Accountability in Healthcare Essay

HCA320 Assignment Mod 6:

Assignment:

Accountability in Healthcare

This assignment will be at least 1500 words. Address each bulleted item (topic) in detail including the questions that follow each bullet. There should be three (3) sections in your paper; one for each bullet below. Separate each section in your paper with a clear brief heading that allows your professor to know which bullet you are addressing in that section of your paper. Include a “Conclusion” section that summarizes all topics. Accountability in Healthcare Essay

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This week you will reflect upon accountability in healthcare and address the following questions:

· Briefly define an Accountability Care Organization (ACO) and how it impacts health care providers:

How do ACOs differ from the health maintenance organizations (HMOs) of earlier years

What role does health information technology (HIT) play in the newer models of care?

· What is the benefit of hospitals partnering with primary care providers?

How does bundling payments contain healthcare costs?

How does pay for performance (P4P) improve quality care?

· Briefly discuss the value-based purchasing program?

How do value-based purchasing (VBP) programs affect reimbursement to hospitals? Accountability in Healthcare Essay

Who benefits the most from value-based reimbursement and why?

How does the VBP program measure hospital performance?

Assignment Expectations

Length: 1500-2000 words in length

Structure: Include a title page and reference page in APA format. These do not count towards the minimal word amount for this assignment. Your essay must include an introduction and a conclusion.

References: Use the appropriate APA style in-text citations and references for all resources utilized to answer the questions. A minimum of two (2) scholarly sources are required for this assignment.

In health care, accountability has become a significant concern. Inside a medical facility, accountability has been a part of people’s every move. Even in financial matters, accountability is also observed. It is also beneficial even on little things such as computing the costs for doctor’s time, medicine, hospital bills, pens and papers, salary of nurses, phone lines and electricity, and even to the toilet paper in the hospital restrooms. Through accountability, an organization will have a risk of overuse, mishandling, and underuse of resources. Hence, it is important for management and legal purposes. It also improves the value of patient care by increasing the use of reliable and approved medicine. In terms of performance, health care workers’ accountability reduces risk of medical malpractice applied to patients. Accountability encourages the employees to look forward to further learning and practice in their field (Brinkerhoff, 2003, p.1). If employees and organizations are aware of their accountability, they are more attentive to their work ethics that protects the organization where they belong as well as the patients. Accountability in Healthcare Essay

Measuring accountability helps improving patient outcomes. Reaching the purpose of improving health outcomes needs the hospitals to make progress evaluated by accountability measures. At present times, it shows that such progress occurs at a faster pace. Employee accountability in healthcare has three areas as a basis for measurement. These are performance appraisal, competency management, and learning management (Healthcare Source, 2009, n.p.). When measuring an employee’s accountability through performance appraisal, it notes on the strengths, weaknesses, remarks and earlier performance of an employee. Competency management also measures employees’ accountability as it reviews flexibility and dynamic skills. Lastly, learning management delivers instructional content and evaluates healthcare workers according to their progress. All of these metrics of employee accountability aim to offer quality healthcare to patients.

Ethics, Financial Integrity and Organizational Culture

Accountability and ethics go hand in hand to meet the organization’s mission and vision. However, practicing accountability and ethics by the very people who lead an organization is helpful. Healthcare executives must show the how accountability can positively affect their leadership and management. As these leaders acknowledge their accountability, it reflects into the organization’s culture and soon becomes an ethical practice. Accountability in Healthcare Essay

Checks and balances are very useful in every organization. It helps form a truthful organization and creates reliance. It helps avoid fraudulent acts and inaccuracy in computations. Financial integrity is also one of the aims of using checks and balances. If an organization keeps financial integrity, investors and costumers are confident to associate with this organization (Lessing, 2009, pp.1-7). Hence, an organization must keep it to reach success and the checks and balances are common tools that can help.

In an organization, accountability matters. It influences the organization’s working culture by nurturing each employee’s ethical approach to work and helps build a successful organization. If accountability is not present in an organization, its performance is inefficient and idle. When employees as well as leaders practice accountability, their actions form a habit and routine which eventually becomes a culture within an organization (Freund, 2010, pp.32-36). Hence, accountability forms for a long time to form it into an organizational culture. An organization whose culture includes accountability is more likely to reach successful than those who don’t. Accountability in Healthcare Essay

Maintaining Positive Working Culture

In an organization, complex problems are usually prone to blaming gaming. Sometimes, the employees’ perception is that, whoever is closest to where a problem arises is the one to blame. This has been a common problem for some organizations. However, to meet success, an organization should keep up a positive working culture. Positive work cultures form for a long time and need continuous attention. There are many ways to avoid the blame game in an organization (Physician Coaching Institute, 2006, n.p.). First of all, each member of an organization including the executives must have awareness of the company’s mission and vision. In times of problems, a leader must not get involved in finger-pointing the culprit. He should set an example among his employees. If an employee is the cause of a problem, constructive comments would help to lessen the risk of facing the same problem again but the flaws on the system have to be eliminated as well. There will be a replacement of the policies that usually hinder the progress of employees with effective and easy ones. Lastly, employees should give their opinion to one another in form of writing or in forum so that they are aware of the things that they are accountable to. Delegation Process Accountability in Healthcare Essay

According to National Council of State Boards of Nursing (2012), there are four steps in delegation process of health organizations (pp.1-3).The first step is the assessment and planning, second is communication, third is supervision, and lastly is evaluation and feedback. The assessment stage evaluates the employees who are competent enough to handle a task. Task assignment takes place on this stage. On the communication stage, there will be an exchange of relevant questions between a leader and members. The supervision stage is monitoring the performance of each organization members. Lastly, the evaluation stage will verify if a task is accurately performed and the result is the leader’s feedback. All of these steps play a significant part in the process of delegation. An effective delegation process affects the employees as well as the organization. When there is proper delegation, motivated employees are willing to work harder and contribute their skills which will benefit the organization. A delegation process would also cut the risk of conflict between employees as they are properly assigned of their tasks. Through this process, it is easier to know if a goal is met or not. Accountability in Healthcare Essay

As for my personal experience, I have applied similar steps mentioned above when I met a difficulty in a group project where I was an assigned leader. The duties assigned to each member were not properly distributed at the start. What I did was, I began with assessing the skills of my members and planned the tasks they are given. Then, I communicated the results of the first step to the rest of the group members. I supervised their progress all throughout the time of group work. Lastly, I evaluated their outputs and provided feedback for revisions. These steps helped me solve the problem with regards to distribution of tasks. Accountability in Healthcare Essay

The measure of standards is governed by an element of people’s point of view. (Lippincott et al, 2013) A nurse may consider a certain kind of service delivery as a perfect delivery. In contrast the patient may find the delivery rather below par and unacceptable In medical practice, a team of nurses associated with patient attendance should work together in setting standards of service delivery. One mode of eliminating individualistic standards among nurses is by creating a conceptual framework which governs the standards of service delivery. Quality service delivery statements and protocols can assist in alignment of standards. According to the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, deviations in delivery of healthcare services can be minimized through application of such government …show more content… Accountability in Healthcare Essay
In our scenario we have a patient suffering from throat cancer. This came to be known when the patient was diagnosed by a consultant physician. In medicine a consultant physician is known to be a general practitioner (Caufield,2011). Knowing this fact what can the nurse tell the devastated patient? Will the nurse tell the patient to concur with the fact that throat cancer is generally an incurable disease? Let us say the nurse specializes in cancer treatment and the knowledge he or she has should be able to assist the patient. By telling the patient to visit a specialist in cancer treatment-oncologist, the nurse shows medical integrity. The patient is hopeful but not through false …show more content…
The interests of the nurse in this case should involve both the child and the family. The nurse can not only bank on the child’s decision lest he or she lands in trouble with the law. The parents should be informed if they are not present. If the nurse had ignored the oncology patient wishes, Health, Portability and accountability act would have been violated.
Nurses should be keenly decisive in this modern world as lots of agencies govern healthcare today. Some include. * The joint commission which dwells on competency of nurses and safety issues pertaining patients. * The patient bill of rights which deals with mode of care of patients in healthcare facilities. Accountability in Healthcare Essay

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Conclusion
Professional nurses are should be able to apply professional judgment into the dynamic medical field. All of them are expected to be accountable in the practice in that any actions and gaps left will be questionable. With all regulatory bodies put in place, they are expected to practice epitomes and excellent decision making in the best interests of the legally entrusted party. This will put to drop in litigation of medical practitioners under common negligence law. Accountability in Healthcare Essay