Quality Advancement and No Money: How to Reconcile the Tension
Feb
28
Written by:
2/28/2011 3:28 PM
As we face months ahead of us with budget uncertainty, there certainly are questions about whether we can “ride out the storm” and what the aftermath of reductions will mean to the services we provide. Who will not be able to survive if the level of reductions is too severe? Will we be able to assure access to care and services throughout the state or will there be new gaps? Will we still be able to deliver the type of care we believe in? Can we continue to move the quality bar ahead when the resources continue to be reduced?
We have followed the mantra of “do more with less” for long enough that we are likely stretched to the point of no more. The phrase often used in the budget battle at the Capitol these days is the state needs to move to a “new normal.” However, I don’t think that it means a decline in the quality threshold we have come to expect of ourselves. The new normal may mean we have to think differently about how to achieve what we expect of ourselves, and what our customers expect of us. When I think of quality initiatives wearing my budget reduction lenses, this is what a bit of what I see:
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The regulatory system is an inflexible measure of quality—but it isn’t going away anytime soon, so we need to continue to work with the tools we have toward compliance. At the same time, we’ll aim elsewhere for true quality improvement.
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Without spending any additional money, we can access some data tools that we can use to help us visually portray our progress on a variety of quality initiatives—the measures used for the nursing home report card are available and “free.” The Association will soon be rolling out a quality dashboard that will also be free to you—another tool you can use to measure current thresholds and strive for improvement.
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With little investment, you can participate in several programs to highlight good work and to honor your employees—the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living quality awards and our own recognition program (which will be publicly released soon).
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We need to ride the “money waves” of grant programs and initiatives that focus on improving the lives of the people we serve: palliative care initiatives, preventing re-hospitalizations, and providing hospice care to veterans. While the money is available for training and data collection, we need to harness it!
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Most of all, with or without money we need to believe in what we do and why we do it. We need to provide loving care to the people who choose us for care and services. And, we need to instill pride in our employees, and focus on the honor of our profession.
Copyright ©2011 Patti