Health Care Administration - Admission/Application Essay Example

Executive Summary for a Health Care Program Introduction Presently, health care fragmentation features as one of the issues facing health systems in the country. In this context, fragmentation covers on the lack of synchrony between practices of service providers and expectations of the patient population. Fragmentation causes lack of coordination and collaboration between independent healthcare providers, thus compromising on the continuum of health care efficiency. Despite allocation of huge resources to relevant systems, there is still a profound misalignment between aspects of quality and cost. The issue of misalignment worsened with increasing establishment of private health care institutions coupled with a high number of citizens without health insurance covers. Out of selfish profit objectives, pricing of services in hospitals remains uneven. Correspondingly, the quality of care varies from one institution to another. As a result, the patient population is thrown into an environment of unprecedented fluctuation in terms of quality and cost of medical services (Wolper, 2010). In order to reduce and even eliminate fragmentation in health care, service providers should adopt the use of programs that increase transparency and coordination. One of such programs is Integrated Delivery System (IDS). Purpose Being one of the employees in an institution affected by health care fragmentation, it would be appropriate to initiate a quality improvement project involving utilization of an integrated delivery system in service provision. The purpose of this project is to create a network of interdisciplinary medical experts using a suitable online interface. Currently, there is limited interaction between independent doctors working within a single healthcare institution (David & Neil, 2006). Usually, personnel involved in diagnosis of patients act independently and do not participate in subsequent treatment procedures like prescription of medication or even surgery. Moreover, this issue of limited interaction adversely affects medical personnel working in distinct health care institutions. Admittedly, absence of care coordination between providers leads to problems like under treatment or overtreatment of patients. In this context, the proposed integrated delivery system will merge knowledge and protocols used by institutions sharing the same system. In addition, the system will provide an avenue through which doctors can consult each other and share information regarding to a given patient. Ultimately, presence of professional interaction between service providers causes a situation where patients encounter substantially evenness in terms of cost and quality of services. Target Population Use of integrated delivery system targets primarily the institution’s medical employees. In this context, the target audience for the project includes doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other relevant stakeholders. Rationale for selecting this target population is that the integrated delivery system seeks creates a network between individual medical personnel. In this regard, the aforementioned employees within a health care institution feature as the most relevant medical personnel for the project. Technically, health care employees in medium sized institutions may be between 1000-5000 (David & Neil, 2006). In order to facilitate interaction and information sharing between such large numbers of personnel, an integrated health system is necessary. Apart from linking employees within a single workplace, the integrated system will also target medical personnel in other nearby institutions. Internally, employees in diagnosis rooms will immediately deliver information to those in treatment rooms. In addition, doctors handling a patient’s treatment will interact with a pharmacist in deciding the best medication available. With respect to other institutions, doctors will interact on nature of a patient’s conditions and on whether there may be a specialist in one of the institutions best suited to handle a patient’s treatment procedures. Therefore, the integrated delivery system targets to link both internal and external employees in health care institutions. Benefits of the Project Undeniably, linking relevant personnel in health care settings will yield significant benefits to the institution. First, integration of the project serves as one of the best ways of addressing fragmentation in service provision. An efficient integrated delivery system will eliminate challenges arising from failure of care coordination. Occasionally, patients suffering from chronic illnesses encounter problems of repeated diagnosis and readmission in different hospitals. In this case, duplication of diagnosis leads to increased cost of services (Brown, 2013). On the other hand, unnecessary admission of a patient leads to overtreatment, which not only causes increased cost of services but also elevate risks associated with overexposure to certain treatment procedures. Therefore, the integrated system project will streamline coordination between different stakeholders in ensuring continued efficiency in health care provision. Apart from reducing fragmentation, this program also develops the foundation of sustainable service provision for the future. Elimination of fragmentation will not only enable the institution to develop enhanced designs of service provision but will also lead to optimization of the same processes. Since the institution’s quality of care will improve substantially, so will the reputation. In this context, an excellent reputation is necessary for a sustainable future. Aside from creating a reputation, the system will also improve on the economic aspects of business. Interactions between personnel will lead to sharing of information related to advancement in medical technologies. New technologies usually come with low cost of operation; hence leading to increased revenue. Therefore, the integrated system will significantly uplift the future in terms of improved quality and promising economic aspects. Cost Justification Cost aspects of this program will be evaluated in terms of financial requirements for integration as well as expected returns. As acknowledged in the preceding section, application of the integrated system in service provision will facilitate achievement of profit objectives. However, the cost of integrating the system into the institution should have a positive relation to expected benefits (Brown, 2013). In order to minimize financial and time cost of integration, all the involved health care institutions will be required to contribute required resources equitably. In addition, training will be conducted jointly as a means of minimizing cost spent in creating professional awareness among the target population. In this case, minimizing cost of integration coupled with expected benefits after integration justifies the need to consider this program as a viable quality improvement initiative. Evaluation After integration of the program into service provision processes, the program must be evaluated in order to ascertain its effectiveness in addressing the desired purpose. The project will be evaluated in terms of convenience, cost and benefits. 1 month after integration, nurses, doctors, pharmacists and other stakeholders will participate in a survey exercise. Data collected from a questionnaire survey will indicate whether the system has caused ease in service delivery. In addition, the findings will also show the role of the integrated delivery system in facilitating achievement of the institution’s financial objectives (Wolper, 2010). References Wolper, L. (2010). Health care administration: Managing organized delivery systems. Pittsburg: Jones & Bartlett Learning. David, B. & Neil, G. (2006). The quality solution: The stakeholder’s guide to improving health care. New York: Cengage Learning. Brown, M. (2013). Integrated health care delivery: Theory, practice, evolution and prognosis. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Read More