The Idea of Isolating Hot Spots a Strategy for Improving Costs, Quality and Access to Healthcare - Essay Example

Hotspot The idea of isolating hot spots a strategy for improving costs, quality and access to healthcare Isolating hotspots can also mean keeping away from hot spots. As Brenner was carrying out research on the hotspots, he found that most of the people that many victims paid much money in the hot spots for some diseases such Asthma, complex mental illness, coronary artery disease and many other types of diseases. As a result of this isolating, these hot spots can improve the costs because some of these hot spots take advantage of the large number of victims to raise their costs (Takenaka and Osirim, 2010). So if the number of the patients goes down due to isolation then the medical charges or costs will also have to be improved as a way of attracting more patients to healthcare (Melnyk and Fineout-Overholt, 2011). Secondly, isolating or keeping off from these hot spots can also make them improve their quality and access to their healthcare. The hot spots also take advantage of the many victims visiting their premises for healthcare as a good chance to provide poor services. At some point, they are also forced by the large number of victims to give poor quality services because they give offer their services faster in order to be able to attend to all the victims. They feel as if they experience monopoly in delivering their services hence due to low competition they do not provide adequate healthcare to the patients. For instance, Frank Hendricks whom the doctors identified as the worst of their patients by then was receiving poor medication despite his serious heart failure, chronic asthma, diabetes, hypothyroidism and gout illnesses. Then Brenner started taking care of him until he was discarded form the hospital. He gave him encouragement because he had already lost hope in life due to the poor medication he was getting in the hospital. After a while, Frank goes back to his normal life. This serves as enough evidence that the hot spots never gave patients enough concern and quality medication. Through isolating the hot spots then could give the doctors of the hot spots an alarmed way to improve their services because for instance if, all the patients avoid going and queuing in the emergency room, the doctors will find ways to trap back their patients, and they will obviously improve the quality of the medication in the hospitals (Takenaka and Osirim, 2010). Why patients seek treatment through emergency department Most patients in the region seek treatment through the emergency department because it is where they can get urgent medical treatment. Following the large number of people visiting the hospital, then it is rather difficult to receive treatment via the ordinary channel procedure. This pushes most of the patients to seek medication via the emergency department because patients there are quite quickly attended to. The other reason is that due to the large number of chronic patients the doctors spent most of their time treating and taking care of them hence giving less time to the less serious ill patients making them search for treatment in the emergency department for them to be taken seriously and receive specialized medication. The other reason as to why most of the patients seek treatment through the emergency department it is because they fail to prevent the diseases. In other words is that the people never took into consideration the right measures to protect themselves from getting illnesses. Most of the patients despite the fact that they are also sick they continue to take drugs such as alcohol, which continues to weaken their health hence increasing the number of patients in the emergency department. What Dr. Brenner learned from the community policing approach that helped inform his strategy for better serving community Dr. Brenner after serving the community policing commission he learned about George Kelling and James Q Wilsons broken window theory that minor visible crime neighborhood disorder breeds major crime. This means that the thing in their neighborhood, which seem as merely minor visible crimes end up being big or major crimes in the society (Chainey and Ratcliffe, 2013). Via this knowledge, he was able to carry out a study on the computerized crime maps to come up with the most crime affected areas. He also created maps showing the places where the most crime victims lived due to his suggestion on carrying out scheduled shifts on crime based areas he was beaten, and he withdrew. But due to the knowledge he had gained on this theory he was able to carry out his own research. During his serving period in the community policing commission, he also learned about the former New York City police commissioner William Bratton and the comp stat approach on centering crimes and focusing on resources. This helped him target on the people with the highest healthcare costs and through this he would help in lowering the healthcare costs all over the city. Via this research, he was able to get the correct data and helped him carry out his program on the highly affected regions. Why would a city hospital in Camden be interested in Dr. Brenners idea? A hospital in Camden would be interested in Dr. Brenners idea because for one he helped them get off with the worst patients in the hospital. For instance, the hot spots liked Dr. Brenners idea because he helped them get off with some patients like frank. Frank was the first person whom Dr. Brenner applied his idea on. He took him from a hotspot because the doctors identified him as the worst patient. Frank was suffering from heart failure, chronic asthma, diabetes, hypothyroidism and gout diseases. Due to his smoking and alcohol abuse there earlier of then the doctors were just seeing him as a person awaiting death in the hospital. Due to his infections he weighed five hundred and sixty pounds. Dr. Brenner could just go to the hospital and pay visits to him regularly and talk to him whereby he came to discover that he was a cook, he had a wife and two children. After a certain period Frank was discharged but still he faced many problems and also needed personal care. Dr. Brenner paid him visits, and if he was not able to he could talk to him via the phone. He also had for him a personal nurse who would regularly visit him and check his blood pressure and just see how he was going on with his medication. (Moore, 2011) He also found for him a personal worker who helped him in applying for personal disability insurance where he would get a set of physician to keep checking his health proceedings. Through this Frank was able to recover his health, and this encouraged the doctors so much that they wanted to give him other patients. Dr. Brenners idea on opening a doctors office right outside the hospital or healthcare’s building would catch the interest of many city hospitals (Melnyk and Fineout-Overholt, 2011). This is because if it served better and saved money it would help to reduce the number of patients in the hospitals. The doctors office would help in treating some patients and would be able to save Medicare and Medicaid. It would also initiate same day-doctor visits which mean that they would be able to approach the doctor on a daily basis according to the planned appointments with the doctor. Through this, they would also be able to access night nurse practitioners. Through this idea initiated by Dr. Brenner then the nurses would practice during the night to become specialists in the field of medicine and this would be a good way of increasing the number of nurses. An increased number of nurses would accrue to better healthcare for the patients since each can have a personal nurse. This would also lead to employment of a social worker and a psychologist who would be employed to work for the patients. This would lead to a reduced number of people queuing in the emergency room waiting for medication in the hot spots. Would you still recommend a hot spot approach? Why or why not? Suppose that Dr. Brenners model ideas would improve the quality then costs would not matter because better medication is better compared to the money. This is because so long as there is better healthcare for the people then the costs would have no effect. A hot spot approach is still recommended for because if there is use of it then more people and residents who flock in the emergency room will have their lives saved and life cannot be compared to the money. For this reason, a hot spot approach can be recommended because it also provides a way to get some types of insurance like the way Frank got disability insurance that helped him get his personal doctors. Through this process also the residents can also obtain twenty four hours services, and this can lead to better medication to the patients. Twenty four hours running of the medical centers or the hot spots could also reduce the large number of patients in the emergency room. The other reason as to why the hot spot approach is still commended is because using this approach many of the long ill patient’s number has been able to recover their normal state. For instance take an example of Vibha who was suffering from a heart attack and had been given a cleaning job. She finally got a good way out from the disease (Powell, 2007). She said that this was achieved through credited exercise which they had been encouraged to do, a good dietary changes that she was receiving, the medical adjustments done to her and the strict supervision which she was receiving during the process of medication. The other reason is because the patients could be subjected to specific doctors whom they will have their phone numbers and e-mails. Through this, they will be able to be monitored subsequently, and their health will be easy to control since one person is monitoring their health. The only challenge with this process is the high costs which will be incurred during the process of making most of the leaders feel that it is not an effective way of solving the problem of health but Dr. Brenner is working hard to make sure that he lowers the costs for all Camden by getting some of its primary care to the extent it all over thus it a good ongoing process. 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