The Meaning of Quality in Healthcare

It’s Healthcare Quality Week and the official launch of Privia’s new blog: inforMD by Privia. If you’re reading this, thanks for stopping by! Please stay, peruse our posts, and tell us what you think in the comments. We’d love to hear from you.
As the Medical Director of Quality at Privia, quality in healthcare means many different things to me; it’s about evidence-based care which leads to happy patients, it has to do with achieving desirable outcomes, as well as encouraging cost-efficiency in medicine. The concept of quality is quickly becoming an inextricable part of healthcare and, as providers, we’re now being judged and reimbursed based on our performance, making it necessary to precisely define.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) defines healthcare quality as “the degree to which healthcare services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge.” To that end, we envision inforMD as a hub of reliable knowledge for healthcare professionals of all stripes, particularly for independent physicians and other practitioners who are working hard to maintain their autonomy and the success of their practices under this new system of value-based care, where quality measures reign supreme.
Everything in medicine is moving in the direction of not only defining, but improving quality. There’s a direct financial impact on providers who do — and don’t — heed this shift. Quality metrics are now used to reward physicians for better care. When you’re ranked as a high-quality physician, patients, who are also consumers, will seek you out and request your services specifically.  
Maintaining quality is much more than positive patient interaction. It requires that we keep up with data, follow the latest clinical trials, and incorporate legislative updates. That’s why staying inforMD (excuse the pun) is so important; if you want to be rewarded for providing superior care, you must stay abreast of healthcare’s latest trends. inforMD does the research, interviews the experts and digs through the overwhelming amount of news out there and delivers only the best practice standards of care to your inbox so it’s all right at your fingertips. Click here for subscription options.
On inforMD, you’ll find blogs for every concern you may have in your practice, such as the perspective of office managers, posts on value-based care, healthcare tech trends. You’ll read missives from physicians about how secretarial work is ruining the profession, and tips on how to achieve clinician satisfaction. You’ll even be able to filter blogs by region of the United States.
To put it bluntly, physicians can’t do it all on their own; it takes a village to support a doctor’s office. At inforMD, we see ourselves as one of your support systems, but we also need your help. The National Council for Quality Assurance states, “transforming our healthcare system requires the collected will and resources of all healthcare stakeholders.” We’re here to collate and distill information that you’ll incorporate into your practices, so, tell us what you need to know and what you need from us so that we can make this an even better destination for all of your healthcare knowledge needs.
Collaboration is, after all, part of what bolsters quality in healthcare, as well as employing evidenced-based care to reduce bad outcomes, increase good ones, and increase physician satisfaction to avoid the ever-looming threat of physician burnout.
At inforMD, we’re committed to empowering and educating physicians by providing a platform for healthcare professionals to learn what they ought to know.
Healthcare Quality Week reminds us that an important aspect of elevating the relationship between providers and patients is providing educational, thought-provoking content to start the conversation. As the healthcare landscape continues to shift, we will continue to reinvent our content to best support our network and readers.