Health care organizations essay
The improvement of the quality of inpatient care is one of the primary concerns of any health care organizations because the quality of inpatient care determines, to a significant extent, the public health in the area, where health care organizations are located. Moreover, the quality of inpatient care has a considerable impact on the health and well-being of patients with chronic health problems. In this regard health care organizations providing health care services for veterans face particularly significant problems because they work with patients, who have serious health problems along with chronic health issues that have a considerable impact on their quality of living. At this point, it is possible to refer to the case of Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers, which face considerable problems caused by the patient flow and discharge process. To put it more precisely, the patient overload leads to the inability of Medical Centers to provide health care services for all patients and maintain the quality of health care services to the full extent. In such a situation, Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers are often forced to provide the basic inpatient care and transfer patients to the ambulatory treatment and rehabilitation to enroll all patients, who need inpatient care. Therefore, Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers apparently face the urgent need to conduct profound changes to complete the discharge process successfully and manage the patient flow effectively. Otherwise, they will be unable to meet emerging needs of their clients in health care services and inpatient care.
The problem of Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers is the patient flow/discharge process. In fact, the problem has emerged under the impact of several factors, such as growing health care costs, the increasing number of patients, the emergence of health problems and chronic illnesses which accompany the aging of the target population of Medical Centers. As patients grow older and the number of patients increases, their health care needs increase too, while the capacity of Medical Centers and their personnel remain unchanged. As a result, Medical Centers turn out to be incapable to treat all inpatients and need either to offer them ambulatory treatment or reduce the time they spend on the treatment of each patient to provide health care services for all patients. Hence, the problem of the patient flow became the major challenge for the stable and successful performance of Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers. The gap between the capacity of Medical Centers and the number of inpatients and patients that require the inpatient care is obvious. Another aspect of this problem is the increasing number of health problems patients of Medical Centers face because, as they grow older, they have more and more health problems. In this regard, the lack of health care services or the low quality of health care services aggravate the situation even more since patients develop new health care problems or aggravate their chronic conditions. Therefore, if Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers fail to resolve the problem of the patient flow and the discharge process, the problem will grow more and more serious and new problems will emerge.
The current problem of the patient flow and discharge process is a serious challenge for Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers because Medical Centers come unprepared to match the growing demand on health care services. Instead, they need the change that will help them to tackle the problem of the patient flow and discharge process. Medical Centers need substantial resources to match the growing demand. At the same time, the change of the patient flow and management of Medical Centers can help to optimize their performance and provide health care services for inpatients. The resolution of the problem requires consistent changes in the performance of Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers and their management.
However, to conduct the change successfully, Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers should conduct the detailed analysis of its internal strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats (Viardot, 2001). In this regard, it is possible to apply SWOT analysis to evaluate accurately the current position of Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers and their potential. The SWOT analysis helps to determine which weaknesses Medical Centers have to eliminate and what strengths they can use to maximize the effectiveness of their performance.
At the moment, the major strength of Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers is the coordination of their performance that means that they interact with each other effectively focusing on their specific area. As a result, Medical Centers focus on the specific target population that helps to balance the delivery of health care services to veterans. Another strength of Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers is the focus on the specific patient group, veterans. Medical Centers provide health care services for veterans and have extensive experience in this field. In this regard, the modern equipment and employment of well-qualified professionals comprises another important strength of Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers because the modern equipment and well-qualified professionals create conditions for the delivery of health care services of the high quality.
On the other hand, Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers face a number of weaknesses which interfere in Medical Centers’ performance and deteriorate outcomes of their inpatient care. First of all, Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers face the problem of the limited capacity to provide beds and health care services for inpatients. As a result, Medical Centers cannot increase the number of beds provided for patients that raises the question of the effectiveness of their performance in the situation, when the number of patients increases and their demands for health care services grow too. Another weakness of Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers is the discharge process, which raises the problem of the discharge of patients, who still need the inpatient care and patients need the support of health care professionals on the regular basis. Moreover, one of the major problems of Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers is the limited financial resources available to them. The financial weakness of Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers is determined by the growing costs of health care services, while patients of Medical Centers cannot always cover their health care services and health insurance. The large part of health care costs is covered by the government-sponsored programs but, in the time of the economic decline and slow recovery of the US economy.
Nevertheless, Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers have considerable opportunities to enroll the target population with various health problems. Medical Centers can provide for veterans, who suffer from serious health problems and need health care services. In addition, Medical Centers can expand their health care services to meet growing demands of veterans. Veterans’ demands require new health care services since their health condition deteriorates (Pinkerton, 2000). Therefore, Medical Centers can provide health care services of the high quality to all patients due to the high qualifications of professionals working in those centers and modern equipment that provides large opportunities for the delivery of health care services of the high quality.
However, Medical Centers still face problems that expose them to numerous threats. In this regard, it is worth mentioning the threat of the failure of Medical Centers to meet demands of patients. The work overload can undermine the effectiveness of the performance of professionals working in Medical Centers. In such a situation, other health care organizations can attract patients of Medical Centers. As a result, Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers may lose their patients that will put under a question their survival and further development. On the other hand, such a threat is rather hypothetical than real because Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers can offer health care services of the high quality and have a considerable medical potential to be eliminated in face of the growing competition from other, more effective health care organizations. In this regard, a more real threat is the consistent deterioration of the quality of health care services that may lead to the deterioration of the quality of living of patients of Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers. If Medical Centers cannot provide health care services of the high quality, they will be doomed to cut their health care services or discharge patients before their full recovery or before their health reaches the recommended condition.
In actuality, weaknesses of Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers determine to a significant extent the current problem of the patient flow in an inpatient area. To put it more precisely, Veterans Health Administration New England Medical Centers cannot always provide the sufficient number of beds for inpatients and they have to discharge patients, who are at the stage of the recovery and rehabilitation to let new inpatients in to provide them with the urgent treatment, which they need at the moment. As a result, Medical Centers face the problem of the increasing patient flow, which they are not capable to cope with. In this regard, the limited capacity of Medical Centers and their unpreparedness for a growing number of patients results in their inability to provide health care services for all inpatients, which need the assistance of health care professionals working in Medical Centers.
Health care organizations essay part 2
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