Bsha Program Outcomes, Essay Example

View Heights Convalescent Hospital, Los Angeles, California

The prospectus is based work conducted at View Heights Convalescent Hospital of Los Angeles, California. View Heights Convalescent Hospital is a multi-faceted health facility whose mission is to provide care at a level where we are treating and meeting the physical, mental, emotional, psychiatric, psychosocial, and spiritual needs of our clientele through care that nurtures, teaches, and empowers our residents to reach and maintain their highest practical level of functioning. At present, I am the Environmental Service Director of the facility. The role of oversight is a recent advancement from my role as staff in the division.

The four outcomes that have affected me and my perception of the healthcare field is: (1) to demonstrate the ability to understand theoretical and practical knowledge I will need to successfully pursue my health care career goals; (2) to demonstrate an understanding of the role of theory in the study of health care administration; (3) to demonstrate the ability to articulate a clear sense of purpose as a professional in the health care field; (4) To illustrate an understanding of analytical (interpretive and quantitative research methodologies) these skills that have influenced my thoughts about today’s healthcare system enables me to be more aware of what really goes on in healthcare and by professors sharing their experiences in the healthcare field.

In the 2010 RAND Corporation study on fiscal waste reductions by healthcare institutions, findings showed that American health organizations have the potential to save up to $3.6 trillion in expenditure costs – all of which might be mitigated effectively with employment of IT based Health Management Information Systems (HMIS) integration (Pizzi, 2010). Five (5) key factors were identified as toward this end: 1) risk reductions to patients through better information;  2) knowledge sharing of patient record toward reduction in the duplication of tests and inappropriate treatments estimated to cost up to $50 billion annually; 3)  managed care and wellness information and early detection education on are of chronic diseases; 4) prevention medicine quality assurance which accounts for $50 billion to $100 billion in annual healthcare spending; and 5) reduction of the 5-10% insurance fraud rate of the roughly $2.3 trillion in government spending on healthcare in the U.S. (Pizzi, 2010).

In my work at View Heights Convalescent Hospital I have noted that when we speak of comprehensive client care, it is precisely at the nexus where fiscal waste, uneven allocations, and accountability to clients by way of education, insurance information, and accountability in record that innovation in HMIS has the capacity to streamline challenges that elderly patients and their families face in prolonged convalescent care. The promise of HMIS as a network of care offers just that. From an organizational perspective, high caliber IT systems integration means that healthcare institutions achieve a new level of market competitiveness through the expansion of intelligence to physicians and specialists seeking new paths to the oversight of patient care. For healthcare administration, the sheer density of medical compendia can now be put into integrated systems applications; scripting an entire range of chain operations and management activities within and between institutions that provide patient care. Consistent with overarching discussion on emergent interests in organizational management, the impetus toward knowledge sharing networks by healthcare institutions is especially sound in that those organization that are looking to IT solutions for a number of reasons: 1) healthcare provider connectivity; 2) increased tracking and management of chronic diseases; 3) responsiveness to patient needs in personal input in care process; 4) market pressures forging agreements between hospitals and physicians; and 5) advances in technologies that work in facilitation of systems operability in those settings (Tan and Payton, 2010).

One point of contention to the drive for better and more integrated IT systems management of patient care is that cutting-edge models proposed within the work on HMIS still require design-in components in systems architecture, and vary from institution to institution. For instance, at View Heights, data management procedures are likely to be unique given the age of the institution. Interconnectivity may also be distinct, and certainly subject to existing ‘legacy system’ issues that must be adequately incorporated in any forthcoming HMIS model. Nevertheless, the argument for such developments, and especially from an environmental services position, is that the core competency of HMIS is succinctly measured by the ability of those systems to create enhanced pathways to knowledge sharing; thus improving the entire process of patient care. Components in consideration of HMIS integration systems planning also include: 1) hardware, software and network schemata; 2) processes, tasks and system(s); 3) integration and inoperability factors; and 4) user inputs, and/or administrative management oversight.

The preeminent question of course is what is the cost of optimized HMIS for lead healthcare institutions? While cost incurred at start-up are significant, what is expended at the stage of planning and construction, is amortized over time as fiscal accountability and spending can be reigned in more effectively with the precision that HMIS provides. Potential benefits to both patients and the institution are great. Acknowledgement that healthcare institutions are inevitably Healthcare Information Technology (HIT) organizations and that Health Informatics (HI) are the foundation to professional practice settings. How that information is classified in HIT in existing operations channels can be reconfigured toward inclusion of a range of record and reporting functions within the clinical care environment. HI classification presents a natural taxonomy. Standardized taxonomies lend themselves readily to codification for management of record in: Customer Relations Management (CRM); Electronic Health Records (EHR); Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP); Personal Health Records (PHR); and Supply Chain Management (SCM) for total operations management, financial control, patient referral and professional knowledge sharing (Tan and Payton, 2010).  Some healthcare institutions now also incorporate supply chain cooperatives in their region into their network, to further logistics and stem of the flow of fiscal waste – saving hundreds of millions of dollars each year (Healthcare Finance News, 2010).

Initiation of new IT HMIS systems might include the lead organization (e.g. hospital), and insurance partnerships and referral institutions in consultancy on consortium of services to clients that they mutually serve. Integrated knowledge share portals will also include operations controllers, managers and physicians working in the various capacities within the institution, and throughout the referral network, on the enormous repository of data that constitutes patient record. Complications in patient provider agreements, such as bundled payment plans, then can be established as priority systems functions within HMIS planning; allowing the abductive reasoning inherent to the artificial intelligence of IT systems to converge all points of required information with one share identification login and password. This is a great boon to families of convalescent patients, as the demand for convenience is high. Pressures to supply those services to patients supersede mere fiscal allocation to services, as patient families drive competitive interests in the conglomerate healthcare industry (Monegain, 2010). This is even true to an extent in public institutions where ‘brand’ is not of issue, but ethics and best practices are high profile politics.

In the emergent healthcare environment, leaders are looking to new IT operations systems as vehicle for forging lean and agile fiscal and resource waste reduction options. Despite the upfront costs of planning and implementation, HMIS enable precision where there once was not. For front line service provision managers, the decoupling point between allocations to sufficient delivery of patient services is typically a contentious one. If efficiency in information is directly linked to ‘duty to a standard of care’ in  hospitals, better control of information channels offers environmental service director’s a comprehensive model of patient care through “patient-centric management systems,” and ultimately sustainable organizational management (Tan and Payton, 2010).

Works Cited

Blue Shield of California extends contract for MedeAnalytics’ claims transparency solution (2010). Healthcare Finance News, February 12, 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com

Illinois Purchasing Collaborative achieves more than $10 million in supply chain savings in four years (2010). Healthcare Finance News,1 July 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com

Kalaf, A.M. et al. (2010).The competitive environment and hospital performance: An empirical investigation. Journal of Medical Marketing, 10 (3), 245-258.

Monegain, B. (2010). N.C. health system to launch bundled payment pilot. Healthcare Finance News, 22 June 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com

Pizzi, R. (2010). Actuarial survey says transparency would reduce healthcare costs. Healthcare Finance News, 29 July 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com

______ (2010). Study outlines $3.6T in potential healthcare waste reductions. Healthcare Finance News, 14 June 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com

Tan, J. and Payton, F.C. (2010). Adaptive Health Management Information Systems: Concepts, Cases, & Practical Applications, Third Edition. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.