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Access to quality healthcare services is a fundamental human right. Quality healthcare enhances wellbeing by promoting healthy lifestyles, disease prevention, and treatment.
However, quality healthcare services are only sometimes achieved. Many factors influence quality, including a policy environment, governance structures, a skilled and supportive health workforce, and financing mechanisms.
Table of Contents
Patient-Centered Care
When patients and their families rate healthcare quality, patient-centered care ranks high on their list of criteria. Patient-centered strategies like empathic communication, education addressing limited health literacy, and screening for social determinants of health from experts like Rock Bordelon, President Allegiance Health Management, are at the core of the moral and business case for quality healthcare.
Ideally, patient-centered care would incorporate an individual’s goals, values, and preferences into clinical decisions. However, power hierarchies in which clinicians are more empowered than patients may prevent this from happening. Clinicians can overcome this obstacle by working to elicit their patients’ input during shared decision-making. This may include explaining the various treatment options and their expected outcomes and asking for a patient’s preference.
Preventative Healthcare
A quality healthcare system focuses on preventative medicine, including routine tests and screenings. This helps doctors catch health problems early, saving lives and reducing costs.
Many insurance companies cover preventive services, so this type of care won’t cost you any extra. This is important because the majority of deaths in America are due to chronic and largely preventable diseases, like heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries, and stroke.
The Affordable Care Act requires private insurance plans to cover recommended preventive services without patient cost-sharing. This is a significant step forward, but more must be done to ensure that everyone gets this crucial care.
Safe Care
Access to quality healthcare is essential for maintaining good health and promoting a healthy lifestyle. However, high healthcare costs can create barriers for some families.
Healthcare policies can determine how much individuals and families pay for medical services, who is eligible for healthcare coverage, and the treatments available.
SafeCare is a home-visiting model that promotes positive parenting practices and child safety for parents with infants who have experienced prenatal substance exposure. Several agencies in the state of Tennessee are using this program to support families and prevent child maltreatment.
The NSTRC does not have educational requirements for SafeCare providers or coaches but recommends that local implementing agencies select staff who are comfortable in the role of parent educator, responsive to coaching and constructive feedback, motivated to implement SafeCare with fidelity, and interested in using a structured protocol for service delivery.
Timely Care
Timely care involves ensuring that patients receive medical services promptly after a health concern is identified and a request for care is made. This is an essential aspect of quality healthcare because it can improve patient outcomes, experience, and engagement.
Access to quality healthcare is essential for a healthy life and should be available to everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status, gender, or geographic location. Unfortunately, disparities persist and can have severe consequences for individuals and communities.
Hear how a diverse network of providers makes a difference for students on a rural college campus. And learn how the virtual care offered through TimelyCare complements existing campus resources for the ultimate wellbeing solution.
Efficient Care
Efficient care involves using resources wisely. It is essential to ensure that healthcare professionals save medical equipment, supplies, and time. It is also important to avoid providing inappropriate treatment.
Health system efficiency is generally understood as a ratio of relative value units produced to health system inputs consumed. The concept is straightforward, but implementing it in practice can be problematic.
For example, when a particular health system entity is scrutinized using partial measures of activity that ignore coordination activities, the entity may secure high levels of efficiency but ultimately increase costs by generating readmissions and escalating overall healthcare expenditures.
Equitable Care
Achieving equitable care requires addressing healthcare disparities. Healthcare organizations need to understand the root cause of these disparities and focus on implementing sustainable changes over time.
For example, if you launch a portal for patients to manage their health, but the majority of your patient population needs broadband access, your efforts may need to be more effective. A better approach is implementing a text-based solution to reduce information overload and improve accessibility for everyone.
Health equity and health equality differ because equality gives people the same opportunities, while health equity prioritizes justice. Healthcare providers can take a stand on health equity by implementing initiatives to help everyone reach their full potential.
