Process of Care Paper

Details:

1) Access the Hospital Compare website (https://www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/search.html) and select a local hospital. Look at the hospital’s publically reported indicators for Process of Care.

2) Write a paper of 1,200 words that analyzes how the selected hospital performs on these indicators versus two of its competitors. Include your thoughts on the pros and cons of publically reporting these data sets.

3) Refer to the website and incorporate specific examples and details into your paper.

4) Prepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

5) This assignment uses a grading rubric. Instructors will be using the rubric to grade the assignment; therefore, students should review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the assignment criteria and expectations for successful completion of the assignment.

Process of Care

The provision of quality health care is essential to patient recovery and healing, and lies at the core of the heath care sector. As such, it is vital to ensure that all health care facilities are well equipped and capable of guaranteeing an effective process of care that is of maximum benefit to patients (Drake-Land, 2008). In this respect, it is vital to ensure that health care facilities are equipped with the requisite facilities to ensure that every stage of the process of care is well tended to (Aston, 2010). Many health care facilities rely on various reported metrics to determine just how well they observe the process of care and its associated aspects.

Locally, one of the best and most effective health care facilities is the Baylor Scott and White Medical Center. It is one of the leading hospitals in Texas insofar as the provision of acute care is concerned. At the same time, there are other facilities that provide acute care to patients, and are as such viable competitors of the Baylor Scott and White Medical Center.

However, it should be acknowledged that this ability of various facilities to provide acute care to patients does not necessarily translate into the correct and required observation of the process of care (Larkin, 2009). Two of the facilities that compete with the aforementioned one on matters of providing acute care include Seton Medical Center and the Metroplex Hospital.

Insofar as these three health care facilities are concerned, it should be noted that they all offer acute care, emergency services, and also use an inpatient safe surgery checklist to guarantee successful and safe surgeries (Medicare, 2018). With regards to the provision of timey and effective care, it should be noted that all facilities post similar results.

For instance, all facilities post rates of between 4-6% as the percentage of patients that left the emergency department before being attended to (Medicare, 2018). Insofar as early scheduled deliveries for expectant mothers are concerned, Seton Medical Center has the worst performance with approximately 2% of mothers having their deliveries scheduled 1-2 weeks early (Medicare, 2018). For the same metric, Metroplex Hospital has 1% while the Baylor Scott and White surprisingly has 0% of early scheduled deliveries.

Insofar as health complications and death are concerned, Baylor Scott and White posts figures that are similar to the national rates on aspects such as serious complications and death from serious complications post-surgery. This is also the case with the Seton Medical Center and Metroplex Hospital facilities. At the same time, infection rates and 30-day death rates for all three facilities are similar to the national rates and benchmarks (Medicare, 2018).

In a similar fashion, unplanned readmission rates in Baylor Scott and White are similar to the national benchmarks and this also applies to both the Seton Medical Center and Metroplex Hospital facilities. On the matter of using medical imaging during the process of care, the unavailability of data from all three facilities raises significant questions (Aston, 2010). It seriously challenges the capacity of these facilities to facilitate proper and safe medical imaging during the process of care to patients in ways that allow them to receive the best possible care (Drake-Land, 2008). For patients that are looking to procure medical imaging services, this absence of data can be a worrisome aspect.

When it comes to payment and value of care across the three different facilities, some differences are observed. Insofar as heart attack payments are concerned, Baylor Scott and White charges the same as the national average, and so does Metroplex Hospital (Medicare, 2018). However, Seton Medical Center charges patients payments that are much greater than the national average payment, which stands at $23,119. For heart failure patients, all three facilities charge values greater than the national average of $16,190. When it comes to the value of care for patients, Baylor Scott and White, Metroplex Hospital, and Seton Medical Center all post figures that are similar to the national averages, payments, and death rates (Medicare, 2018).

It should be clearly noted that the various data sets reported on the three different facilities have both advantages and disadvantages with varying implications (McMains, 2016). The first and arguably most impactful advantage is that it allows patients to carefully analyze and assess the performances of different facilities within their regions before settling on the one they with most commonly utilize.

Too often, patients pay significantly high prices to obtain and maintain their health care insurance and it is only right that said patients get to access the best quality of care possible, and particularly insofar as the process of care itself is concerned (Larkin, 2009). This comparative analysis also pushes facilities towards continuous improvement and development to ensure that they can keep up with their competition on the market and maintain their operations (Yasgur, 2012).

This competitiveness among different facilities within the same region of matters performance and process of care only work in favor of the patient. They promote the improvement of health care quality and attention paid to the process of care, thereby raising the standards of health care provision within the region in question (Aston, 2010). This comparative analysis also allows patients and health care professionals alike to gauge the performance of their facilities with the national rates, benchmarks, and averages.

By providing such a reference point to the data presented on the different health care facilities with regards to the process of care, patients and the general public can have the proper context within which to evaluate their facilities. For instance, if a patient looking to obtain heart attack care were to conduct a comparative analysis of the various facilities in Texas, they would most likely avoid going to Seton Medical Center for treatment seeing as it charges values much higher than Baylor Scott and White, Metroplex Hospital, or even the national average. Such decisions can save patients and their families thousands of dollars in health care costs, and significantly impact the quality of life that patients and their families live.

On the other hand, the reporting of such data sets on various health care facilities can be unfair, unnecessary, and detrimental to the development of health care. First off, the comparative analysis performed is based on reported data sets from individual facilities. It does not take into account the infrastructural, expertise, or financial differences between different facilities and how they affect the process of care (McMains, 2016).

For instance, it is clear that all facilities are able to electronically receive or track the laboratory results of its patients during and between visits to the facility. It is unclear, however, what specific factors affect the performances of each hospital. The absence of this information provides a skewed picture and analysis, which can easily deceive patients and the general public (Larkin, 2009). It would be much better if the comparative analysis factored in the differences between the facilities before comparing them to one another. This would provide a more accurate picture of the state in which every facility is.

Lastly, this public reporting can easily discourage health care professionals such as physicians from working in certain facilities on account of their poor comparative performance (Yasgur, 2012). This is counterproductive and works against the realization of well-equipped and staffed health care facilities that embrace and embody the process of care in the delivery of health care services.

References

Aston, G. (2010). Comparative effectiveness. Federal government’s push for more data to benefit supply chain. Materials Management in Health Care, 19(4), 22-25.

Drake-Land, B. (2008). CMS never events. Healthforum.com. Retrieved from

http://www.healthforum.com/connect/resources/pdf-files/rlsolutions-2014-0603-wp-cmsnever.pdf

Larkin, H. (2009). 10 years, 5 voices, 1 challenge. To Err is Human jump-started a movement to        improve patient safety. How far have we come? Where do we go from here? Hospitals &      Health Networks, 83(10), 24-28.

McMains, V. (2016). Johns Hopkins study suggests medical errors are third-leading cause of

death in U.S. The Hub. Retrieved from https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/05/03/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death/

Medicare. (2018). Medicare Hospital Comparison. Medicare.gov. Retrieved from

https://www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/compare.html#cmprTab=0&cmprID=450054%2C670080%2C450152&cmprDist=0.0%2C0.0%2C0.0&stsltd=TX&dist=200&state=TX&county=BELL&lat=0&lng=0

Yasgur, B. (2012). Should you reveal non-harmful mistakes to patients? Medscape. Retrieved   from https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/775379