Delivery Models in Health Care Essay

Delivery Models in Health Care Essay

Delivery Models in Health Care Essay

All populations deserve quality, safe, and cost-effective health care that improves over time. As health care providers strive to achieve this critical goal, they need structures and models to guide their daily practice. Their objectives and values should be guided by the desire to improve patients and populations health as situations impose. A significant number of models guiding routine practice have been there for a long time, while others emerge over time to address emerging demands. In each case, the primary objective is to ensure that the desired health outcomes are achieved at the organizational, community, and national levels. This paper discusses the triple aim as it relates to population health management and delivery models, current trends in health care delivery models, and how quality and safety impact delivery models.

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Triple Aim as it Relates to Population Health Management and Delivery Models

The connection between the triple aim and population health management and delivery models is founded on promoting quality, safe, and cost-effective care. According to Jha (2019), population health management involves the commitment of health care organizations to support patients across the continuum of care. A suitable example is a hospital or a nursing home launching a multipronged initiative for identifying and helping at-risk populations via focused care. Such an approach is specific to population needs and focuses on enhancing health outcomes. In health practice, delivery models provide a structured system for responsibilities and approaches to provide optimal care (Brown & Lutz, 2020). Many models have evolved to include elements that enable health care professionals to meet current demands.

Improving Patient Experience

Patients visit health care organizations looking forward to cordial welcome and being handled by responsible staff. Diagnosis and treatment plans should be patient-centered as possible, and follow-up measures should be planned as the situations necessitate. Improving patient experience is a key component of the triple aim framework, which health care providers achieve by providing quality and satisfactory care (Institute for Healthcare Improvement, 2021). Achieving this goal obliges health care professionals to adopt measures that reduce delays and readmissions and improve patient-provider communication, among other strategies that promote quality and satisfaction.

Improving the Health of Populations

The second component of the triple aim is improving populations’ health. Here, the focus broadens since the objective is to address the entire population’s needs. Al Jasser and Almoajel (2020) lauded the broadened focus by claiming that it is crucial for advancing medical care, population safety, and health care research. It also enables health care providers to overcome health care barriers related to safety, access, and cost by promoting preventive care and primary care initiatives at the community levels. Optimal population health further reduces inpatient visits and the overall cost of health care. Hence, it should be a priority area when seeking ways to provide quality, safe, and cost-effective health care.

Reducing the Per Capita Cost of Health Care

The third component of the triple aim is health care affordability. According to Tikkanen and Abrams (2020), the US health care system is the most expensive worldwide, implying the need for practical and evidence-based interventions to make it more affordable. However, more global health problems emerge over time, increasing the pressure to provide affordable and value-based health care. For instance, chronic health problems increase as age advances, with pandemics such as the COVID-19 consuming a significant portion of the health care budget. Health care organizations must develop initiatives to deliver greater value cost-effectively.

Regarding the connection between the triple aim and population health management, population health should be guided by the triple aim. Quality and satisfaction should be prioritized, overall health should improve over time, and interventions should not increase the overall cost of health care delivery. For instance, health education to promote preventive health and screening to identify high-risk populations are effective strategies founded on the triple aim. Such strategies also reduce the per capita health care cost since they reduce treatment cost and exposure to costly diseases.

Health care delivery models should also strive to achieve the triple aim. In today’s practice, approaches that recommend teamwork and proactive response to health care problems are highly encouraged. Health care delivery founded on the triple aim should be innovative, engage the patient and family, and promote total healing. As a result, traditional models must evolve to include patients in the care process, foster patient-centeredness, and ensure that the process is convenient and affordable.

Current Trends in Health Care Delivery Models

Health challenges have evolved, prompting the evolution of health care approaches and models to ensure quality care and patient satisfaction. One of the most visible trends is a shift to team-based care. Like other organizations, health care organizations’ staff is diverse in cultures, genders, and skills, among other elements. The inevitable diversity affects how health care staff understands and responds to patient needs. For optimal health outcomes, the diverse workforce should work collaboratively to ensure that the patient’s needs are addressed holistically. Accordingly, a team nursing care approach has dominated the practice and is expected to gain more ground over time. Brown and Lutz (2020) found the team nursing care model instrumental in fostering collaboration with shared responsibility. The health care staff is also more accountable and engaged in developing patient care plans. Engagement leads to staff satisfaction and increased knowledge, triggering a proportional increase in patient satisfaction and quality of care.

Coordination and efficiency have also increasingly gained ground in today’s practice. A suitable example of a delivery model with these features is care through accountable care organizations (ACOs). Moy et al. (2021) defined ACOs as health care providers’ groups uniting to provide coordinated care to Medicare and Medigap beneficiaries. ACOs’ primary mandate is streamlining care through coordination. Duplicative efforts are avoided, leading to more proficient processes, and communication between participating providers is optimized. Like team nursing, coordinated efforts improve the overall quality of care.

Besides interprofessional collaboration, health care delivery models are increasingly focusing on patient-centered care. From a health perspective, patient-centeredness involves care that respects and responds to individual patient needs, values, and preferences (Engle et al., 2021). It is an approach gaining more dominance in practice due to the increased focus on patient-provider partnership. In today’s practice, a suitable example of such a model is the Special Needs Plan (SNP) by Medicare. Under SNPs, providers are customized to serve the patient’s specific needs. The SNP is a highly beneficial model since the patient receives patient-centered care from providers and facilities specializing in treating a particular condition. Differently stated, the care process is narrowly-focused to meet a patient’s specific needs.

How Quality and Safety Impact Delivery Models in Health Care

Quality is a critical care component that must be a priority area in all health care processes. According to Engle et al. (2021), quality care means providing care when needed, conveniently, and satisfactorily. As a result, the demand for quality care has prompted health care delivery models to integrate elements that ensure effective, efficient, and satisfactory care. For instance, many models, including team nursing and functional nursing, prioritize patient engagement. Health care professionals ensure that patients own and understand the process.

Like quality, safety has profound impacts on health care delivery models. In care processes, safety involves risk prevention and reduction. In this case, errors and harm that characterize health care procedures are prevented and reduced significantly. The cornerstone of safety is continuous practice improvement based on the lessons from adverse events. Due to the importance of safety in delivering essential health care services, delivery models are more obliged to integrate safety promotion components. Suitable examples in practice include interprofessional collaboration in the team nursing model and coordination of care in accountable care organizations. In each case, there is increased commitment to secure patients from harm as health care professionals with diverse skills come together to address a common problem.

Conclusion

All patients deserve quality, safe, and cost-effective health care. Achieving this objective requires health care organizations to be highly innovative and apply relevant and up-to-date strategies in patient care. An approach that integrates the triple aim components is vital in health care since it initiates designs to solve problems creatively to enhance patient satisfaction. The focus of care also broadens as health care initiatives focus more on attaining population health needs. Due to the complex nature of health care delivery, a structured approach is always necessary. Health care delivery models provide such structures, with interprofessional collaboration, care coordination, and patient-centeredness among the key guiding principles.

References

Al Jasser, B., & Almoajel, A. (2020). Adopting the triple aim framework in the saudi healthcare system: A Delphi study. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 13, 2189-2197. http://doi.org/10.2147/RMHP.S251008

Brown, G., & Lutz, B. (2020). Care delivery models guide cancer practice during COVID-19. ONSVOICE. https://voice.ons.org/stories/care-delivery-models-guide-cancer-practice-during-covid-19

Engle, R. L., Mohr, D. C., Holmes, S. K., Seibert, M. N., Afable, M., Leyson, J., & Meterko, M. (2021). Evidence-based practice and patient-centered care: Doing both well. Health Care Management Review, 46(3), 174-184. doi: 10.1097/HMR.0000000000000254

Institute for Healthcare Improvement. (2021). The IHI triple aim. http://www.ihi.org/Engage/Initiatives/TripleAim/Pages/default.aspx

Moy, H. P., Giardino, A. P., & Varacallo, M. (2021). Accountable care organization. StatPearls [Internet]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK448136/

Tikkanen, R., & Abrams, M. K. (2020). U.S. health care from a global perspective, 2019: Higher spending, worse outcomes? The Commonwealth Fund. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2019

Jha, A. K. (2019). Population health management: Saving lives and saving money?. Jama, 322(5), 390-391. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.10568

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Write a 1,250-1,500-word essay about delivery models in health care. Include the following in your essay:

Address the triple aim as it relates to population health management and delivery models.
Discuss current trends in health care delivery models.
Describe how quality and safety impact delivery models in health care.
Include at least three peer-reviewed/academic references in your essay, including the HealthyPeople website.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide