Course Outcomes Reflections

There are many takeaways from the course. I will certainly use many of the lessons that I
have learned in the course in my future career as a healthcare professional. The most important
lesson that I have learnt is the goal of quality management in healthcare. Quality management in
healthcare is key to achieving desired health outcomes for patients (Cassel, 2015). Improving
patient outcomes is, however, not the only goal of quality management in healthcare. Other goals
include increasing resource efficiency, increasing level of a healthcare organization’s compliance
with applicable standards, and minimizing medical errors (Cassel, 2015). Quality management
also seeks to improve healthcare processes that ultimately result in better health outcomes for
patients. Quality management in healthcare, therefore, ensures that healthcare organizations
provide patients with optimal care at the lowest costs possible.
To achieve the major goals of quality management in healthcare, it is important that the
quality management goals and plans to achieve them be focused on patients. It is only patients
who can judge whether the treatments and processes in a healthcare organization are appropriate
and effective. Other outcomes do not mean much if they do not contribute to better patient
outcomes. It is this lesson that I plan to apply the most in my future career as a healthcare
professional. From the course, I have learnt that while goals such as improving efficiency and
reducing operational costs are desirable for healthcare organizations, they should be discarded
when pursuit of such goals has a detrimental effect on levels of patient satisfaction and their
health outcomes. In other words, the priority in all quality improvement plans and measures
should be to improve patient satisfaction and health outcomes.

COURSE OUTCOMES REFLECTIONS 3

References

Cassel, C. (2015). Measuring for quality improvement. Healthcare Executive, 30(2), 72, 74.
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