests, including mammograms or colonoscopies when CDSS