Healthcare quality improvement plans are instilled in an effort to improve the safety of patients within a healthcare system. From a business standpoint, efforts to improve the quality of the customers experience are always beneficial. In healthcare, the customers are patients whose time in the healthcare system can affect the rest of their lives.

From a human standpoint, the quality of the healthcare business is significant. Having to partake in the healthcare system is rarely a walk in the park, but efforts can certainly be made to make it a better experience. The main motivation for improving healthcare quality is to prevent serious adverse events.

Caring for Patients
When it comes to patient care, strategies can be utilized that take lessons from past experiences so that an organization will not face similar critical mishaps. Patient safety is a priority and steps must be taken to prevent future mistakes. Taking the past as an example is a great way to do so.

Many healthcare quality improvement policies encourage the reporting of medical mistakes so that the incidence of the errors can be noted. These reports can point to the frequency of certain problems and eventually can reveal the primary causes of such events. When the causes are understood, lessons can be learned. Healthcare organizations can share information and educate staff to prevent further mistakes.

Sentinel events are serious errors that can occur in the a healthcare system, whether they are caused by technical or human functions. These events are unexpected mistakes and there are many preventative tactics that can be instilled in healthcare organizations to help avoid future sentinel events. Lessons will be learned from past mistakes.

In technical terms, a sentinel event is an unforeseen incident in a healthcare system that leads to death, serious physical injury, major psychological injury, or the risk thereof. Serious physical injury is defined to include loss of limbs or functions. The expression the risk thereof refers to a change in the process that could potentially endanger the welfare of the patient.

Preventing Future Sentinel Events
In order to prevent a recurrence of a past error, a thorough root cause analysis is expected of the organization in which the sentinel event occurred. This root cause analysis is often seen through by an accredited agency so as to be certain that a proper investigation is done. This root cause analysis often finds that, although the immediate fault might appear to lie in the hands of human error, the real cause lies somewhere else.

Finding the true root cause is extremely important if prevention of future sentinel events is expected. By digging for the underlying system or process that caused the incident, a solution can be made. Simply by altering the errors in these systems, the likelihood of human error will be reduced and patients will be protected.

Transportation problems can plague a businesss profitability. Getting a product from production to market is part of the business process itself, as much as any production step. It should therefore be subject to the same scrutiny and constant revision that production does.

Oftentimes, the transportation part of product delivery is outsourced to another company, and because of this, the original producer has little influence on when the product actually arrives. If delivery is done internally, there can be other problems as well because there are usually negotiations with third party representatives of shipping companies or customs officials.

How to Overcome Transportation Problems
The more internal product delivery, the fewer transportation problems will occur. This route, however, is more difficult to take because of increased costs. Ultimately, if a tight leash is held in shipping budgets and expenditures, a long-term profit is realized through frugal and efficient operation. How can the COO help it if he subcontracts shipping services?

Remember that, as the client, shipping services fight for your business. If youre not happy, switch companies. Regardless of business rapport, inefficient shipping hurts profitability and works against gains that are made in the business production process. By constantly looking for other potential shipping clients, you will continually find the best deals and this will work to your financial advantage

If the number of near-miss reports is increasing in your company, you should implement changes in the business process or policies related to production. A near-miss report is a summation of a problem that was resolved without major disruption or plant shutdown. Such reports are usually the result of human error, and are therefore tied to steps that try to reduce this error.

It is natural for humans to make mistakes. In the manufacturing industries, however, these mistakes can spell disaster for production and can set a company back weeks. It is the job of the Chief Operational Officer to make sure these events rarely, if ever, happen. Such errors not only can stop production, but they can also pose a significant threat to the health, safety, and well-being of production employees.

Near-Miss Reports Are Valuable
Although they might like never to see one, COOs value a near-miss report because it is extremely useful. It details weak points in the manufacturing process, and helps prioritize the COOs list of improvement areas. In troubleshooting potential safety hazards, he or she can then take proactive steps to make sure the near-miss never actually misses.

Near-miss reports specify problems, but ultimately they result in positive steps that make businesses more efficient and safer. A safe and well-running plant is a joy to work in, and employee morale improves as well. Such reports provide insight into the level of human reliability as to equipment reliability, and therefore empower management to better assess their business.

No business should be without thorough and exhaustive corrective action processes. Such a process is essential to understanding what went wrong in business manufacturing processes (or could go wrong). Lets take a look at just why a corrective action process is necessary to any efficient business.

Heres an example: A plant manager discovers that there has been a recurring equipment failure in the form of a faulty hydraulic assembly. He asks the purchasing manager why substandard hydraulic assemblies were being used, and she tells him that it is because that was the cheapest available. In response to his next question of why were the cheapest hydraulics used, she tells him that it was because he told her to lower costs.

Implement Corrective Action Processes
This might seem like a whimsical parable, but it happens all the time. With effective corrective action processes in place, the purchasing manager would have never ordered the cheapest hydraulics possible, because the plant manager would have instructed her to buy inexpensive, but not cheap. The corrective action process would be to pay better attention to quality, in addition to the bottom line.

Corrective action processes can greatly increase the flow of your business process. Constant revision is necessary if the operational officer is to stay on top of the changing demands of his or her business. Such steps will reduce human error and equipment failure, and increase profitability in the long run.