Lesson 11: The Nurse Manager's Role in Quality Control

What do you consider elements of quality care when receiving health care services? What do you consider elements of quality care as a professional nurse? Are the two similar or different?

Elements of quality care when receiving health care services include receiving caring, compassionate treatment utilizing the most current proven knowledge while taking in to account the cost of those services. A practitioner providing quality care would provide me with the knowledge to let me make my own decision while helping me to weigh the pros and cons of the decision to be made. A practitioner providing quality care would take financial cost into consideration because offering certain treatments that I can not afford to pay for and can not get someone else to pay for would be out of my reach and, therefore, useless. I would still want to know about them regardless.

Elements of quality care as a professional nurse include providing caring and compassionate service utilizing the most current proven knowledge. As nurses, many of us try to take some financial concerns into account, but we could do better when it comes to trying to save the patient money and still provide quality care. Educating the patient so that the patient can make their own decision is also important in quality care.

There are differences and similarities with my own perception regarding receiving and providing health care services. Differences include the emphasis on financial cost. I want the best services offered to me at the lowest prices possible that do not compromise quality. As a nurse, I want to offer the highest quality services at a reasonably low cost, but I know that there are times in the past when I could have improved upon that. For example, my choice in some dressing change supplies may have been altered somewhat if I had known the cost of some of those supplies. There are basic supplies that are not terribly expensive, such as a standard 4X4 gauze, and there are other supplies that were fancier but not necessary. The end result of wound healing would have been the same had I used the more expensive dressing or the 4X4. The physician could have been contacted to change the dressing order to save the patient some money. Also, when I worked on a Med-Surg unit, I would often send patients home with a weeks worth or more of dressing change supplies. This costs the hospital money, which over time raises the price of services for everyone. Similarities include the intent behind the attempt at quality, caring and compassionate treatment, utilization of the most current knowledge, and trying to save money.