Introduction
Arroyo Fresco is a community health center servicing western Arizona from 11 clinics and 4 mobile service vans. Established over 40 years ago, the health center is committed to offering quality healthcare and other preventive services regardless of the customers’ ability to pay for the services. Arroyo Fresco also provides services such as transportation, translation, case management, health education, and home visitation, which increase access to medical care.
Tools for improvement
Effective results improvement at Arroyo Fresco requires effective identification of root causes of the problem. According to Darr and Longest (2007, p 335), the top management team should brainstorm to identify some of the failure modes. To achieve the best customer satisfaction at the health center, senior leaders should review the organizational performance regularly. They must ensure that their office staff is monitored to ensure there is individual performance monitoring and improvement.
The application of crew resource management as an improvement tool will ensure that the clinical staff works as a team through cooperation, coordination, and communication. Encouraging a good teamwork culture at the health center ensures that the clinical staff acquires a permanent change in behavior and attitude concerning service delivery to the customers. All the senior leaders and the managers should ensure that they review relevant staff issues such as recruitment and other factors, which will ensure that the staffs provide competent services. The best method of ensuring better teamwork output is drafting long-term and short-term resource plans such as training, recruitment, and succession planning (Darr and Longest, 2009 p336).
Another very important improvement tool is benchmarking. The Arroyo Fresco health center does not seem to know the importance of benchmarking. The top management should ensure that they make comparisons on the quality of their services with other organizations in which they share and offer the same services. This will ensure sound financial performance and quality care, which will in turn guarantee customer satisfaction to march the standards of their competitors (Darr and Longest, 209 p336).
In the case of improving productivity, Arroyo Fresco is committed to providing efficient and excellent services to customers. Its service delivery to the customers involves clinics and mobile service vans that make regular stops six days a week at churches, schools, and community centers. In addition, the health center ensures that customers can access all services. This is achieved through partnerships with other hospitals, physicians, and health agencies (Darr and Longest, 2009 p 337)).
In terms of work systems and job design as a tool of improvement, Arroyo Fresco provides quality service relative to the cost incurred by the customers; it also ensures that work orders flow from the top management to the employees. Facility layout and capacity planning ensure that the clinical equipment can meet flexibility needs. Efficient facilities will ensure that there is no congestion of tasks hence yielding faster patient throughput. The facilities at the health center such as reception areas and treatment rooms are wheelchair accessible. The health center is also equipped with screening as well as obstetrical ultrasound equipment and a dental x-ray machine that reduces radiation exposure to the patients (Darr and Longest, 2009 p 340).
Production control, scheduling, and supply chain as a technique of improvement is used to spread the workload throughout a shift. Arroyo Fresco health ensures that all patients brought to radiology are not delayed because patient satisfaction would be greatly affected (Darr and Longest, 2009 p 341).
In strategic and quality planning, the center should be customer-oriented. For instance, the health center should ensure that patients and their families, through patient advisory boards, can understand the needs of both the insured and the underinsured and other vulnerable populations.
Finally, about customers’ focus as a tool of improvement, the health center should look at the external environment opportunities and avoid threats such as competition by ensuring that customers receive the best services. At the health center, key inputs include the determination to include the customer needs assessment.
Good performances
The good performances guarantee that the customers have access to high-quality and safe health care services, which look into their diverse cultural and socioeconomic needs regardless of the customers’ ability to pay for the services. The good performances also ensure that the clinic staffs show commitment to the health center’s key principles of customer satisfaction. The clinic staff should respect and honor the dignity of every customer, in addition, they should embrace improvement and innovation by adopting the best practices to continually improve the services.
Health care reform in the United States and the political environment
The United States currently has the most expensive health care costs. Measured by life expectancy, infant mortality, and the yearly reported deaths, US healthcare is still of low quality. Although healthcare expenditure has been high, Americans are still not insured. The burden of covering the cost of health care for the uninsured has always been shifted to state medical programs. Politics has done a great disservice to health care reform. The democrats have always called for affordable and quality health care. Democrats agree that the government should intervene and expand the health care reform to include the uninsured who find it expensive to acquire medical services. There is a need to make single-payer universal health care a primary goal by the politicians whether democrats or republicans.
Health care strengths
- Better lives
- Increased life expectancy
- Improved efficiency in providing health services
- Fairness
- Quality health care
Weaknesses of poor health care
- Expensive health care costs
- Low quality
- High mortality rates
- Poor insurance cover
- Political interference
Trends
- Expansion of the health insurance to the uninsured
- Cap premium increases
- Allow people to retain their health coverage when they leave or change jobs
- Introduction of government insurance plan
- Medical spending cuts and taxes on expensive insurance plans
The Arroyo health care center has made health care and service delivery to customers their strength. The health center is committed to achieving the best health care results; it also compares its services against the highest performers in the sector. Multiple health care results at the Arroyo health center are achieved through participation in the benchmarking activities.
Reference
Darr, K & Longest, B. (2009). Managing health service organizations and systems. (5th ed.) Baltimore, MD: Health professions press, Inc.