Running Head: SWOT ANALYSIS FOR QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN NURSING 1

SWOT ANALYSIS FOR QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN NURSING 2

SWOT Analysis For Quality Improvement In Nursing.

SWOT Analysis in Quality Improvement in Nursing

SWOT analysis is a business tool that can be deployed to validate the effectiveness of an organization in terms of its marketing abilities and perhaps some of the challenges or threats the said organization may be facing. It is worth noting that SWOT analysis is critical in medical groups, hospitals, and even individuals working within a private practice as it helps them to maintain focus in their focus in marketing areas, an aspect that harbors the strongest benefits. As the world is growing and evolving technologically, the healthcare system has been one of the fields that have benefited a lot from various technology whose essence is to improve the quality of services provided (Dey & Hariharan, 2018). Due to emerging healthcare issues, it has become crucially important for the government to provide adequate resources to the health care sector to ensure that the health sector can employ enough qualified staff, buy and configure advanced medical tools, application software equipment’s among many others. Perhaps improving healthcare quality is remains to be the most growing need of any society, but this has not been effectively realized because the implementation of various quality improvement projects has been deployed in a fragmented manner making them less effective and even redundant for quite a long time. Today’s healthcare services make use of continuous quality improvement (CQI)

Benchmarking, process reengineering, supply chain management (SCM), total quality management (TQM), as well as the six sigma in order to promote utility and performance improvement in the nursing field  (Gandolf, 2016). Even though various quality improvement programmes positively contribute towards improved performance, it must be understood this the efficiency and effectiveness of such programs highly depend on how they are integrated with other existing nursing programmes as well as organizational project management practices and strategies. Based on the question, this discussion paper will provide more insights into the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities as well as threats that impact nursing practice and the healthcare system at large.

Strengths

One of the strengths of quality improvement in nursing practice can be attributed to the use of the practice of oncology which is scientific and evidence-based. Almost all the potential supportive, palliative, and curative treatments are scientifically driven alongside the use of clinical trials that are evidence-based to support them  (Gandolf, 2016). The use of evidence-driven in nursing practice helps healthcare professionals provide evidence-based services emphasizing quality care. Secondly, the motivation, compassion, and caring aspect of nurse practitioners in oncology practice serve as one of the significant strengths in the nursing field. Another strength in nursing practice is team-based practice. These teams work collaboratively with and apply their expertise in helping oncology patients.

Worth mentioning is that these teams are often comprised of oncology nurses, staff and office managers, chemotherapy nurses, offices, highly trained, skilled, and dedicated groups of physicians, cancer treatment centers, surgeons, pathologists, oncologists, and diagnostic radiologists and their teams among many others. When deemed right, nurses and other team members handling complex healthcare issues such as cancer coordinate palliative and hospice care services for the clients alongside social work, dietary services, and other supportive services.

Besides that, there are also outstanding nursing research outputs that help gather enough scientifically proven treatment methods that can be deployed when dealing with various complex healthcare issues  (Gandolf, 2016). Existence of an effective state of monitoring nursing equipment and the availability of high dependency units that closely resemble ICU units for effective and quality care delivery. Finally, it can be argued that competent clinical professionals and aggressive therapeutic interventions are among the strengths that facilitate the provision of quality improvement with the healthcare system.

Weaknesses

One of the weaknesses of the nursing sector is the lack of enough qualified staff to facilitate various operations to achieve quality improvement. It must be understood that these challenges negatively affect the effective way of providing patients, particularly those that have been affected with cancer, required medical services that meet their needs. Another weakness is the lack of a quality patient administration strategy that involves the entire nursing practice when providing medical services (Toper et al., 2018). Additionally, there is a lack of sufficient information and communication technology as well as the absence of a formal quality management program which hinders the provision of quality services that meet the expected current quality care that is patient-based.

Opportunities

With improved technology in the health care system, there several opportunities that need to be fetched out to help nurses and other healthcare practitioners provide quality services that meet the desires of the patients (Topor et al., 2018). Among these opportunities include technological advancement, advancement in information and communication in technology, increased development and investment in research as well as globalization which have presented numerous opportunities for the entire healthcare.

Threats

Globalization has been one of the threats in nursing practice since patients can opt to get healthcare services elsewhere and compare global vs. local healthcare services, an aspect that may change their preferences. Also, increased customer awareness and competition from other hospitals, as well as increased legal compliance issues, all affect the process and efforts put forth to promote quality improvement (Topor et al., 2018).

References

Dalton, J. (2018). SWOT analysis (Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). Great Big Agile, 249-252. doi:10.1007/978-1-4842-4206-3_62

Dey, P. K., & Hariharan, S. (2018). Managing healthcare quality using combined SWOT and the analytic hierarchy process approach. International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management, 9(4), 392. doi:10.1504/ijhtm.2008.019675

Gandolf, S. (2016, August 10). Health care SWOT analysis, medical strategic planning, healthcare marketing update. Retrieved from https://healthcaresuccess.com/blog/medical-advertising-agency/swot.html

Topor, D. R., Dickey, C., Stonestreet, L., Wendt, J., Woolley, A., & Budson, A. (2018). Interprofessional health care education at academic medical centers: Using a SWOT analysis to develop and implement programming. MedEdPORTAL, 14(1). doi:10.15766/mep_2374-8265.10766