The Importance Of Quality Of Care In Healthcare

Quality of care in healthcare was not previously measured or reported due to the ultimate trust that patients had in their care providers that what was prescribe or treatment given was necessary and appropriate. As society has evolved healthcare has undergone changes that has significant impacted the way in which healthcare is practiced. A landmark in the quality movement in health care has been the publication of the Institute of Medicine 's (IOM) report “To err is human: building a safer health system” of 1993, which serve to usher in an era of care focused on improving quality, and ultimately a culture of evidence-based care (De Jonge, Nicolaas, Van Leerdam & Kuipers, 2011).

The IOM released a second report, “Crossing the quality chasm”

The problems of healthcare that impact quality such as medical errors, health insurance, shortage of healthcare personnel are issues that contribute to a lack of trust in health care systems. Rendering quality care should be appropriate to the need and specific actions taken in accordance to the individual need. Meltzer & Chung (2014), suggest that although quality improvement may sometimes reduce costs, the financial resources, time, and effort available for quality improvement are limited-whether within a single hospital, a payer network, a state, or a

Spending on quality improvements generally implies a trade-off against other activities, and focusing on specific quality indicators may divert resources away from other indicators or other components of health care. Thus, it is imperative to determine what measures will produce changes in care that result in the greatest improvements in health care quality and reductions in disparities in health between groups of people, (Meltzer & Chung,