Clinical Governance
Clinical governance is a framework aimed at enhancing the quality and safety of care provided to patients within healthcare systems. Originating in the United Kingdom during the 1990s, it encompasses several interrelated components such as quality improvement, leadership, patient focus, staff focus, and information management. Under this framework, healthcare professionals are tasked with maintaining accountability for patient care, ensuring high standards, and fostering patient satisfaction through continuous improvement and safety measures.
Quality improvement is a central theme, relying on clinical audits to assess performance against established standards, identifying areas for enhancement. Leadership plays a vital role in setting and maintaining these standards, emphasizing the importance of training and ongoing education for healthcare leaders. The patient focus aspect underscores the necessity of addressing individual needs, while staff focus highlights the significance of having well-trained, motivated personnel in delivering effective care. Lastly, information focus serves as a key component by facilitating the collection and dissemination of data to assess the operational efficiency of healthcare services. Collectively, these elements create a comprehensive system designed to improve the healthcare experience for all patients.
Clinical Governance
Clinical governance relates to a variety of activities intended to improve the health-care experience for patients. Adopted in the United Kingdom in the 1990s, this system includes several interrelated factors for patient care, including quality improvement, leadership, patient focus, staff focus, and information focus.
Description and Development
Under clinical governance, health-care personnel are held accountable for all aspects of patient care. The system requires health-care personnel to provide high-quality care to patients and constantly work to maintain patients' safety and satisfaction with their experience. The key to clinical governance is adhering to health-care standards and goals and documenting the means by which personnel work to reach those standards and goals with each patient.
Clinical governance became a medical standard in the United Kingdom in the 1990s when it was adopted by the health departments of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The system took hold in both the public and private sectors of these countries. Health-care personnel were able to adapt to the system with relative ease because many of its components were already familiar to professional care providers. The innovative quality of clinical governance is that it combines many familiar components into a comprehensive system.
Major Themes
Clinical governance comprises many interrelated factors in health care. These factors include quality improvement, leadership, patient focus, staff focus, and information focus. Quality improvement in health care relates to the constant setting of high standards for health care as well as the means by which the standards are reviewed and met. One of the main tools for assuring quality improvement is the clinical audit, a measurement of the effectiveness of a health-care facility, such as a hospital, and its personnel. The clinical audit compares accepted standards to actual results to show areas that may require improvement.
Leadership involves the personnel who are charged with setting the standards and ensuring that they are diligently maintained. All staff members in a health-care facility should be well-trained and prepared to handle many different medical situations, but it is particularly important for those in leadership roles to be efficient and effective. Clinical governance recommends ongoing education and training for all health-care leaders.
Patient focus reflects the belief in clinical governance that meeting individual patient needs is the basis of health care. Including patient focus in this system ensures that this fact is constantly in mind. At the same time, staff focus shows the crucial role of motivated, informed, and well-trained personnel in providing the necessary care. Finally, information focus—often seen as the unifying factor in clinical governance—relates to the gathering and sharing of accurate information about how efficiently the health-care system is operating.
Bibliography
"Clinical Governance." Royal College of Nursing. 2015. Web. 3 Dec. 2015. https://www.rcn.org.uk/development/practice/clinical‗governance
"Improving Programme: Governance for Quality and Safety." Governance for Quality and Safety. Health Service Executive. 2013. Web. 3 Dec. 2015. www.hse.ie/go/clinicalgovernance
Starey, Nigel. "What is Clinical Governance?" Hayward Medical Communications. University of Oxford Medical Sciences Division. May 2001. Web. 3 Dec. 2015. www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/painres/download/whatis/WhatisClinGov.pdf
"The Main Components of Clinical Governance." About Us. Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. Web. 3 Dec. 2015. www.uhb.nhs.uk/clinical-governance-components.htm