Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Competing needs arise within any organization as employees seek to meet their targets and leaders seek to meet company goals. As a leader, successful management of these goals requires establishing priorities and allocating resources accordingly.

Within a healthcare setting, the needs of the workforce, resources, and patients are often in conflict. Mandatory overtime, implementation of staffing ratios, use of unlicensed assisting personnel, and employer reductions of education benefits are examples of practices that might lead to conflicting needs in practice.

Leaders can contribute to both the problem and the solution through policies, action, and inaction. In this Assignment, you will further develop the white paper you began work on in Module 1 by addressing competing needs within your organization. Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

To Prepare:

Review the national healthcare issue/stressor you examined in your Assignment for Module 1, and review the analysis of the healthcare issue/stressor you selected.
Identify and review two evidence-based scholarly resources that focus on proposed policies/practices to apply to your selected healthcare issue/stressor.
Reflect on the feedback you received from your colleagues on your Discussion post regarding competing needs.

The Assignment (4-5 pages): Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Developing Organizational Policies and Practices

Add a section to the paper you submitted in Module 1. The new section should address the following:

Identify and describe at least two competing needs impacting your selected healthcare issue/stressor.
Describe a relevant policy or practice in your organization that may influence your selected healthcare issue/stressor.
Critique the policy for ethical considerations, and explain the policy’s strengths and challenges in promoting ethics.
Recommend one or more policy or practice changes designed to balance the competing needs of resources, workers, and patients, while addressing any ethical shortcomings of the existing policies. Be specific and provide examples. Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue
Cite evidence that informs the healthcare issue/stressor and/or the policies, and provide two scholarly resources in support of your policy or practice recommendations. Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

National Healthcare Issue/Stressor and Impact in the Organization

The current healthcare reforms on payment have high chances of affecting the work settings for physicians. Previously, there was the volume-based payment system where doctors in all healthcare facilities got paid depending on the volume of the healthcare or service that they provided (Gerardi, Farmer, & Hoffman, 2018). Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

The changes that have been brought forth will change the workplace and not in favor of doctors. The value-based payment that has been proposed will require that all healthcare facilities get analyzed in terms of its cost-efficiency, quality, and also the achievements that the healthcare facility has made over the past few months. The value-based system will see physicians report on the time they take before a patient can see them and also the cancelations that get made at a particular period. Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Nevertheless, the adoption of the ideal alternative payment model has been slow. This has been due to the challenges faced in effectively delivering healthcare services in the organization. According to the hospital’s performance data, it is clear that the value-based payment system have influenced the organization’s healthcare delivery and resource utilization. Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Summary of Reviews of Healthcare Issue/Stressor Addressed in Other Organizations.

Furthermore, a research carried out by LaPointe (2020), thirty nine percent of healthcare payments were done through the fee-for-service, whereas about twenty-five percent of payment featured fee for service with an aspect of quality of service delivered. These payments involved pay for performance or pay for reporting incentive payments. The main impact of the slow adoption has been linked with ineffective training on aligning healthcare management towards promoting effective value-based payment model in the healthcare center. Furthermore, the alternative payment model is deemed to be expensive due to a lack of a clear connection between the payment model and quality improvement programs. Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Miller (2019) asserts that the foundation of an effective value-based payment model is a strong primary care. This is because primary care has the ability to treat and prevent healthcare issues in a community, and thus reduce the cost of healthcare and improving the health status of a community. Nevertheless, the issues identified in the organization are the increased shortage of primary care physicians in the organization. In turn, several primary care physicians are suffering from burnout, which further affects the quality of healthcare service in the organization. Miller (2019) asserts that this is mainly as a result of the failure of the alternative payment models in the US to avail adequate resources to enhance high-quality primary care. Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Strategies used to address issues caused by the Changing Healthcare Payment Model

Counte et al. (2019) asserts that the US alternative payment model could also inappropriately allocate accountability to hospitals and physicians for services they cannot or did not deliver. At the same time, the new payment model fails to make healthcare professionals accountable for other primary services they deliver. Furthermore, the payment model fails to give hospitals, physicians and other providers with the required information to regulate healthcare spending without implicating patients. Hence, it can be addressed by setting a desirable target reach for every performance measure in advance. This generally means that the performance measures can include quality measures and avoidable hospitalization rate. In turn, primary care practices are conducted based on the expected level so as to receive the determined payment target. Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

So as to tackle the issues resulting from the alternative payment model in various healthcare settings, Tchatchoua (2018) argues that health organizations can develop a primary healthcare strategy that aligns healthcare quality measures and financial incentives. This requires a health organization to adopt a payment system that considers the needs of patients with other health issues apart from hypertension and diabetes. Basically, this strategy aims at improving primary care so as to prevent health issues that can be avoided, which actually lead to over-utilization of healthcare resources in the organization. Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Impacts of these strategies on the Organization

Healthcare organizations are seen to adopt various strategies to tackle issues associated with the changing payment models. One of the strategies adopted include establishment of different performance measures for each healthcare aspect. This includes a set target for quality of healthcare as well as a separate target for preventing healthcare issues. This strategy will positively impact the organization by increasing enhancing primary care by integrating healthcare professionals with varying skills and background and training. Moreover, it will improve collaboration among the physicians and healthcare providers. There will be an increase in the number of physician clinicians, which gets aimed at reducing the cost of providing services to patients. There will be a change in the work setting
where the organization will increase the use of team-based and inter-professional clinical practice (Auerbach, Staiger, & Buerhaus, 2018). Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Conclusion

On the hand, this will require effective training of healthcare administrators in the organization to effectively align the different performance measures holistically. Despite that this will improve the quality of healthcare services in the long term; the organization will have to increase its budget on training the staff and acquire the required resources to enhance the success of the strategy. This means that the strategy will require additional financial resources during its initial stage. Furthermore, the strategies may require the need of a healthcare team that is adept on contemporary healthcare standards so as to further enhance the implementation of the strategies that aim at improving quality of healthcare and reduce costs of healthcare services. Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

References for Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Auerbach, D. I., Staiger, D. O., & Buerhaus, P. I. (2018). Growing ranks of advanced practice
clinicians—Implications for the physician workforce. New England Journal of Medicine, 378(25), 2358–2360. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp

Counte, M. A., Howard, S. W., Chang, L., Aaronson, W. (2019). Global Advances in Value-Based Payment and Their Implications for Global Health Management Education, Development, and Practice. Frontiers in public health, 6(379), doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2018.00379

Gerardi, T., Farmer, P., & Hoffman, B. (2018). Moving closer to the 2020 BSN-prepared
workforce goal. American Journal of Nursing, 118(2), 43–45.
doi:10.1097/01.NAJ.0000530244.15217.aa

LaPointe, J. (2020). Entering the Next Phase of Value-Based Care, Payment Reform. Retrieved from: https://revcycleintelligence.com/features/entering-the-next-phase-of-value-based-care-payment-reform

Miller, H. (2019). The Problems with “Primary Care First” and How to Fix Them. Pittsburgh, PA: Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform.

Tchatchoua, J. (2018). Strategies for Improving Healthcare Efficiency While Reducing Costs (Doctoral Thesis). Minneapolis, MN: Walden University.

Learning Resources for Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Required Readings

American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. Silver Spring, MD: Author. Retrieved from https://www.nursingworld.org/coe-view-only

Note: Review all, with special attention to “Provision 6” (pp. 23–26).

Kelly, P., & Porr, C. (2018). Ethical nursing care versus cost containment: Considerations to enhance RN practice. OJIN: Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(1), Manuscript 6. doi:10.3912/OJIN.Vol23No01Man06. Retrieved from http://ojin.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/Vol-23-2018/No1-Jan-2018/Ethical-Nursing-Cost-Containment.html

Milliken, A. (2018). Ethical awareness: What it is and why it matters. OJIN: Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(1), Manuscript 1. doi:10.3912/OJIN.Vol23No01Man01. Retrieved from http://ojin.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/Vol-23-2018/No1-Jan-2018/Ethical-Awareness.html

Required Media for Network Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Laureate Education (Producer). (2012). Ethical, Moral, and Legal Leadership [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Laureate Education (Producer). (2009b). Working with Individuals [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.