Medical Organizational Research Discussion Topics - Essay Example

"Medical Organizational Research Discussion Topics" is an excellent example of a paper on the health system.
Organizational Research Discussion Topics

Current Research Needs

            Every industry would benefit from reputable studies that address existing and incoming deficiencies in their methods. Health care organizations are reacting to major changes in governmental policy that have been well-publicized via the media, though not always accurately (Corbett & Kappagoda, 2013). Resource concerns have become the forefront of many discussions about how these laws will impact operations in the long-term. Funding and staffing are existing issues in the system that will likely be continual topics of study for the impact of policy change. However, a topic of equal and quite possibly greater importance is patient health quality changes that may arise from new government health care policies.

            Health outcomes are indescribably important in the overall evaluation of health organization quality. There is no other primary purpose in the industry that should rival patient health outcomes, and so it is important to be aware of variables that may negatively impact the associated measures. From an organizational perspective, the health of the patient can often be lost in the shadow of resource management, though obvious benefits for the patient can arise from traditional organizational management operations. For example, the hiring of a respected and talented professional will help those who s/he may treat or teach (Hsieh et al., 2013). Organizational management teams will be further burdened with logistical changes that are being felt from the policy change, but they cannot be allowed to ignore the impact of these changes on patient health measures. A health care industry with high profits and poor health outcomes is stripped of any medical intent and would become just another commodity market.

Research-Informed Decisions

            Research that examines the potential and actual impact of policy change on patient health quality would provide essential information for management, staff, and patients throughout the health care system. However, as noted in this course, the research must be of acceptable quality if it is to be of any value to the community. There are a variety of research techniques, like surveys and experiments, that could be implemented to gather data for a variety of variables from different aspects and each is commonly associated with a set of guidelines that are historically proven to assess the value of associated findings. For example, experiments that follow the scientific method will commonly include mathematical statistics that uncover the likelihood of the change in a variable, in this case, a patient health measure like diseases contracted while in care, being present due to chance (Regan, Daleiden, & Chorpita, 2013). The experiment is designed to eliminate or accurately measure any factors that are suspected of being responsible for outcomes that are not due to chance so that the impact of the variable(s), like policy changes, being studied can be isolated for measurement.

            Awareness of research findings on policy change and patient health quality cannot be fully achieved without being aware of how these findings are made. Research is not always good to research and it is important to avoid applying results that may be erroneous due to fundamental errors in design or execution. Checking sources and sticking to reputable journals are good ways to find quality information, but even these publications can let a bad article slip by every so often. For this reason, health care professionals must become at least familiar with the means to assess research quality before accepting and applying the information to their thoughts and decisions.