Quality of Care for Patients in the Veterans Health Administration, Research Paper Example

New customers are often described as new stakeholders who are information hungry in the healthcare industry. It is imperative for healthcare leaders to engage with new stakeholders in order to enhance the efficacy of healthcare programs and management. Healthcare leaders must ensure that healthcare organizations are aligned with the needs and expectations of new customers and actively engage communities via the dissemination of information about their services. Within the context of a fledgling economy, new consumers are hungry for data regarding the costs of healthcare services and products. Over 50% of new customers actively seek out pricing data, and approximately 25% use that information in order to compare providers in order to make informed choices about their healthcare (Perna, 2015). One scenario in which consumers are information hungry is when they switch from one healthcare provider to another because they are switching from an HMO or PPO. Such immense changes to provider and type of insurance spawns profound changes in coverage, costs, deductibles, and what doctors a customer is covered for. Another scenario in which new customers are information-hungry stakeholders is in the realm of E-medicine due to the fact that the rise of the internet has caused an explosion of information disseminated, some of which is false. Healthcare leaders thus must actively engage new customers in contemporary ways, meaning face-to-face as well as through the use of technology. E-medicine has gained traction because of how accessible and convenient the internet has become by enabling medical transactions to take place without requiring office visits. A diverse array of educational resources and materials provided by healthcare leaders are necessary in order to ensure that information-hungry customers are armed with sound resources in order to make sound decisions regarding their healthcare

Delivering  healthcare in different forms that would reduce visits to building and increase virtual consults is one out-of-the-box idea that healthcare leaders should consider in order to address modern contingencies that render it difficult for patients to make office visits regularly. The principle of simplicity can be applied to this idea because virtual consults that are specifically tailored to patient needs provide medically sound and concrete information to the patient. The patient does not need to become inconvenienced by having to make an office visit. Rather, he or she receives personalized, credentialed  information with concrete details regarding what recourse the patient should take.

 References

Asch, S., McGlynn, E., Hogan, M., Hayward, R., Shekelle, P., Rubenstein, L., Keesey, J., Adams, J., Kerr, E. (2004). Comparison of quality of care for patients in the Veterans    Health Administration and patients in a national sample. Annals of Internal Medicine, 141(12):938–945.

Jasper, M., & Jumaa, M. (2005). Effective healthcare leadership. United States: Blackwell Publishing.

Perna, G. (2015). Study: Americans hungry for healthcare pricing data. Healthcare Infomatics. Retrieved September 8, 2015 from http://www.healthcare- informatics.com/news-item/study-americans-hungry-healthcare-pricing-data