Week 2 Continuous Quality

When I first started this section I felt I understood what quality was. I still feel that I understand quality but it is much more faceted than I had expected it to be. I expected to learn that quality means the standard or what is expected. I learned that it means much more. I like the concept of continuous quality improvement. It should be that way. Quality should be constantly evolving and keeping up the current standards and procedures. It evolves under the perspective of all who are involved with the resulting quality. In healthcare, this includes the facility, the healthcare staff, and most importantly, the patient.

I really like the m&m activity, who wouldn’t, right? Sometimes something as simple as reviewing the quality of m&m’s can put in perspective something as complex as quality healthcare. The activity broke down the process of reviewing quality with something as simple as candy, yet the company who makes it is huge and has quality control in effect. I noticed that one of the bags of candy I had was literally full of problems, yet another one was perfect. How did that one bag have not just one error but so many. It it like that one patient who has all the wrong things happen and makes their hospital stay miserable, or worse yet, ends in disaster. It is never just one thing that goes wrong but several aspects of care are usually mishandled.

My personal feelings about the material covered include how I will use this experience in my nursing career by taking the time to follow procedures and do the checks and balances that need to be done. I have seen the information on procedures that we learn in nursing school not congruent with the practices in the field. They may be small things like not cleaning the top of a vial off with alcohol for a full thirty seconds, yet the consequence can be huge. I really want to provide quality care. I didn’t go to nursing school to not take what I have learned and apply it. At the same time, I want to continually improve. I know that the facility I work at has constantly updating procedures based on evidenced based care and research. It is my job to make sure I take the time to continually learn, take effort to follow procedures and provide my patients with the individual care their need and deserve.