Data in Healthcare
Data in healthcare organizations is crucial in maintaining quality care and patient satisfaction (Shah, 2019). Health organizations need to evaluate their health outcomes. The main aim is to ensure patient safety and quality management of the facilities in reducing disease, mortality, and morbidity rates among patients. The data recorded at the patient level, organization, and departmental levels are essential in making decisions for future references. This study discusses how data is used to evaluate health outcomes at the emergency room and national level.
Data Used at the Emergency Room
The emergency room is mainly affected by the issue of overcrowding that slows the patients’ treatments. Most emergency rooms are faced with a shortage of staff and emergency beds. Therefore, the health organization needs to evaluate health outcomes in this department. Data is retrieved from patients, their medication, number of admission days, and the beds. For example, information collected at the emergency room is used to make decisions that can help the hospital manage the number of patients and reduce unnecessary readmissions to get space to admit the most critical patients.
Data used at the National Level
Data is used at the national level to assess health outcomes to manage ultimate quality care nationally (Tinker, 2018). Data is retrieved from various hospitals that focus on similar departments. Information is collected from patients, processes, techniques the hospitals are using, the tools, and the duration most admitted patients take regularly. The data is then compared, analyzed and the results are used to make appropriate decisions that can help the nation improve healthcare. For example, data is collected on five psychiatric hospitals. Their information will be compared against each other based on the factors that will be identified. Once the final data is analyzed, the nation will make decisions that can help solve the problems raised by the hospitals to manage quality services. Health outcomes also help patients make decisions regarding their wellbeing. They decide if the healthcare services benefit them; if not, they divert to those facilities that provide quality care and improve their wellbeing.
References
Shah, A. (2019). Using data for improvement. Bmj, 364. https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l189.full
Tinker, A. (2018). The Top Seven Healthcare Outcome Measures and Three Measurement Essentials. https://www.healthcatalyst.com/insights/top-7-healthcare-outcome-measures/
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