Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), but mostly abbreviated, as Planned Parenthood is a non-profit organization offering reproductive health, maternal, and child health services. Planned Parenthood is the biggest organization in the Unites States that offers conception health services among them conception, abortion, HIV screening and guidance, and cancer screening. This paper examines the purpose of risk and quality management within this organization and some of its long and short-term risks.
Planned Parenthood incorporates risk management and quality improvement for an efficient, effective, and safe high quality patient care. In this organization, risk management includes reduction of viable mistakes. The primary purpose of risk management is to minimize costly errors relating to damage, disability, discomfort, distress of the patient as well as reducing the financial loss of the organization (Roberts, 1986). The organization obtains risk management by detecting, reporting, and correcting potential deficiencies in the process of giving care, which however little, can result to vital and costly error.
Risk management entails all aspects of work, productions, and interactions as well as focusing beyond the medical care within the organization. This organization has well established and managed risk programs that are dedicated to offer health services, which are free from errors and makes crystal contribution to health quality (Marta & Hayes-Bight, 2005). Therefore, with risk management, the organization has managed to improve quality care and reduce the possible harm that might affect its patients.
Quality management in this organization ensures that patients receive excellent provision of care (Roberts, 1986). This function provides a platform for health care staffs to take full responsibility through their performance and portray their due diligence of taking optimal care of their patients. The organization employs quality management applications to benefit by establishing ways of advancing internal processes to generate increased quality outcome for their patients.
Quality management fulfils the purpose of guiding principles. The organization has established principles to flush out service expectations. For instance, the organization has guiding principles to meet the expectation that patients do not wait for over 24 hours for a caregiver to reply their phone call. In such a scenario, quality management has a vital purpose to play to establish the guiding principles (Roberts, 1986). Additionally, the U.S Department of Health and Human Services boosts the organization by providing them with the legal regulations for quality management department to responsibly establish the applicable statues and develop guiding principles for the organization.
Furthermore, quality management monitors conformity. Compliance is monitored as an assurance that procedures are being followed as well as providing patients with optimal care. In addition, the organization adopts quality healthcare when managing, mitigating and minimizing risks. Risk management on its own is important when ensuring that patients are safe by offering services that do not threaten their health. Since prescription medication in healthcare department has a possibility of having risk management issue, allergic patient reactions can be resulted by excessive medications (Marta & Hayes-Bight, 2005). Quality management chips in by monitoring patients’ medication to keep them safe from health threats.
Finally, the organization has embraced quality management as an effective tool to assist in technical areas. When mistakes are traced during audits or observations, the team of quality management joins forces with staffs to straighten up things for the betterment of improved health facilities.
Just like in most health care organizations, Planned Parenthood is exposed to various risks such as risk assessment, risk auditing, and risk remediation among others. However, there are several steps that the organization implements to identify and manage such risks. Three basic steps include;
First, the organization aims for quality care. This is the top priority to consider when evaluating, investigating and enforcing quality care. The organization has developed and assessed quality performance for improvement program, which identifies patient safety issues and minimize medical mistakes. The second step is to develop an Anti-kickback and Stark law. This law serves to defend patients against irresponsible caregivers (Roberts, 1986). Violation of this law results to the organization’s payment refund, expulsion from federal health care programs among other monetary policies. Lastly, this healthcare has secured impromptu therapeutic treatment as well as energetic labor. This step enables the organization to offer the best services failure to which they are subjected to severe fines for poor health services and are expelled from Medicare programs. These steps assist the organization to establish and mange internal risks, thus remaining vigilant to both the government and members of the public.
Actual risk management issues such as liability risks, data breaches, and natural risk assessment, and the greatest risk being cyber exposure affects this organization in different ways, with the greatest effect being subjected to employer’s finances. Extensive liability risks increases employers’ insurance incentives. This makes the organization to have increased types of claims, hence increasing the general premium costs (Roberts, 1986). Data breaches create great financial risk, as well as risking the organization’s reputation. Technical failures and natural disasters cause interruptions while performing operations, a situation that results in income loss.
Planned Parenthood incorporates ways to improve quality care and promote effective quality improvement (QI) strategies. Some of the internal factors influencing quality outcomes in this organization include developing the culture for quality to flourish, attracting and retaining the right individuals to preserve quality, devising and updating appropriate in-house processes for quality improvement and giving staff the right tools to perform their duties (Marta & Hayes-Bight, 2005). External factors influencing quality outcome in this organization include the organization’s standards, local market competition and the initiatives derived from private or public health. If these factors are not contemplated, specifically the internal factors, the organization stands a chance of rendering poor quality services and this might cause its closure.
Healthcare is a profession with challenging environment encompassing most critical issues and problems in the society. It is therefore a perquisite for health organizations to set appropriate short term and long-term goals.
Short-term goals adopted by Planned Parenthood include attaining a fellowship that would offer excellent comprehensive training in health care management. With this, the organization has developed and enhanced codes of ethics, philosophies and set of values to inspire dedication of excellence in health care provision; as well as enhancing refining management leadership skills. Another short-term goal implemented by this organization is that they have acquired marketable managerial as well as technical skills, which are a perquisite to meet the demands and challenges within the industry (Roberts, 1986). With this, the health care givers have developed an understanding on how to apply theoretical and technical academic knowledge to practical problems.
Moreover, the organization mentors and develops less experienced colleagues as their short term goal, who will take over and deliver innovative, effective healthcare and enhance excellence in patient health care. Their long-term goal ensures that all nurses inter-connect and fully engage in digital healthcare era for an advanced innovation in nursing practices.
References
Marta, M., & Hayes-Bight, K. (2005). Assessing quality of hospital risk management in PPFA health services. Perspectives in Healthcare Risk Management, 20-26.
Roberts, G. (1986). Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian, 35-42.