The healthcare quality issue I have found in my clinical setting is the shortage of nursing staff. It decreases the quality of patient care. The total number of nursing staff in the hospital does not meet healthcare quality requirements (Davies et al., 2019). The shortage of medical staff is noticeable in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since patient care is the responsibility of the nurses, the role of a nurse in organizing the treatment process and patient care cannot be exaggerated. It includes a wide range of issues, without which implementing a therapeutic approach to patients and the appropriate level of healthcare quality would be impossible.
The selected quality improvement methods are Six Sigma and Total Quality Management (TQM). The first enables the hospital to redirect resources to efficient and improved quality of care (Davies et al., 2019). Such a method is applicable in an environment characterized by inconsistent quality of care (Davies et al., 2019). As patients suffer from a shortage of nursing care, Six Sigma helps to determine inefficiency with resources within the day unit (Davies et al., 2019). Concerning another method, the main idea of TQM is that the hospital should work on the quality of services, organization of work, including the work of personnel. This method may help overcome nursing staff shortage as it aims at improving service quality, process organization quality and staff qualification level. The hospital currently utilizes the TQM method, focusing on enhancing the knowledge of personnel. In addition to assessing key improvement indicators, the hospital practices collecting and disseminating information on experiences in quality assurance within units. It is achieved through using information systems that provide ongoing monitoring and training to improve health care.
Reference
Davies, C., Lyons, C., & Whyte, R. (2019). Optimizing nursing time in a day care unit: Quality improvement using Lean Six Sigma methodology. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 31, 22-28.