Usefulness Of Healthcare Protocols And Guidelines

USEFULNESS OF HEALTHCARE PROTOCOLS AND GUIDELINES Name Institution Usefulness of Healthcare Protocols and Guidelines People often wonder how they are supposed to behave in certain circumstances. The way people are supposed to conduct themselves and go about their duties can be dictated by the set of protocols. The medical profession needs protocols to run smoothly. According to Calvert et al. (2018, p483) protocols are used to refer to a formal set of guidelines or rules employed in the practice. Protocols are prevalent in healthcare settings to help guide the medical profession. Protocols are also common in social care organizations. In the medical profession, there are numerous circumstances where protocols are needed to make health care safer and improve health outcomes. In this paper, I will look at the usefulness of protocols and guidelines in the healthcare profession. Usefulness of protocols The major benefit of clinical protocols and guidelines is that they help in improving the quality of health care that patients receive. What many people believe is that protocols can improve health care quality, but it is difficult to achieve the required quality in reality because doctors and patients might have their own ways of defining quality (Owens et al., 2011, p174). For patients, the greatest benefit that protocols can help them achieve is to improve the quality of health outcomes. Protocols with interventions that have proven benefits can help patients reduce mortality and morbidity and help them to improve the quality of their lives. Through guidelines, patients can have consistency in the care that they receive. Therefore, through the guidelines, there is a high likelihood that the patients will be cared for and they will be treated in the same manner regardless of who treats them or where they are treated. For healthcare professionals, clinical guidelines can help them to improve the quality of health care decisions that they make. Protocols give clinicians' recommendations, especially where they are uncertain of how to go about certain tasks (Barlam et al., 2016, p75). Protocols can also help in changing the beliefs of those doctors that are used to outdated practices. They can also help doctors to improve the consistency of care. Additionally, through the guidelines, doctors can make recommendations that would prove to people that they actually know what they are doing (Barlam et al., 2016, p76). The guidelines can also help doctors to know interventions that have been proven and make clinicians aware of those interventions that are not supported by good science. Additionally, they make doctors aware of wasteful, dangerous, and ineffective practices. Whenever health centers want to implement quality improvement activities, they would use clinical guidelines. Guidelines become their common point of reference whenever they are testing or administering treatments. The health care system also benefits from protocols and guidelines, especially in improving efficiency and ensuring that the system gets them value. When certain guidelines are implemented, hospitalization outlays will be reduced. There will also be reduction in prescription drugs, surgery together with other procedures (Owens et al., 2011, p176). The health care profession also benefits from the publicizing of the protocols, especially in improving the public image regarding the profession. The public would be able to know that the profession is committed to quality and excellence. Such an image promotes goodwill and help hospitals to produce revenue. According to the popular belief of most people, the economic benefits that come with the protocols are the main reasons why they are so popular. Limitations of the Protocols One of the major limitations of the protocols is that there is a potential for the recommendations to be wrong for some of the patients. Guidelines are limited by a number of factors. The factors aside, there is a chance that those behind making of the guidelines might error. Protocols are based on scientific evidences and this is a major undoing. Normally, scientific evidences may be misleading or lacking and there is a chance that people may misinterpret them (Connolly et al., 2012, p1731). Most of what is done in medicine has never been tested appropriately. Even when studies exist, there is a chance that the results may be misleading because of poor designs or biasness. Those responsible for developing the guidelines on several occasions never have sufficient time, skills, and resources to obtain and thoroughly scrutinize every piece of evidence (Tinetti et al., 2012, p2493). The data used in coming up with the guidelines may be certain, the recommendations from the data are normally subjected to the best judgment of the people involved because th...