Objective: To explore the impact of link quality management on healthcare quality.
Methods: In 2021, The Fourth Hospital of Harbin Medical University followed various regulations and systems to manage the quality of hospital links. In 2022, the hospital upgraded and strengthened the quality management of hospital links. We collected and compared data from 2021 and 2022 on several observation indicators, including error rates in medical records, outpatient and inpatient numbers, surgical volumes, adverse event reporting, dispute complaints, inpatient medical records and outpatient prescriptions grading, timely filing rate of medical records, inpatient satisfaction rate, average length of hospital stay, rate of level 3-4 surgeries, admission rate of critically ill patients, workload index, work efficiency index, diagnostic quality index, treatment quality index, antimicrobial drug use rate, staff satisfaction rate, patient satisfaction rate, composite index, and Case Mix Index (CMI).
Results: In 2021, the error rate of the first page of the general surgery medical records in The Fourth Hospital of Harbin Medical University was 27.91%, while in 2022 it significantly improved to 9.60% (P<0.05). The error rates of the main diagnosis, major surgical operations, other diagnoses, and other surgical operations on the medical records were all significantly different between 2021 and 2022 (all P<0.05). In 2022, the outpatient volume, inpatient volume, surgical volume, and adverse event reporting increased significantly compared to those in 2021, while the number of dispute complaints decreased significantly. The first-grade rate of inpatient medical records, first-grade rate of outpatient prescriptions, timely filing rate of medical records, inpatient satisfaction rate, average length of hospital stay, rate of level 3-4 surgeries, and admission rate of critically ill patients in 2022 were all significantly higher than those in 2021 (all P<0.05). The workload index, work efficiency index, diagnostic quality index, and treatment quality index in 2022 were all significantly higher than those in 2021 (all P<0.05). The outpatient antimicrobial drug use rate, emergency department antimicrobial drug use rate, and inpatient antimicrobial drug use rate in 2022 were significantly lower than those in 2021 (all P<0.05). In 2022, the satisfaction rate of medical staff was 93.57%, which was significantly higher than 81.16% in 2021 (P<0.05). In 2022, the patient satisfaction rate was 91.53%, which was significantly higher than 82.17% in 2021 (P<0.05). In 2022, the composite index and CMI values increased, while the error rate decreased significantly, as compared to those in 2021 (P<0.05).
Conclusion: After upgrading and strengthening the link quality management, The Fourth Hospital of Harbin Medical University has achieved significant improvements in management level, medical quality, technical level, and staff satisfaction.
Keywords: Medical link quality management; impact; medical quality.
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