Acute Care Hospitals - Assignment Example

The paper will focus on the Swedish Covenant Hospital. The analysis aims at augmenting acute health services provided by the hospital. Swedish Covenant Hospital has a bed capacity of 334. The primary objective is to increase the patient capacity in the emergency department. The study also aims at analyzing ways through which government programs can improve the revenue cycle of the hospital. Emergency Department Bed Capacity A recent study revealed that the US hospital capacity in most public health institutions is constrained by the rising population pressure. The government is the dominant health care provider; As such, it has an obligation of influencing the supply of hospital beds. There two categories of hospital patients: the inpatient and the outpatient. The inpatients can be admitted for a single day or for a couple of days (Maheshwari, Paioli, Rothaar & Hill, 2006). Acute health services encompass all prevention, curative, and rehabilitation efforts. The primary objective is to improve the patient health within the shortest time possible. Emergency departments of several acute care hospitals have a limited bed capacity. Patients with acute health condition require urgent short-term treatment. Any delays of in the emergency department may worsen their health condition. Patients with acute condition require lengthy stay in the emergency department. The goal of acute care hospitals is to discharge the patient once they are deemed stable and healthy. However, acute health care is not limited to the emergency department rather it also covers the intensive care department. The federal government has initiated programs that will increase the bed capacity in emergency department of various public hospitals. The government strives to expand the existing hospital capacity or construct additional acute care hospitals especially in the rural areas. Concerns have arisen regarding the increased patient frequency in the emergency department. Most of the hospitals have resulted to diverting some of the patients to other hospitals due to the widespread capacity problem. A study carried out in Chicago revealed that public hospitals inpatient are expected to rise by 4% in the current year, this implies the need to expand the bed capacity by 40%. The Role of the Government on Patient Length of Stay There is a broad disparity in the variation of the pattern of patient discharge and that of patient admission. The underlying reason for the disparity is the way the hospital processes are managed. The processes include inpatients tests, pharmacy and ward transfer. As a result, the length of patient stay in the hospital is unpredictable regardless of the patient condition. On a general note, most of the patients are discharged on Fridays. On the other hand, a less number of patients are discharged over the weekend. The situation is worsened by the fact that patients are admitted seven days a week, but are normally discharged only on the working days (Cunnigham & Liu, 2003). The federal government has instituted measures that promote the public insurance coverage of acute patients. Studies have shown that medical insurance has a major influence on the length of patient stay. The study further reveals that patients without insurance tend to have a considerably shorter length of stay compared to those with private insurance or Medicaid. Additionally, the government can influence the length of stay in public acute care hospitals by expanding their capacity. Most of the public hospitals have a limited a number of employees to cater for the health needs of the rising population. The government should hire more medical practitioners in order to ensure timely provision of health services. More employees translates to less waiting time in the emergency department and in turn results to a minimal length of stay. Transitory Status Patient’s transitional care comprise a wide range of services that are designed to ensure a safe passage of patients from one level of health care to another. Quality transitional care is specifically vital to older people with severe acute conditions (Rathore, et al., 2003). The patients receive health care services from several providers and are moved frequently within the hospital setting. A number of factors results in the gaps in health care during crucial transitions. Inadequate transfer of information and poor means of communication are some of the factors. Language barriers, inadequate knowledge of health issues, and culture diversity further aggravates the problem. The government has initiated programs that create awareness on various health conditions. In addition, it has incorporated multilingual programs in a number of acute care hospitals to alleviate the issues of language barrier. Family caregivers play a crucial role in supporting older people during hospitalization and after they are discharged. Today, great attention is paid to family caregivers in the patient transition period. Sources of Benchmarking Data Executives of public hospitals are aware of the benefits and cost of benchmarking. Examining the hospital’s operation can help in the identifying problems. In addition, it allows the assessment of the progress of competitors. However, benchmarking data can make the hospital executives feel as if they are over-scrutinized. The state health department provides benchmarking data. The data may include financial benchmark, health care quality benchmark, and patient satisfaction benchmark. Benchmarking data can also be retrieved from top performing health institutions. A good example includes the recipients of Fourteen Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award (Healy, et al., 2002). In addition, data from member of University Health Care System Consortium is also suitable for benchmarking Recommended Adjustments A number of studies have revealed that in achieving higher patient satisfaction, the hospital emergency department must re-examine their processes and then on their staff. The studies further revealed that emergency departments with higher capacity scores lowly on patient satisfaction. The underlying reason may be due to the low number of staff in department to match the capacity of the debarment. On the other hand, hospitals with a small bed capacity have a higher patient satisfaction score. However, that does not necessarily mean that hospital with high bed capacity have lower emergency department satisfaction. Therefore, it imperative to state that a high bed capacity should complement an increase in resources. In addition, it is important to understand that the size of the department is not a standard measure of patient satisfaction. Regardless of the size, the emergency department can achieve its objectives with highly motivated staffs and appropriate operating systems (Scot, et al., 2007). The collaboration between major stakeholders is necessary for the efficiency of the emergency department. The design of the hospital emergency department should take in to consideration a number of factors. First, the functioning of the department should be realistic and should depict how the physicians treat different patients with different health conditions. Secondly, the form of the department is crucial since it help promote interaction between the staff and the patients. In additional, an appropriate departmental form smoothens the flow of health care. It is imperative to comprehend the model flexibility as well as the link between the emergency departments with the entire hospital. Thirdly, the department should consider the needs of the patients as well the staff. The primary objective of the department should be the creation of healthy environment for the patient. The environment should be safe to both the patient and the staff. An environment conducive can be enhanced with the department through the application of the Occupational Health and Safety Standards. Payer Mix The ensuing efforts of the state payers to cover hospital costs have elicited concerns among hospital executives. The hospital managers are worried that offering health services to publicly insured patients would undercut the hospital’s revenue cycle management. It argued that hospitals with a higher Medicare and Medicaid payer mix get greater revenue from patient care compared to hospitals with privately insured patients. Additionally, health institutions with higher number of Medicare patients accumulate revenue faster than hospitals with Medicaid patients. However, despites the increase of publicly insured patients, hospital executives can generate satisfactory amount of patient revenue and collect it on a timely manner. Table 1: Budgeted cost of emergency department at Swedish covenant hospital (Cunnigham & Liu, 2003) Budgetary category Cost Personnel cost project director (head of cardiovascular) fringe benefits total $6000 $1800 $7800 Program coordinator (nurse) Salary Fringe benefits Total $42,000 $12,000 $54,000 Home health personnel Salary Fringe benefits total $6,000 $1900 $7,900 Medical fitness personnel Salary Fringe total $2,500 $700 $3,200 Operating/ administration cost Equipment Office supplies (papers, pens, postage) Travel and transportation (travels for training of staff) Utility cost (electricity bills, water bills) Repair and maintenance total $20,000 $600 $600 $500 $1,200 $22,900 Budgeted total cost $72,900 References Cunningham, J. K., & Liu, L. M. (2003). 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