Rural Health Care in the Economic Downturn - Essay Example

The essay refers to “Case Study of Rural Health Care in the Economic Downturn" by the North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center.

Healthcare facilities have energy-intensive buildings and use more energy than other forms of buildings per square meter. Energy efficiency is critical to freeing capital trapped within conventional hospital infrastructure. Approaches to energy efficiency will provide clean, cheap, and abundant to Ashe Memorial Hospital in the delivery of immediate hospital savings. The hospital will improve financial performance by making advanced decisions in energy management. Ashe Memorial Hospital should focus on achieving sustainable utility cost reductions and savings across the building’s life cycle (Borkowski & Deckard, 2013). The approach generates new cash and increased capital continuously. It is important to note that hospital investment in efficient procedures has appreciable impacts on hospital financial performance. However, there is a need to have consistency in implementing the stability of cost per case and cash flow.

The reduction of penalties and carbon taxes grows energy efficiency in the future while Ashe Memorial Hospital endorses the ability to full compliance with regulators and accreditation organizations in its operations. The reduced potential for preventable adverse events includes infant abductions as well as unexpected patient departures for improved security of patients, staff, and assets without extra costs (Twaddle, 2002). Lower levels of power failure and patient injuries as well as death due to electrical fires or power failure reduce the potential for higher costs. The application of intelligent healthcare solutions provides Ashe Memorial Hospital with an opportunity of improving the hospital’s financial performance. Other benefits of automation include higher productivity levels and overall patient satisfaction, safety, and security. In addition, improved healing environments have reduced the possibility of healthcare-acquired infections based on infection control system integration.

Within this context, Ashe Memorial Hospital is challenged to achieve high quality without incurring higher healthcare costs. The hospital management faces additional tasks of developing procedures, incentives, and policies to improve the health care quality in domains that are traditionally associated with highly autonomous professionals. All quality improvement practices in Ashe Memorial Hospital should be merged as an alternative to concepts in quality assurance as well as developing reactions to shortcomings and control strategies based on outcomes (Borkowski & Deckard, 2013).

In summary, with the increased mounting pressure of maintaining and improving quality in the rise of strategic resources, Ashe Memorial Hospital should look into process improvements as ways of providing high-quality care and containing healthcare costs. Even with the adoption of the systems appearing as internally generated responses to changes in market conditions, accrediting bodies encourage hospitals to implement efficient measures. Success is achieved through the simplification of accreditation standards while making it easier for hospitals to implement and adopt such practices. Lastly, the hospital should create easier-to-maintain buildings through systems allowing for improved predictive maintenance planning.