As we’ve moved into the era of patient engagement it is important as an organization that we improve the experience of our patients, reduce cost and develop advancement in population health. I propose that we implement an online patient access portal. This tool will allow patients to engage in their care by accessing their health history, lab images, symptom assessments and payment management. With the use of our patient portal we can work towards an overall improvement in our patients’ health status by building better communication between patients and their providers, encourage our patients to become active participants in their care and developing improved patient and provider interactions. This platform will be a useful tool for patients …show more content…
Providers are now striving for providing and supporting positive experiences for their patients. Through the patient portal the organization can improve patient satisfaction, access to care and most importantly patient involvement for a better patient experience [2]. The patient experience has now been linked to performance due to the provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Reimbursement for providers are now dependent upon patient experience metrics and how they are rated by their patients …show more content…
Providers are held accountable for improving clinical outcomes and cost saving with the initiatives of Meaningful use, Patient-Centered Medical Homes (PCMH), and Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) [3]. Population health consists of reaching all patients not just those that have interacted within the healthcare system. Lately there has been a focus around managing disease groups and preventive care. The best approach for engagement efforts is to offer wellness coaching as part of managing a population’s health [5].
Measurement:
Surveys can be utilized as a measuring tool to capture how effectively patients are able to navigate and manage their care and the ability to be involved in decision making regarding their treatment options. Also they can be used to evaluate communication between patients and provider as well as any opportunities for improvement efforts. Tracking of outcome data can also be beneficial such as follow-up and preventative care appointments, monitoring hospital stays, and emergency room encounters. Also a comparison of the volume and costs associated with both surveys and outcome data
With the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has initiated reimbursement based off of patient satisfaction scores (Murphy, 2014). In fact, “CMS plans to base 30% of hospitals ' scores under the value-based purchasing initiative on patient responses to the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey, or HCAHPS, which measures patient satisfaction” (Daly, 2011, p. 30). Consequently, a hospital’s HCAHPS score could influence 1% of a Medicare’s hospital reimbursement, which could cost between $500,000 and $850,000, depending on the organization (Murphy, 2014).
...on rates have shown to improve when the facility is practicing patient- and family- centered care, which ultimately can increase the reimbursement rates from Medicare and Medicaid. The increase reimbursement rates are extremely important for non-profit health care system such as OhioHealth Mansfield whose revenue comes from over sixty percent in Medicare and Medicaid funding. The PFCC self-assessment tool was analyzed based on OhioHealth Mansfield with strengths and weaknesses, which one big weakness consisted in the personnel domain which consists of support for staff, and the utilization of patients and family involvement in decision making and new employees. The system change of adding the new role of the patient navigator allows collaboration with a diverse team including patient and family members, along with ultimately increasing patient satisfaction rates.
Healthcare organizations must inhere a strategy to stay ahead of their competitors so that they can maintain their patient volume. By measuring the quality of care through performance, patient satisfaction, and experience, and cost all play a role of having patients to choose your hospital. Today, many healthcare organizations have adopted the triple aim strategy of great quality, great patient experience for a reasonable cost. With the tracking of their patient experience and continuously improving the quality of care at a reasonable cost to stay one step ahead of their competitors and to maintain and increase patient volume has been successful help in the healthcare
...lthcare system is slowly shifting from volume to value based care for quality purposes. By allowing physicians to receive payments on value over volume, patients receive quality of care and overall healthcare costs are lowered. The patients’ healthcare experience will be measured in terms of quality instead of how many appointments a physician has. Also, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements are prompting hospitals, physicians and other healthcare organizations to make the value shifts. In response to the evolving healthcare cost, ways to reduce health care cost will be examined. When we lead towards a patient centered system organized around what patients need, everyone has better outcomes. The patient is involved in their healthcare choices and more driven in the health care arena. A value based approach can help significantly in achieving patient-centered care.
The majority of a patient’s care remains within the system, enabling maximum efficiency and coordination. Furthermore, research has shown that ACOS help reduce medical errors, eliminate duplicate services and facilities as well as provide financial incentives to demonstrate high-quality, patient centered care (Richman, Schulman, 2011). Several ACOs across the country are showing an increase in care coordination leads to a reduction in no-shows, improved medication adherence and enhances preventative and chronic care. For example, in a care coordination pilot performed by Trinity Clinic, which is part of an ACO, care coordinators boosted quality and revenue by reducing their no show rate form 4.5% to 2.8% primarily due to a previsit phone call set up by the coordinators (Mullins, Mooney, & Fowler, 2013). ACOS are not the entire solution, but these organizations are certainly a step in the right direction, putting patient satisfaction and quality as part of their fundamental
Unfortunately, the quality of health care in America is flawed. Information technology (IT) offers the potential to address the industry’s most pressing dilemmas: care fragmentation, medical errors, and rising costs. The leading example of this is the electronic health record (EHR). An EHR, as explained by HealthIT.gov (n.d.), is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. It includes, but is not limited to, medical history, diagnoses, medications, and treatment plans. The EHR, then, serves as a resource that aids clinicians in decision-making by providing comprehensive patient information.
Encompassed within the boundaries of this research paper, I will outline the rationale of constructing and implementing a publicly accessible patient portal for a healthcare organization. I will examine the utility, purpose and the technology requirements. Furthermore I will identify key employee involvement and the project tasks to make it operational and conclude with the highly probable benefits that the organization can expect to profit from its use. Despite all of the challenges presented in this paper, the benefits of this project has the potential to provide the organization a substantial return on investment (ROI) as highlighted by Heath Bell when he articulated, “portals are expected to be a key conduit for engaging patients in their care and getting them important health care information as quickly as possible” (Bell. 2012)
Technology is a driving force in our society. People can now manage their bank accounts, pay bills, and get their news with the click of the mouse. It only makes sense that the health care industry would join in on these web-based initiatives. More and more providers are using online patient portals as a means for communicating with patients and allowing them to have access to important health information. While patient portals are still in their emerging stages, positive results are being reported from patients and healthcare professionals alike. Online patient portals allow more effective communications between patients and their healthcare professionals by developing stronger, more utilized relationships and by creating a way to get information out to patients more efficiently. Through this enhanced communication there will be patients that are more actively engaged in their treatment, have stronger relationships with their healthcare professionals, and in many cases have improved medical conditions.
Patients make up a huge part in achieving service excellence for the healthcare industry. My healthcare facility helps the patients redeem themselves and correct with sensitivity. The patients are my customers, and my healthcare facility must remember our mission and vision of giving spectacular healthcare to our customers who are our priority. By giving quality customer service, my healthcare facility earns the gratitude and patronage of its patients. The patients pass their experiences to their families and that keeps my healthcare facilities’ reputation successful
...pital setting and by office managers in a physician office setting, will look at effectiveness- through evidence based data emphasizing on preventing disease and early detection through the use of the right testing. The monitoring will be done using the framework developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which serve “as an indexing system to map the landscape of available measures and measurement gaps for care coordination. The goal of this framework is to start from the top, by achieving care goals through adhering to patient needs and their preferences. Mechanisms vary from communication to creating a proactive plan and they are used to facilitate the goal of care coordination. Overall, this framework serves as a well to assist care coordination. To monitor it, healthcare providers must check off that all of these requirements are met.
The balance between quality patient care and medical necessity is a top priority and the main concern of many of the healthcare organizations today. Due to the rising cost of healthcare, there has been a change in the focus of reimbursement strategies that are affecting the delivery of patient care. This shift from a fee-for-service towards a value-based system creates a challenge that has shifted many providers’ focus more directly on their revenue. As a result, organizations are forced to take a hard look at the cost of services they are providing patients and then determining if the services and level of care are appropriate for the prescribed patient care.
Some of the reasons for the increase in the cost of health care are: third party payments; imperfect market; technology growth, increase in the number of elderly population; current medical model of health care delivery; multi payer system and administrative cost; defensive medicine. One societal issue that healthcare organizations must respond is the high healthcare cost. The high healthcare cost is the reason of increasing burdens of many Americans. A survey was done by Henry Kaiser Family Foundation and learned that 58 percent of people did not seek treatment that they needed because of the rising healthcare cost (Huff/Post50, 2012). Healthcare organization can help with the issue by supporting their community thru social support, education of preventive benefits, health promotion, health management, counseling, and person centered planning. The second societal issue is the healthcare availability. Disparities in healthcare access remain a problem in America. Healthcare organization can help people in the community thru education and behavioral healthcare. According to Wyland (2014), chronic conditions such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and substance use disorders are behaviorally based, necessitating recurring instead of acute intervention to be treated successfully. Educational and community based programs play an important role in preventing disease and injury, improving health, and enhancing quality of life. Everyone have personal responsibility in one’s own health through active participation, education, and lifestyle change (Harkness & DeMarco, 2016). The third issue is the healthcare equity. The reason of gaps in the quality of care is due to the inability of healthcare organizations to integrate improvement measures into the process of care (Mayberry, Nicewander, Qin, & Ballard, 2006). It is important to ensure that care is accessible and
In 2015, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) released the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) which implements the final rule which offers financial incentives for Medicare clinicians to deliver high-quality patient centered care.5 Essentially, taking the time to learn the patient’s goals and treatment preferences allows for the patient to walk away from the medical treatment or service feeling understood and cared for by the provider.4 Thus, resulting in a better, more comprehensive plan of care. Policy makers are hopeful that the new incentive-based payment system will accelerate improvement efforts.
Health care must be fully accountable for quality and the patient experience is simply the patient's perception of quality. Society should question and debate on how healthcare organizations should show improvement for consumers. This can help organizations create reliable health coverage cost and evaluate medical performances for families and individuals in the future. Physicians and organizations are now evaluating patients with collection of electronic data to improve a patient’s...
Health informatics makes this possible through new technologies. It allows patients take charge of their own health allowing them to become their own health advocate. Through patient portals and web application patients will have the ability to monitor their own health in addition to having more access to their own health information. Being able to manage and access their own information helps patients to seek preventative care and be proactive with their health, especially for patients with chronic health issues.