Lakier offered a couple pieces of advice for successful standardization efforts. First, use data on measures such as readmission rates, morbidity, mortality and costs to introduce discussions with providers on the effects of clinical variations.
Full Answer
How does standardization affect the way doctors treat patients?
Sometimes physicians may make treatment decisions based on their own unique clinical experiences. Standardization compensates for this variation in experience and reveals the outcomes specific treatments have historically delivered to patients. Standardization supplements physician experience and reduces guesswork.
What is the purpose of standardized care?
The motivation and intent for any protocol or checklist should be to ensure high quality, safe and, when possible, evidence-based practice. Although not driven by economics, standardization often will result in significant economic savings. When standardized care is used, quality increases, variation decreases, and cost decreases 8 15 16 17 18.
Does standardization of protocols and checklists reduce the risk of harm?
Similarly, standardization of any process of care through the use of protocols and checklists can be expected to achieve a similar reduction in harmful events. Protocols and checklists should be recognized as a guide to the management of a clinical situation or process of care that will apply to most patients.
What is standardization and why does it matter?
Standardization compensates for this variation in experience and reveals the outcomes specific treatments have historically delivered to patients. Standardization supplements physician experience and reduces guesswork. In fact, building off standardization enables care teams to create personalized patient care plans. Backing up with data
What is an example of standardization in healthcare?
For example, we have standard practices and protocols we follow for hand hygiene, infection control, blood transfusions, and surgical sterilization. We have standardized tools to assess patients for falls or pressure ulcers. We would consider deviation from these standards unacceptable.
How does universal healthcare standardize service?
Standardization in healthcare is often defined as the process by which healthcare products and services are chosen by a committee of key stakeholders, considering evidence-based results, to ensure quality patient care while adhering to fiscal responsibility.
Why is standardization becoming increasingly important in healthcare?
Standardized clinical pathways are increasingly influencing the debate about sustainable, affordable, and efficient healthcare. Proven, standardized procedures can make the quality of care more measurable and reproducible for providers, patients, and payers.
How does standardization improve quality?
Standardization promotes productivity by eliminating inefficiency. This is the result of eliminating ambiguity and providing quality control: tasks are completed in a more efficient manner, and there are fewer quality control issues from tasks that were not completed correctly the first time around.
What is the importance of standardization?
Standardization brings innovation and spreads knowledge Standardization also brings innovation, first because it provides structured methods and reliable data that save time in the innovation process and, second, because it makes it easier to disseminate groundbreaking ideas and knowledge about leading edge techniques.
What is a standardized care plan?
A standardized care plan (SCP) is defined as a pre-determined menu of interventions for a particular patient situation. Translation is defined as depicting intervention evidence accurately and with sufficient granularity to ensure that an intervention can be delivered with fidelity.
How does standardization help the problems facing the healthcare system of high cost and poor quality?
Working together to improve quality In fact, standardization can enhance personalization by eliminating unnecessary work for health care providers and giving them more time to spend with patients. It can also eliminate unnecessary expenses and complications resulting from not adhering to best practices.
What is the purpose and value of standardized data sets in healthcare?
Data standards are created to ensure that all parties use the same language and the same approach to sharing, storing, and interpreting information. In healthcare, standards make up the backbone of interoperability — or the ability of health systems to exchange medical data regardless of domain or software provider.
Why is it important that health professionals share a common understanding of patient safety standards and practices?
Abstract. Patient safety is an essential and vital component of quality nursing care. However, the nation's health care system is prone to errors, and can be detrimental to safe patient care, as a result of basic systems flaws.
What is an example of standardization?
The goal of standardization is to enforce a level of consistency or uniformity to certain practices or operations within the selected environment. An example of standardization would be the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) to which all companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges must adhere.
What is the process of standardization?
Process standardization can be defined as the improvement of operational performance, cost reduction through decreased process errors, facilitation of communication, profiting from expert knowledge (Wüllenweber, Beimborn, Weitzel, & König, 2008, p.
To the Editor
Standardizing evidence-based best practices is a key to delivering high-value, efficient care that promotes patient satisfaction. However, that standardization should not be a one-size-fits-all approach, which can have negative implications for outcomes and safety.
Preadmission Testing (PAT)
Traditionally, preadmission testing had tremendous variability. Surgical teams often would “test everyone for everything” to help prevent cancellations. Even today, overuse remains a patient safety issue. Providers often perform tests that have a low positive predictive value and, in many cases, may result in little clinical value.
Scheduling
A thorough and streamlined process for scheduling cases appropriately to make sure all the necessary equipment and personnel are available is needed. Double-checking the availability of both equipment and personnel at least one day prior to surgery can mitigate case delays and cancellations that can affect timely patient care.
Multimodal Pain Management
Creating standardized, evidence-based processes for multimodal pain management is becoming an increasingly important way to promote patient satisfaction, throughput, and safety.
Structured Handoffs
Handoffs are often incomplete and/or inconsistent because of production pressure and a lack of standardization.
Protecting Patients While Increasing Efficiency
Health care providers are being pushed to do everything faster, better, and less expensively. But we still need to protect our patients and make sure we’ve performed effective time-outs.
Why is standardization bad?
Adverse outcomes often occur because of system deficiencies or inadequate safety measures that fail to prevent error from causing harm. Standardization is a process to be used to overcome system deficiencies, which with data analysis will decrease or prevent errors or reduce the likelihood of their recurrence.
Why is it important to standardize obstetrics practice?
Standardization of practice is an important goal because of the wide variation that exists in many areas of practice within obstetrics and gynecology.
Why are protocols and checklists important?
ABSTRACT: Protocols and checklists have been shown to reduce patient harm through improved standardization and communication. Implementation of protocols and guidelines often is delayed because of lack of health care provider awareness or difficult clinical algorithms in medical institutions. However, the use of checklists ...
What are the guidelines for gynecology?
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (the College) makes the following recommendations regarding clinical guidelines and standardization of practice to improve outcomes: 1 Protocols and checklists should be recognized as guides to the management of a clinical situation or process of care that will apply to most patients. For any patient whose care cannot be managed by standardized protocols because of clinically valid reasons, the physician should document in the medical record why the protocol or checklist is not being followed. 2 Obstetrician–gynecologists should be engaged in the process of developing guidelines and presenting data to help foster stakeholder buy-in and create consensus, thus improving adherence to guidelines and protocols.
Why is it important to have physicians informed of protocols?
It is important that physicians are informed whenever checklists or protocols are to be initiated. Encouraging input from physicians in the review and distribution of checklists and protocols will help foster buy-in from physicians for their use.
Why should obstetricians be engaged in the process of developing guidelines and presenting data?
Obstetrician–gynecologists should be engaged in the process of developing guidelines and presenting data to help foster stakeholder buy-in and create consensus, thus improving adherence to guidelines and protocols.
What is the motivation and intent of a protocol or checklist?
The motivation and intent for any protocol or checklist should be to ensure high quality, safe and, when possible, evidence-based practice. Although not driven by economics, standardization often will result in significant economic savings. When standardized care is used, quality increases, variation decreases, and cost decreases 8 15 16 17 18.
How does standardization improve quality?
Working together to improve quality. Standardized care and personalization don't have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, standardization can enhance personalization by eliminating unnecessary work for health care providers and giving them more time to spend with patients .
Why is standardization important?
Sometimes physicians may make treatment decisions based on their own unique clinical experiences. Standardization compensates for this variation in experience and reveals the outcomes specific treatments have historically delivered to patients. Standardization supplements physician experience and reduces guesswork.
Why is personalization important in family medicine?
Personalization improves patient satisfaction and increases patient engagement.
What is the perception of standardization in healthcare?
Healthcare’s perception of standardization varies by industry role. While administrators see standardized care as a way to achieve efficiency and quality, caregivers have historically viewed standardization as an administrative mandate that can sometimes go against their patients’ best interests. Administrators, physicians, ...
Why is it important for physicians to personalize care?
In today’s healthcare environment, in which patients’ ownership of their health and outcomes is growing and becoming essential, physicians are right to personalize care and motivate patients to become active participants in their health journeys.
Why is standardization important in healthcare?
Standardization helps decrease variation, which increases quality and safety while reducing costs. From a healthcare manager’s perspective, standardization helps foster an environment of quality patient care. Standardization, especially in healthcare, minimizes the risk of errors, increases patient safety, and can actually improve ...
What is personalization in medicine?
Many assume personalization to be genetics and personalized medicine with customized drugs and medical devices. However, personalization can simply mean making each patient feel like an individual, rather than “one of the masses”. As the value-based care movement makes its transition, these varying perceptions of standardization ...
Is standardization necessary for evidence based practice?
While standardization of protocols, surgical checklists, clinical pathways, and treatment regimens are necessary for evidence-based practices, it is also important not to over-standardize the patient experience.
How to start a treatment plan?
Every good treatment plan starts with a clear goal (or set of goals). Identify what your client would like to work on and write it down. Don't be scared of limiting your work, you can always adjust these as time goes on. However, it's helpful to write down and discuss what your client's purpose is for starting therapy.
Why is it important to have a clear goal?
Having a clear goal makes sure everyone is on the same page and keeps you both accountable to focusing on what is necessary. It also helps your client to feel like therapy is something that is more than esoteric, something they could describe to a spouse or family member, if desired. 2. Active participation.
Is treatment plan more meaningful than term paper?
Without their feedback, your treatment plan is no more meaningful than a term paper with a bunch of words on it. Remember, your documentation serves you and the client, not the other way around! This is an ongoing conversation to have throughout treatment.
Is therapy hard work?
Therapy is often hard work but can have amazing results. However, success is 100% dependent on the client's motivation and willingness to engage in the process. 3. Support. Another aspect of treatment planning that is so often forgotten in private practice settings is the client's support system.
