Asthma Quality of Care Essay Sample

Asthma is one of the most prevalent yet manageable diseases in the US. Asthma is also a common chronic childhood illness and, among others, one of the top reasons why children get hospitalized in the first place. In the United States, over six million children are living with asthma. Among these, over seven hundred thousand cases end with an emergency department visits over an asthma attack and a consequent two hundred thousand hospital visits that end up hospitalized (Weaver et al., 2016). Although Asthma has no cure, it can be treated on the occurrence and controlled through access to quality asthma care. There is an inherent need for quality care for asthma patients since its prevalence has been increasing. Also, uncontrolled asthma is more costly after an attack that properly managed asthma.

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Legal Considerations

Confidentiality refers to the obligation of professionals who have access to patient records or communication to hold that information in confidence. Some states offer detailed requirements for access. Use and disclosure of confidential patient information including for legal proceedings. Privacy, on the other hand, refers to the right of an individual patient to be let alone t make decisions about how their personal information is shared. There is no explicit statement in the constitution. However, privacy rights in this sector have been outlined in a court decision, in federal and state statutes and also accrediting organization guidelines and professional code of ethics. Security in healthcare information refers to the protection and means used to protect the privacy of health information and support professionals in holding that information in confidence. It is important to note that patient information referred to does not include that which cannot be used to single out and identify one patient.

Yes, the patient information needed for the development of this proposal requires the use of personal health information. This data will be used to ascertain the demographics which are getting access to specific medical treatments which could include their financial or insurance situation. For instance, the economics information could be used to determine the reception such patients get at the emergency department, how often they come in with an asthma attack, the treatment, and management plan they have access to at their level of insurance and also how this affects their home management plan. HIPPA will, therefore, impact health care personnel, the policies, and procedures in the proposal. For the proposal to collect sufficient information on the quality of care for patients with asthma, there is a need to access some bits of personal information. Therefore courts must grant the personnel access for the study.

Information Collection

The patient population will be restricted to children only since their cases are more diverse and frequent. Information on the patients will be derived from the Enterprise Data Warehouse. This is the best course of retrieval action since the central database links administrative data with clinical, laboratory and also pharmacy data. The documentation to assist in the information review included any documentation with the following information; death during an inpatient stay, transfer to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit after floor admission, hospital LOS, variable hospitalization costs which include all direct cost related to patient care, hospital RRUs and asthma hospital or ED readmissions (Wager et al., 2017). The information most pertinent to the review consists of those of patients who have been treated for asthma-related complications over the last three years. Patient information which should be accessed includes the history and physical to ascertain the frequency of visits, discharge summary to determine how treatment was handled, progress notes for hospital visits after the attack and any procedure conducted during the clinic including labs.

Information Life Cycle

The information systems can be managed by the personnel in the team based on their knowledge in successful retrieval of data from the systems. Studies show that sharing clinical data can improve patient safety, care coordination, quality of care and efficiency, facilitate public health efforts and reduce mortality and healthcare costs. The information should be collected using the most secure methods and also ensuring that it remains secure. No other copies of the data should be produced and distributed without the necessary authority and court mandate. Information will be stored in a secure server with a secure network. About security, access to the information must be limited to several people or even one administrator depending on the dissemination of information. One can ensure the documentation meets the standards for interoperability by ensuring that is converted correctly during transfer. The challenges facing the standardization of health information include developing a standardized way of identifying patients.

Conclusion

The quality of care for patients who have asthma will help determine whether there is a method which can make the primary standard of care better. A better system will reduce the number of asthma patient readmission. The study must also identify areas where the hospital is losing money in patient care by either preceding treatment options or denying care to some demographics. It should also reveal whether the treatment plans for patients with asthma coming into the hospital are working by reviewing the outcomes of patients with somewhat similar histories.

References

Wager, K. A., Lee, F. W., & Glaser, J. P. (2017). Health care information systems: a practical approach for health care management. John Wiley & Sons.

Weaver, C. A., Ball, M. J., Kim, G. R., & Kiel, J. M. (2016). Healthcare information management systems. Cham: Springer International Publishing.