Gosnold, Inc. holds the importance of quality healthcare at the front and center of all care we provide. The purpose of the Gosnold’ s Quality Management program is to maximize the quality of life, safety and security of its patients. Integrated within this purpose, is the commitment towards performance improvement and continuous quality enhancements. The Quality Management program’s function is to establish standards, processes and practices that encompass quality management and quality improvement activities within the organization’s day-to day operations. Solidifying a sound quality infrastructure will facilitate enhanced organizational commitment, focus on performance improvement, and enable all parties to have a clear definition of the quality program structure, goals and objectives within the organization. Ultimately, these quality management structures and processes are designed to facilitate improvements in risk mitigation and the quality of care provided to the patients.
Ahmad Al-Musa, M.D, DHS, LSSBB, PMP serves as Gosnold’s Senior Director of Quality and Risk. Ahmad has been practicing quality management and process improvement for the last 10 years, and among his many achievements, he has presented at many national and international conferences about the importance of performance and quality initiatives throughout healthcare. The follow excerpt has been prepared by Ahmad for his thoughts on the importance of quality in healthcare:
Human beings have always been in the forefront of change. They tend to always find ways to make things better, smarter, safer and easier for their own convenience. Whether it was evolving from mud-based homes to skyscrapers, horseback riding to jumbo jets, snail-mail to electronic mail, and lastly classroom-based learning to earning a certified degree from the coziness of one’s home, the idea of improvement has been become part of our natural behavior.
This sense of improvement can be seen and witnessed in all occupational fields in the modern age. Whether it is engineering, law, social work, accounting and especially healthcare, there always seems to be an urgency to answer the question “What’s the Next Big Thing?”.
There is a famous quote by the IHI that says, “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets” (IHI, 2008). The quotation illustrates the importance of understanding the system and not just the task at hand or even the outcome. Once people understand how services, programs and people interact within healthcare then at that point you will be able to discover the gaps in the system. Like any other field, healthcare does have its flaws, and so the point of improving healthcare will not only better the way people receive treatment but improve health and wellbeing as a nation of people.
Because it takes a village to produce progressive improvement, improving health care quality is everyone’s responsibility. This is especially true when talking about the world of mental health. The Mayo Clinic (2022) wrote that “Mental illness is a leading cause of disability. Untreated mental illness can cause severe emotional, behavioral, and physical health problems”. So, by continuing to strive and promote a culture that is based on positivity, structure, communication, and continuous improvement, accessible and culturally competent healthcare can be directly delivered to the people that need it the most.
In conclusion, the purpose of this blog was to shine a light on healthcare and the power of improvement. Allowing healthcare to focus more on population health management and the importance of health disparities will result in establishing stronger bridges between health care and the members of the community to promote health and wellness as a necessity and not a privilege.
