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Techniques and Tools for Strategic Management in Health Care

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Part 1

The connection between healthcare regulation compliance and quality management is

thus highly likely to be of paramount importance. The laws and regulations that are set serve a

dual purpose. First, they are meant to make patients safe by providing guidelines that these

providers must follow. The regulations also look to make sure that the quality of health is of the

same standard through areas like medication management, infection control, documentation, and

care protocols (Hughes, 2018). Quality management programs that are successful bring an ability

to establish, apply, and proctor the systematic processes as well as the tools for monitoring,

controlling, and improving the performance to the end that the organizations meet the regulatory

needs.
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A few particularly effective quality tools are control charts and fishbone diagrams (cause

and effect diagrams). Control charts reveal quality indicators such as type errors or waiting times

on a timeline and their statistical confines show where chance variations are expected. Any given

data points falling outside of these limits, indicate a change and may point to a tendency that

could develop into a deviation from the set limits (Morrison, 2008). For example, control charts

may be developed which will keep an eye on medication administration error rates and compare

them to the maximum threshold that have been envisaged by quality improvement organizations

such as the Joint Commission.

The fishbone mapping method, derived from the fishbone diagrams, is a strong technique

that is used to identify the root causes of quality issues. It is a tool that enables them to highlight

the causes of the problem which are divided into groups of Categories such as personnel,

equipment, environment, and processes (Sakdiyah et al., 2022). With this well-structured

method, the owner of the process can expose the sources of these problems and breakthroughs in

infection prevention protocols, documentation regulation, or other aspects of care.

The tools that form this ingredient, in turn, allow for a preventative mode of tracking

indicators for new threats, in addition to the existence of a sturdy process for tracking down

issues and handling them through data-driven actions. This also coincides with the two elemental
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quality management concepts of continuous improvement and prevention of defects rather than

correction of defects.

Part 2

Technique Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Use in Compliance and

Performance Improvement
Dashboards Training Completion Rates, Clinician Real-time KPI tracking, proactive
Productivity, Patient Throughput, risk management, identification
Documentation Accuracy, Compliance of trends, facilitates immediate
with Regulatory Standards corrective actions
Productivity Clinician Productivity, Patient Identifies performance gaps,
Benchmarking Throughput, Compliance with informs training and staffing
Regulatory Standards interventions, ensures continuous
improvement

Performance management and tracking are an essential part of any major transition such

as the EHR implementation. It will help in the minimization of disruptions and high-quality care

with full compliance with the regulations. Two techniques which are the use of dashboards and

implementing productivity benchmarking standards leading to these techniques being effective.

Dashboards provide the ability to see at a glance data analysis of various sources systems

through charts, and tables with their integration (Mingo Smart Factory, 2024). Completing the

training, documenting the schedules, improving the productivity of the clinicians, and moving

more patients throughout the systems are some of the KPIs that can be shown on the dashboards

for the EHR transition. By the platform allowing you to track metrics about risk or regulatory

trends, you could spot emerging risks or a bad trend that could undermine your operations.

A main tool of productivity measurement is benchmarking standards that set performance

limits on an organization’s basement data or industry data level (World Bank, n.d.). The standard

measurement of the healthcare metrics is the efficiency with which the physicians process

patients per day. A decline in productivity during the EHR transition to levels lower than
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satisfactory reveals the problem of inadequate training or usability issues with the system and a

lack of workers that require immediate intervention.

Apart from external benchmarks, internal benchmarks are also an important source of

social comparison. While internal benchmarking uncovers unwarranted performance differences

within departments that can be used as examples of success to copy or trouble spots that need

assistance, comparisons with external competitors present challenges in terms of fiscal

investment and uniqueness of offerings. External benchmarking lets an organization know how

well they are doing in comparison with their peers. It is through the building of partnerships that

they will be able to identify which areas of competitive edge fall short of the industry’s

outshining benchmark.

With the metrics dashboard and benchmarked product targets getting integrated in a well-

balanced manner, overall performance management can be done in a data-driven manner that is

proactive. through fostering transparency in real-time, cultivated by analytics software,

organizations can identify emerging risks, for which prompt action is needed to avoid damaging

the quality of care, operations, or compliance.

Part 3

To facilitate the adoption of workflows and enforce conformance to the policies while

moving from a standard EHR to a new one, it is imperative to employ use case diagrams and

process maps early in the implementation lifecycle.

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Through the use case diagrams it is easy to represent how different user roles such as

nurses, physicians, and administrators will be interacting with the EHR system. In the meantime,

it is possible to identify their assigned tasks and activities. This is having all roles indicate

system requirements from their perspectives - determination of what data, documentation, and

order entry capabilities they require by their roles and responsibilities. Use cases take priority

and allow you to customize settings as there is a need and make them flexible enough to match

any personnel.

Wider application, case studies help users of the EHR to suggest the process redesign by

spotlighting the avenues for standardization and improvement of previous workflows

incorporating the EHR's advanced features. This collaborative redesign project has an aim which

is the optimization of all the processes as well as embedding the compliance rules through the

capabilities like the order set validation, clinical decision support tools, robust identity/access

management controls, and many others (Zheng et al., 2020).

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On the one hand, a process-mapping diagram illustrates every step in the workflow

sequence from the entrance of the patient to the surfacing of gaps in compliance as is shown on a

slide. In this manner, holes may entail the mistake of failing to perform the given set of

necessary documentation lies, absence of identity controls which possibly creates gaps in data,

and other issues.

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Aided by the understanding of present limitations, stakeholders will be able to leverage

innovative process design that is EHR-centric in the next phases of the system. Involving the use

of automation, decision support, and different controls makes the process of reengineering

workflows to harden regulatory compliance go virtually unnoticed. A well-structured analysis

and redesign project applying this framework will help to mitigate the risks resulting from non-

compliance by precisely tailoring it to the capabilities of EHR.

Part 4

The work on expanding the use of EHRs on a large scale brings forward the issues of

program and project management properly, as it is needed to make sure that the operations are

done in a synchronized manner, and the objectives are fulfilled. Time management is a major

aspect, for which a Gantt chart should be used (Project Management Institute, 2021). Moreover,

it is important not to overlook the possibility of risks.

Gantt chart is an example of bar charts that schedule projects, with bars as a

representation of each task having dates of each start/end and the duration of the respective task

with dependencies. SGs for EHR implementation include tasks related to assessing the current

workflow and system configuration, migration activities, integration testing, updating the

policies and processes, and change management across the whole organization.
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This thoroughly integrated, interdependent schedule defines roles precisely, provides

prerequisites, and enforces handoffs and the like to ensure not a missed step nor a handoff that

might disrupt the process. The critical path determines priority and showcases how activities are

dependent on each other. Feel free to use thought-provoking questions, additional explanations,

and relevant examples to inspire and challenge the audience. A structured schedule brings about

a reduction of operational risks, such as delinquent claims processing, filing errors, or erroneous

documentation. Also, it is aided in keeping payer requisites, documentation standards, and

clinical protocols aligned.

Gantt charts go along with an orderly process, while the risk analysis points out the

problems that can arise in the course of project implementation. The risk register, which is a

process that analyzes certain probabilities and impacts, like the quality of data, insufficient staff,

or technical capabilities of the systems, is created by this process. Risks that are bigger than the

desired risk capacity of the organization may have mitigation plans that will help to spare or

reduce the effects (Project Management Institute, 2021).

In the case of EMR implementations, high-priority risks mainly include inadequate

training, no leadership alignment or end-user buy-in, and vendor/supplier under-delivery. Any

one of the cases can have a major impact on the integrity of the operations as well as regulation

compliance if realized. Adopting tools like Gantt charts for scheduling that are structured along

the overall lifetime of the transition process is one of the ways healthcare organizations can keep

track of what is going on throughout the entire stage. This focused approach results in the EHR

employers' utilization and sustains the clinical, financial, and compliance skills required in the

whole transformation.
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References

Hughes, R. (2018, April). Tools and Strategies for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety.

National Library of Medicine; Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2682/

Mingo Smart Factory . (2024). The Benefits of a Manufacturing Dashboard. Mingo Smart

Factory. https://www.mingosmartfactory.com/benefits-manufacturing-dashboard/

Morrison, L. W. (2008). The Use of Control Charts to Interpret Environmental Monitoring Data.

Natural Areas Journal, 28(1), 66–73. https://doi.org/10.3375/0885-

8608(2008)28[66:tuocct]2.0.co;2

Project Management Institute. (2021). PMBOK® Guide. Pmi.org. https://www.pmi.org/pmbok-

guide-standards/foundational/pmbok

Sakdiyah, S. H., Eltivia, N., & Afandi, A. (2022). Root Cause Analysis Using Fishbone

Diagram: Company Management Decision Making. Journal of Applied Business,

Taxation and Economics Research, 1(6), 566–576.

https://doi.org/10.54408/jabter.v1i6.103

World Bank. (n.d.). Performance Monitoring Indicators A handbook for task managers.

https://www.measureevaluation.org/resources/training/capacity-building-resources/basic-

me-concepts-portuguese/indicators.pdf

Zheng, K., Ratwani, R. M., & Adler-Milstein, J. (2020). Studying Workflow and Workarounds

in Electronic Health Record–Supported Work to Improve Health System Performance.

Annals of Internal Medicine, 172(11), S116–S122. https://doi.org/10.7326/m19-0871