As indicated in chapter 58 of the Mason et al. (2016) textbook, policy makers and stakeholders have examined the impact on compromised patient safety and quality, increasing costs, and growing rates of uninsured and underinsured individuals. That said, the U.S. has developed various policies to address these challenges. Based on your professional experience and from your readings, what are the fundamental strategies of public reporting, performance measurement, and value-based payment in order to lead a high value health care agenda? Also, discuss approaches on how health care payment and delivery models can impact quality of care. Please support your claims with the use of research studies, reports, and/or reliable electronic sources.
Policy Advocacy and Healthcare Ethics
Based on your professional experience and from your readings, what are the fundamental strategies of public reporting, performance measurement, and value-based payment in order to lead a high value health care agenda?
Based on professional experience and readings, the health care industry is struggling with uneven quality and rising costs. This is despite the hard-work of well-trained, well-intentioned medical personnel. While many strategies have been tried and either had a minimal impact or failed (such as implementing electronic health records, making patients better consumers, enforcing practice guidelines, reducing errors and attacking fraud), there is a fundamental strategy that would work. This strategy shifts health care systems from supply-driven organization arranged around what medical personnel do towards a patient-centered organization arranged around what the patients need. Policy Advocacy and Healthcare Ethics Essay Discussion Paper This strategy focuses on achieving the best outcomes at the lowest costs thereby essentially maximizing value for the patients. It shifts focus from the profitability and volume of services offered by medical personnel (such as tests, procedures, hospitalizations and physician visits), to the care outcomes achieved for patients (Koutoukidis & Stainton, 2020). With this new strategy, instead of medical providers and organizations offering a full range of services, they would shift towards offering services for particular medical conditions thereby presenting the right locations for delivering high-value care. This new strategy is supported by: building an enabling information technology platform, expanding geographic reach, integrating care across separate facilities, developing bundled prices for the full care cycle, measuring costs and outcomes for each patients, and organizing care around the patient’s medical condition rather than the specialties of the medical personnel (Buppert, 2020).
Discuss approaches on how health care payment and delivery models can impact quality of care.
There are four main types of health care payment and delivery models that have an impact of quality of care. The first model is the single-payer national health service model that is applied in Cuba, New Zealand, Spain and United Kingdom. It is centralized through the establishment of a national health service with the government acting as a single-payer to eliminate competition and keep prices low. While this model keeps costs low and standardizes care across the country with guaranteed access to health service, this model has long-waiting lines, is easily over utilized resulting in increasing costs, and funding may decline if government faces a crisis such as war or declining public revenue. The second model is the social health insurance model that is applied in Switzerland, Japan, Belgium and Germany. It is a decentralized model where employees and employers fund health insurance through compulsory payroll deductions. Also, every employed person is covered by private insurance plans regardless of preexisting conditions. It focuses resources on those who can make financial contributions, so that the unemployed or those unable to afford insurance contributions cannot access care. Additionally, it creates concerns about retired citizens. The third model is the single-payer national health insurance model that is applied in the USA (medicare), South Korea, Taiwan and Canada. It seeks a balance between private and public insurance so that financial barriers to treatment are minimized and patients are able to choose health care providers. It reduces costs, but patients may face long delays. The fourth model is market-driven health care that is applied in South America, Africa, China and India. Patients must pay for health care out of pocket. Unfortunately, the poor are unable to afford appropriate health care such that wealth disparities lead to health disparities (Stevenson, 2018).
References
Buppert, C. (2020). Nurse Practitioner’s Business Practice and Legal Guide (7th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.
Koutoukidis, G., & Stainton, K. (2020). Tabbner’s Nursing Care: Theory and Practice. Elsevier.
Stevenson, T. (2018). Health Care: Limits, Laws, and Lives at Stake. Lucent Press.
Policy Advocacy and Healthcare Ethics Essay Discussion Paper