The COVID-19 pandemic has required all organisations to navigate operational challenges and explore new ways of doing things. This is especially true for organisations in the healthcare industry, who have had to quickly adapt to fight the evolving health crisis.
In this constantly changing environment, it is critical that healthcare providers have an efficient Quality Management System (QMS) that supports the delivery of high quality, safe healthcare, and rapid response to COVID-19, ensuring that:
- New and revised approved clinical protocols are available to all staff
- Equipment is checked and serviced regularly
- Medical consumables are readily available and safe to use
- Staff are trained on new clinical protocols, including revised infection prevention and control (IPC) protocols and use of new equipment, including PPE
- Adverse events are reported in real-time and managed appropriately
- Exposure to risk is monitored in real-time
COVID-19 has put many organisations’ QMS to the test. In order to support and rapidly upskill a remote workforce, maintain team culture and keep pace with numerous changes required to provide safe high-quality healthcare during a pandemic, organisations have had to adopt new technologies, including cloud-based systems, or fast-track digital transformation.
As businesses reflect on lessons learnt from 2020 and start to plan for the year ahead, it might be time to give your QMS a health check to ensure it can withstand whatever challenges and opportunities the future may bring. Here are some helpful questions to guide you.
Can your QMS support a remote working environment by…
- Ensuring team members can access the system from any device, anywhere, at any time?
- Keeping everyone informed to foster a positive team culture?
- Enabling staff to report adverse events and make suggestions for improvement from any device, anywhere, at any time?
Can your QMS manage scale and complexity by…
- Managing an increase in demand with the same level of resources?
- Supporting integration across critical business processes?
- Helping managers to brief and delegate?
- Ensuring tasks are checked when they are completed?
- Identifying and analysing emerging trends and issues within your organisation?
- Alerting management when the organisation’s risk exposure increases?
- Keeping management informed of performance issues and adverse events reports in real-time?
- Generating trend reports on your organisation’s performance?
Can your QMS support the new demands without drawing on additional staffing resources by…
- Doing the heavy lifting in delegating tasks, communicating what is required, and advising managers when things are overdue or completed?
- Keeping track of where tasks are at?
- Reminding staff when tasks are overdue and sending alerts to management?
Can your QMS support remote accreditation and/or certification audits by…
- Supporting a self-assessment against standards?
- Tracking the things that need to be in place to meet the standards?
- Preparing the evidence report for an upcoming accreditation audit?
- Managing multiple standards?
- Providing your auditor with direct access to the QMS?
If your responses to the questions above revealed opportunities to modernise your QMS, let’s start a conversation to see if LogiqcQMS is the right fit for your organisation.
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