Bshs 375 - Quality Assurance Reveiw

Quality Assurance Review

Brenda Jimenez, DeLoria White, Elyse Pratti, Tori Albritton

BSHS/375 - INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY IN HUMAN SERVICES

June 5, 2017

Trina Glover

Quality Assurance Review

        Quality assurance can be defined as the process in which measures and ensures that a service is meeting its standard. For human service providers, it is important to ensure that the quality of care that is being provided to a client is held to a high regard. Quality assurance enables clients, agencies, and organizations to track what standards they are meeting, measure and plan what needs improvement and enables for a process to be developed to ensure that those providing the service are meeting the client's demands and needs. In this paper, we will focus on gathering information to create and use a scenario as well as cover three basic components of quality assurance: Proper provision of service, client satisfaction with service, and proper documentation. Concluding this assignment will be a part two, in which, the explication of how security was breached, how it should be handled in accordance with the scenario and reiterating the importance of confidentiality and services.

Scenario

        The director of a community-based mental health agency receives a phone call from a school where one of the staff is providing services to a client. The teacher who is calling reports that the staff person is talented but is not open to feedback and does not tailor her interventions with the client according to the client's behavior on a specific day. She is also frequently late. This has created conflict between the teacher and the staff person.

Proper Provision of Service

1. (Director to Teacher): What feedback would you give me about the provider, and what feedback have you given the provider in the past? 
2. (Director to Family of Client): Currently, what does the communication between you and the staff member consist of? 
3. (Director to Provider) Do you feel like you are providing the proper services? Do you feel you are doing your job to the best of your abilities, and the welfare of the client?
4.  (Teacher to Director): What are some measures that your agencies takes to ensure that proper services are given to clients? Do you have a way of tracking this?

Agencies must provide adequate services to clients to ensure that they are meeting the standards that are placed on them as providers. It is imperative for providers to provide timely and adequate services to clients as the client goes and trusts them to comply with meeting those requirements and services. The above questions provide a base to measure both the client and the provider. This baseline will provide the director general information as to whether their agency standards are being upheld by the provider and how services are being provided to the client.

Client Satisfaction with Service

1. (Director to Client) How does the service provider tailor or change the way in which they provide service to you on days in which you are having a difficult time?
2. (Director to Client): Do you have any complaints about the provider?
3. (Director to Client): What do you think is missing from your current services? What, if any are your suggestions?

When it comes to client satisfaction, asking open-ended questions always give you the most helpful feedback. Not all questions will be perfectly tailored to the situation and giving the client a chance to say what they feel needs to be done gives the client power over treatment as well as helping improve future interactions between the client and the teachers/providers. These questions will get the perspective of the child receiving the service. The child can then inform the director if he or she feels that service is tailored to them depending on their mood and/or behavior for the day. This question will also allow for the agency to view ways as to how they can improve and or train staff to tailor services to the specific child is that there is no one size fits all approach that works for all. Feedback is also important in measuring client satisfaction and in the overall growth of the agency. Client satisfaction can help the agency get good reviews and poor client satisfaction can lead to bad reviews of the agency.

Proper Documentation

1. (Director to Teacher) Do you have dates in which the provider was late and documentation as to how late they were?
2. (Director to Teacher): Do you have any ways currently which you are documenting the client’s behaviors on a day to day basis? 
3. (Director to Provider): Do you have case notes? How are you tracking and monitoring your care for this client, ensuring client satisfaction?

Documentation plays a major role in providing a way of measuring whether a service is being provided according to the agency standards as well as a way of tracking client progress. Case notes should be taken for every encounter with clients in order to provide proof of the services being rendered as well as to have some sort of documentation to fall back on for the agency in situations like this one. If documentation is not properly being done it allows for the credibility of the provider and agency to be questioned as well as makes the agency liable to not meeting the standards they are expected to uphold. Documentation will also provide general information on adjustments made from the provider to the client in order to ensure that all measures were exhausted in trying to provide proper service to them.

Each question in the above three basic components of quality assurance holds a purpose in gathering important information for the investigation. Making sure all the correct questions are asked and making sure that all the facts are gathered provide the Director with all the information necessary to further the investigation and to delegate what should happen next.  It is essential to gather all the facts to then assess the situation and determine what steps need to be taken to bring closure to the situation, making sure the steps taken are fair for all. 

It was found that during the investigation the teacher revealed to the Director of the community-based mental health agency that the client had just been treated for a communicable disease. In doing so the teacher was negligent in breaching confidential health information. With this security breaching or any security breaching the company and its reputation are put to the test. When it comes to companies, like this one, who have access to privileged information it is of the utmost importance to keep strict confidentiality. Breaches can cause loss of clientele, lawsuits, and even life changing effects for some involved. The spectrum of those affected can create a domino effect that can ruin a company, employee and client lives if the information was leaked to the wrong party.