Optimize Healthcare Performance Assignment
Optimize Healthcare Performance Assignment
Healthcare organizations continually seek to optimize healthcare performance. For years, this approach was a three-pronged one known as the Triple Aim, with efforts focused on improved population health, enhanced patient experience, and lower healthcare costs.
More recently, this approach has evolved to a Quadruple Aim by including a focus on improving the work life of healthcare providers. Each of these measures are impacted by decisions made at the organizational level, and organizations have increasingly turned to EBP to inform and justify these decisions.
To Prepare for Optimize Healthcare Performance Assignment:
- Read the articles by Sikka, Morath, & Leape (2015); Crabtree, Brennan, Davis, & Coyle (2016); and Kim et al. (2016) provided in the Resources.
- Reflect on how EBP might impact (or not impact) the Quadruple Aim in healthcare.
- Consider the impact that EBP may have on factors impacting these quadruple aim elements, such as preventable medical errors or healthcare delivery.
To Complete:
Write a brief analysis (no longer than 2 pages) of the connection between EBP and the Quadruple Aim.
Your analysis should address how EBP might (or might not) help reach the Quadruple Aim, including each of the four measures of:
- Patient experience
- Population health
- Costs
- Work life of healthcare providers
Sikka, R., Morath, J. M., & Leape, L. (2015). The Quadruple Aim: Care, health, cost and meaning in work. BMJ Quality & Safety, 24, 608–610. doi:10.1136/bmjqs-2015-004160. Retrieved from https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/qhc/24/10/608.full.pdf
Kim, S. C., Stichler, J. F., Ecoff, L., Brown, C. E., Gallo, A.-M., & Davidson, J. E. (2016). Predictors of evidence-based practice implementation, job satisfaction, and group cohesion among regional fellowship program participants. Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing, 13(5), 340–348. doi:10.1111/wvn.12171
Crabtree, E., Brennan, E., Davis, A., & Coyle, A. (2016). Improving patient care through nursing engagement in evidence-based practice. Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing, 13(2), 172–175. doi:10.1111/wvn.12126
Optimize Healthcare Performance Assignment
Measurement, Optimization, and Impact of Health Care Accessibility: A Methodological Review
Abstract
Despite spending more than any other nation on medical care per person, the United States ranks behind other industrialized nations in key health performance measures. A main cause is the deep disparities in access to care and health outcomes. Federal programs such as the designations of Medically Underserved Areas/Populations and Health Professional Shortage Areas are designed to boost the number of health professionals serving these areas and to help alleviate the access problem. Their effectiveness relies first and foremost on an accurate measure of accessibility so that resources can be allocated to truly needy areas. Various measures of accessibility need to be integrated into one framework for comparison and evaluation. Optimization methods can be used to improve the distribution and supply of health care providers to maximize service coverage, minimize travel needs of patients, limit the number of facilities, and maximize health or access equality. Inequality in health care access comes at a personal and societal price, evidenced in disparities in health outcomes, including late-stage cancer diagnosis. This review surveys recent literature on the three named issues with emphasis on methodological advancements and implications for public policy.
Despite spending more per capita on medical care than any other nation, the United States ranks behind other industrialized nations in key health performance measures (). One major factor is the deep disparities in access to care and health outcomes. Maldistribution of the health care workforce leads to the “shortages amid surplus paradox” (, 212). Disparities between races and between the haves and have-nots in health insurance lead to more than 100,000 excessive deaths each year (). Enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will have enormous implications for the supply and distribution of health care providers and provide great opportunities for researchers, including geographers, on related issues.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has implemented various programs including the designations of Medically Underserved Areas/Populations (MUA/P) and Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) for improving access to health care services for the underserved. The effectiveness of such programs relies on appropriate and accurate measures of accessibility so that resources can be allocated to the neediest areas. Recent advancements in this area have benefited from spatial analysis supported by geographic information systems (GIS) technologies. Many new methods have been developed to improve health care accessibility measures. These methods need to be integrated into one framework to reveal the connection among them and compare their advantages and weaknesses.
Most work uses optimization methods to site health care facilities to maximize service coverage, minimize travel needs of patients, limit the number of facilities, maximize health, or combine some of these goals. Equity in health and health care is widely accepted as an important goal of public policy. Among a diverse set of principles of equity, equal access to health care (for those in equal need) is considered the most appropriate principle for health care policymakers to pursue. Minimizing inequality in health care accessibility helps to identify the adjustments needed to close the gaps.
Inequality in health care access comes at a personal and societal price, evidenced in disparities in various health outcomes. Outcomes include differential rates in infant mortality and birth weight, vaccination, complications from preventive and common diseases, late-stage cancer diagnosis, and quality patient care and survival, among others. Cancer stage (based on tumor size and invasion) at the time of diagnosis plays a critical role in determining the prognosis of patients. This article uses the risk factors of late-stage cancer diagnosis as an example to examine the relationship between health access and outcomes.
This review surveys recent literature on these three closely linked issues with emphasis on methodological advancements. Due to limited space, only representative or the most recent literature is cited on an issue of discussion. The article attempts to synthesize related methods in existing work and identify room for improvements for future studies……..