Discussion Post
Developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), “High-Impact Leadership: Improve Care, Improve the Health of Populations, and Reduce Costs” white paper presents three intertwined care dimensions related to leadership. Considering that the contemporary health care environment requires innovative approaches, their implementation seems to be beneficial. For example, the Miami-Dade Primary Care Center may be noted as an organization that transitioned from volume to value by applying new mental models in managing patients. In particular, the aspect formulated as follows was adopted by the local leaders: “individuals and families are partners in their care” (Swensen, Pugh, McMullan, & Kabcenell, 2013, p. 3). The solutions to challenges existing in care provision were considered from the different perspective.
The leaders of the Miami-Dade Primary Care Center introduced patient-centred care and declared that patients and their families are significant contributors who may positively impact the care process and their own health outcomes. In other words, the perception of patients altered from satisfying them to regarding as partners. Each team member was instructed on how to change the way he or she think of one or another situation in terms of care delivery. Promotion of respect, trust, and relationship was put at the core of health care services, which allowed decreasing the level of misunderstanding and improper diagnostics and treatment. As a result, care costs were considerably reduced, while higher patient engagement and awareness were achieved. Such an approach to patients and the organization’s internal environment also led to more focused care along with quality improvement regarding staff routine performance. The experience of this organization illustrates that by rethinking care design, it is possible to transform care delivery from a volume- to value-based system.
Response to Peers’ Posts
Post 1
Elyzabeth’s post discusses engagement of staff working for the Joseph M Still Burn Center (JMS) at Doctors Hospital. The opportunity provided to all employees to attend the journal club is, indeed, reflects the idea of ensuring the highest care quality. Developing the above idea, Van Bogaert, van Heusden, Timmermans, and Franck (2014) study the mechanisms through which nurses create care environment and provide assistance to patients. The authors claim that the cooperation of nurses, experience sharing, and collective discussion of important care-related issues enhances patient outcomes and satisfaction (Van Bogaert et al., 2014). More to the point, meetings and clubs contribute to the fact that every member of a team becomes involved in care planning and provision, which also enhances nurses’ job satisfaction. In this case, the question that arises is as follows: what are dimensions and characteristics of a thought-provoking and contributory meeting?
Post 2
The post by Latoya is convincing and argumentative, focusing on patients’ needs visiting a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). When the majority of patients have financial struggles, health care costs become unaffordable for them, which create additional challenges in accessing care and supporting one’s health. According to Linzer et al. (2015), many physicians and nurses point to time pressure when the duration of patient visits is limited to 15-20 minutes. While brief visits were initially introduced to cover as many patients as possible, such a strategy led to health concerns left unaddressed and superficial understanding of patients’ needs. Therefore, the idea presented by Latoya seems to be relevant to the modern expectations of patients. However, it is still unclear how to increase the duration of visits and provide care to all people who need it. In other words, how to move from volume to quality while preserving the availability and affordability of care services?
References
Linzer, M., Bitton, A., Tu, S. P., Plews-Ogan, M., Horowitz, K. R., & Schwartz, M. D. (2015). The end of the 15–20 minute primary care visit. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 30(11), 1584-1586.
Swensen, S., Pugh, M., McMullan, C., & Kabcenell, A. (2013). High-impact leadership: Improve care, improve the health of populations, and reduce costs. Cambridge, MA: Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
Van Bogaert, P., van Heusden, D., Timmermans, O., & Franck, E. (2014). Nurse work engagement impacts job outcome and nurse-assessed quality of care: Model testing with nurse practice environment and nurse work characteristics as predictors. Frontiers in Psychology, 5(1261), 1-11.