As early as 400 BC, the Hippocratic Oath admonished physicians to keep patients from harm or injustice.

Current codes of ethics remind health care practitioners that safety and quality are imperative in health care. Yet quality and safety remain a critical issue for health care managers and patients today.

To prepare for this Discussion, carefully review your Learning Resources.

Seek additional resources to support your Discussion from one of the known web resources of health care quality:

Websites:

The Joint Commission

Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Post a comprehensive response to the following:

How is quality of care viewed from the perspective of each of the followiing:

A patient

A health care provider

A purchaser

What role can the health care manager play in ensuring quality and safety in a health care setting?

Select one of the different methods for improving the delivery of care described in your Learning Resources (this can include the websites identified).

Provide a specific example of how that method can help protect a patient from errors of underuse, overuse, or misuse of care.

Resources

Chapter 2, "Performance Improvement in Healthcare: The Quest to Achieve Quality"

Quality is defined from a variety of stakeholder perspectives in this chapter. The importance of quality in health care settings is explained. The authors describe leading models and elements to achieve quality in health care today and in the future.

Chapter 4, "Customer Service"

Health care managers should be aware of the various internal and external customers served by their health care organization. This chapter describes the impact of managed care on the delivery of services to health care customers.

The author identifies the essential elements of customer service and provide techniques to improve and sustain superior customer service.