Factors Affecting the Development of Healthcare Organization - Assignment Example

Healthcare organization 05 November Key forces that may have influenced the development of the clinic: Clinical setups are deeply affected by the amount of state budget reserved for healthcare. So how much of the total state budget is allocated to healthcare forms an influential political source. How the government money is distributed among the state forms another outlet of this political force. If the state budget allocated to healthcare is not fairly distributed, grave inequities in quality care can result. The state budget also decides which equipment could be purchased, which machines need to be repaired, which healthcare programs should be left, and which should be observed. All such important decisions are made in accordance with the nature of state budget. Social forces capable of affecting the development of this clinic are mainly made up by cultural values, norms, traditions, and societal trends of the community it serves. Keeping a consistent record of changing values, attitudes, preferences, and population statistics is also important to provide quality care. The state of local economy can hugely influence a clinic’ progress. Unstable economy, poor income rates, and rise in unemployment can all exert negative economic influence on the development of this clinic. Poor income forms a potential socioeconomic factor as the mortality gap between rich and poor, highly educated and poorly educated people has widened over the recent years. Income imbalances are to be blamed for growing life expectancy gaps in the US. US lags behind other developed nations in its healthcare system “in part a consequence of a decades-long decline in the vitality of U.S. primary care” (Sandy, Bodenheimer, Pawlson, & Starfield, 2009, p. 1136). So the need to overcome the political and socioeconomic challenges is very important. Mission statement: “The primary care clinic is a healthcare organization dedicated to provide quality healthcare and prevent disease prevalence in the community. Every member affiliated with this organization is determined to continually seek multiple reliable ways to ensure enhanced patient service. We encourage all members to work in collaboration irrespective of cultural or racial backgrounds to achieve the highest professional objectives. It is strived here to make multifaceted efforts so as to continue the pattern of committed care to the poor community by providing highly specialized and exemplary physical and emotional healthcare services to a broader community and not just the affluent people. Excellence is tried to be achieved by building a work environment where each employee is motivated to participate and voice their innovative suggestions as part of fostering a culture of skilled healthcare.” If this mission statement is analyzed in relation to organizational success and employee motivation, it becomes apparent that professional awareness to ensure quality healthcare and commitment to poor community forms the hallmark of this healthcare clinic. Being highly motivated to provide quality services in an economically responsible manner so as to ensure the physical, social, and emotional wellbeing of the community forms an important aspect of this statement. Lack of ability, skill, and experience to adequately create a balance between primary and specialty care hold serious consequences for healthcare. So the awareness to maintain this balance in addition to making multifaceted efforts on a wider scale as part of overcoming the socioeconomic and political factors makes this mission statement quite comprehensive and optimistic which is important as optimism is critically important to achieve healthcare objectives and maintain health system performance. Performance measures to measure the clinic’s effectiveness: I would rely on three widely used performance measures to measure and assess administrative or organizational efficiency of the primary healthcare clinic under observation namely length of patient stay, charge per admission, and bed occupancy rate. Measures taken to assess a healthcare organization’s effectiveness are called utilization measures. Hospital admission or readmission rates could prove to be quite effective utilization measure because unexpected readmissions of the patients for same clinical conditions for which they have already been treated are indicative of poor healthcare quality and weak administrative system. Such trend towards patient care causing the patients to keep reporting themselves to the hospital again and again would indicate both flawed performance and extreme ineffectiveness of the clinic’s management. Keeping an eye on lengths of patient stay is also an effective measure. Reducing the length of patient stay should be considered critically important by a healthcare setup as part of serving the community on a larger level. Unnecessarily lengthening the duration of patient stay could lead the healthcare organization’s administration to be blamed for unjustified monetary benefits or extreme ignorance. Stays should be kept as short as medically justified (Lazar et al., 2001, p. 945). The pressure of keeping the stays shorter should be taken very seriously as it holds serious consequences for both the patients and clinic’s reputation. Bed occupancy rate is also a key performance measure to measure the healthcare setup’s management’s effectiveness. Some clinics run by irresponsible managers and administrators provide wasteful and uncalled for procedures to patients with minor problems as part of convincing them to admit themselves so as to maintain bed occupancy rate as large numbers of empty beds can also make a clinic’s reputation doubtful. Clinic expansion and annual plan approval: Multiple factors are to be taken into consideration when expansion decisions are to be made. Smaller clinics wishing to expand and going international must be very careful. As this primary healthcare clinic’s consultant, I would take into consideration the political, social, and economic factors when approaching expansion decisions. This is important because the state of local economy, political issues, cultural barriers, societal norms, and management’s negotiation styles can all impact how a business can grow nationally and overseas. Poor negotiation styles can hugely affect the expansion decisions. Management is often contacted by the court to voice their suggestions regarding myriad issues like they might be asked by the jury to explain why government assistance is required for expansion purposes and if the government funding for this purpose would be used justly or not. In such case, poor negotiation styles can negatively affect the expansion prospects of a clinic. Planning primary care annual report is an important decision to be made by primary care clinics and approving those plans and reports is a job to be fulfilled by the primary care committee. I as member of the primary care committee would make decisions by carefully observing the annual plan report. I would take care to make sure the objectives of coordinated management of access to primary care services is included in the plan in addition to increasing the focus on promoting quality care. As I would have direct authority for reviewing and approving the accountability documents, I would take care to approve plan in accordance with funding agreements made with the government. Role of the clinic as a part of the healthcare delivery system: The role of this clinic as a component of the healthcare delivery system is to improve the quality and the problem-solving capability of the services provided at different levels to the community. Focusing on disease control and injury prevention in addition to promoting the objective of catering to the needs of a diverse community are also the key roles of this clinic. Maintaining provision of coordinated 24/7 quality primary care services to the community members at a larger scale also forms a primary objective. Disease prevention and control is a primary objective and multiple strategies are under consideration for achieving this end. On basis of this objective, this clinic can play a highly effective role in terms of addressing regional health challenges. The management and staff of this clinic strive to implement both performance and utilization measures and increasingly collaborate with each other and external consultants for this purpose to keep a check on the state of the setup’s performance and efficiency. As a part of the healthcare delivery system, this clinic plays the important role of improving primary care delivery to both rich and poor community by taking steps to overcome the political and socioeconomic forces. It also plays the role of delivering primary care by implementing plans to adapt to the difficult political challenges and changing socioeconomic state, values, and attitudes of the community. Influence of public healthcare policy on the development of outpatient clinics: Healthcare financing in the US has inflicted significant influence on the development of outpatient clinics and healthcare utilization. The recent global economic crisis affected US also in response of which a series of economic reforms began to be implemented by the government to improve primary care delivery to the nation. Healthcare reform was one of the biggest promises made by President Obama and as a way of keeping this promise, he signed the “Affordable Care Act” after becoming a president as a result of which all American are granted basic access to affordable quality healthcare. Previously, not every American had access to even basic healthcare services but with the advent of this healthcare reform, all Americans now have access to primary healthcare services which is why more outpatient clinics began to develop on a large scale as way of meeting the needs of a growing patient percentage. A significant growth in outpatient clinics and procedures has been noticed recently and as the rate of outpatient revenue is increasing, hospitals are losing their market share. The increase in demand of outpatient services and clinics has become very strong because the consumers more often now head to the outpatient facilities to receive primary care services. One reason why more people are heading to the hospitals especially for outpatient services now is because they can as managed care is ensured to everyone now in America. This has resulted in formation of more outpatient clinics and more patient admissions. CEO of GWU Hospital claims, “last year our admission rate was up 11.8 percent. Thats a significant jump” (McClean, cited in Judd, 2012). References: Judd, J. (2012, Sep 25). Outpatient Services Boost Health Costs. abc NEWS. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=116814&page=1#.UJeeu8UUtKA Lazar, H.L., Fitzgerald, C.A., Ahmad, T., Bao, Y., Colton, T., Shapira, O.M., & Shemin, R.J. (2001). Early discharge after coronary artery bypass graft surgery: are patients really going home earlier? Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, 121, 943-950. Sandy, L.G., Bodenheimer, T., Pawlson, L.G., & Starfield, B. (2009). The Political Economy Of U.S. Primary Care. Health Affairs, 28(4), 1136-1145. Read More