Introduction
This topic covers the characteristics of hospitalised patients, how the quality of hospital care and the patient and family experience are measured, support groups for patients and families, and discharge planning.
Hospitalised patient characteristics
- Adaptation problems of new and existing patients.
- The group of hospitalised patients is heterogeneous in terms of needs, material and spiritual.
- Patients do not come from the same social group. The group is homogeneous in the state of illness but differs in a number of ways: age, education, occupation, marital status.
- Patients maintain their involvement with their own fate. They tend to influence each other and to succumb to the collective mood (egrotogeny).
- Patients are in constant interaction with members of the health team.
- Patients are distributed in the inpatient unit by condition (intensive, general, infectious), gender (male and female), age and social status.
Quality of hospital health care
- “Measuring the quality of health care is important because it tells us how the health system is performing and leads to improved care.”
- Quality measurement in health care facilities is the process of using data to evaluate the performance of health care providers against recognised quality standards. It is a necessary step in improving health care quality.
- Too often the quality of care received in developing economies is substandard. Issues that persist today include medication errors, non-regulated service provision, and problems of access and outcomes.
- Research consistently shows chronic underuse, overuse and misuse of services.
Quality measurement can improve health care by
- preventing the overuse, underuse and misuse of health care services and ensuring patient safety
- identifying what works in health care, and what doesn't, to drive improvement
- holding health care providers accountable for providing high-quality care
- measuring and addressing disparities in how care is delivered and in health outcomes
- helping consumers make informed choices about their care.
Quality measures: four broad categories
- Structure: assesses the characteristics of a care setting, including facilities, personnel and policies related to care.
- Process: determines whether the services provided to patients are consistent with routine clinical care.
- Outcome: evaluates patient health as a result of the care received.
- Patient experience: provides feedback on patients' experiences of care.