Various healthcare trends have compelled the United States to develop innovative strategies that will help provide effective care for less cost. With such improvement, healthcare providers have a duty to demonstrate that they are offering high-quality care at an affordable cost. Most healthcare facilities have adopted value-based purchasing (VBP) to move their organizations from the world of fee-for-service (FFS). The adoption of VBP in hospital environments has helped to eradicate medical errors which were previously rampant. The implementation of VBP is a comprehensive process which requires contributions from relevant stakeholder and department within healthcare settings.
Discuss To What Degree Your Organisation Has Embraced VBP
Value-based purchasing (VBP) refers to a program meant to incentivize certified Medicare home health agencies and ensure that they provide better patient care outcomes at lower costs. Such an achievement is made by moving healthcare agencies away from the traditional fee-for-service model to an outcome-based model (Cattel & Eijkenaar, 2019). By implication, provider payments are linked to foster the improvement of the performance of healthcare providers.
VBP establishes a form of payment that holds healthcare providers accountable for both the costs of medication and the quality of care they provide. Arguably, through the creation of accountability, VBP plays a vital role in reducing medical errors and increasing organizational performance. It is observed that VBP often rewards medical organizations that perform best. The organization I work in is Hennepin Healthcare, Minnesota.
Hennepin Healthcare has implemented several initiatives towards the establishment of the ;VBP program. Such initiatives have been designed to reform payment and care delivery processes. However, there are additional three domains of VBP recommended for implementation in the current strategic plan to ensure that Hennepin healthcare becomes the best facility in the Minnesota region. First of all, Hennepin healthcare will create Patient-Centered Medical Homes (PCMH), which refers to a care model that allows patients to receive treatment coordinated by their primary care physician (Cattel & Eijkenaar, 2019).
Such an organized care plan ensures that patients receive the necessary care where and when they need it, and in a manner that they can understand best. The main objective driving the recommendation to establish PCMH is to create a centralized setting, facilitating a partnership between patients, physicians, and family members. PCMH model of care will ensure that Hennepin healthcare consistently undertakes registries through information technology and allows for effective communication and medical care information exchange. In other words, PCMH will ensure that patients receive comprehensive care since it focuses on a patient-centered approach, allows for coordinated care, facilitates access to services, and ensures quality and safety.
The second initiative that will be implemented is enrolment to the Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These refer to groups of care providers, physicians, and hospitals that agree to work together and provide coordinated care services to patients (Rosen et al., 2018). Besides, ACO participants often agree on how to take responsibility regarding the total medical care costs for their patients. It is noted that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services ended the Hospital and service care quality compare websites, leading to a merger and consequential formulation of a single website known as Care Compare. This strategy is recommended for implementation in Hennepin healthcare to build upon the VBP since the organization provides care to people with Medicare.
The third initiative recommended for implementation is the establishment of delivery system reform incentive payment (DSRIP). This will be the leading initiative through which Hennepin healthcare will implement the Medicaid Redesign Team (MRT) Waiver Amendment. DSRIP in the Hennepin healthcare facility’s context will lead to a change in the structure and incentives, thus encouraging quality, efficiency, and coordination of reward care (Rosen et al., 2018). Concerning Medicaid managed care plans, Hennepin healthcare should implement VBP models of payment such as bundled and episode-based payments, which meet the CMS criteria. Arguably, Hennepin healthcare has embraced VBP to a substantial degree, and implementing these three VBP domains will substantially improve the facility’s quality of services.
Ethical Clinical and Ethical Business Practices
The strategic plan discussed herein will incorporate both ethical business and ethical clinical practices. The ethical clinical practices will help in will provide a multidisciplinary lens to view complex issues and draft recommendations related to the appropriate course of action to be undertaken. There are several ethical clinical practices incorporated in the current strategic plan (Sroka & Szántó, 2018).
The first practice is nonmaleficence, which requires that no harm be inflicted on patients, so beneficial outcomes came to be realized. In the current plan, while implementing the VBP, all the harms and possible effects are considered part of the ethical decision-making process. Both long term and short-term harms, though unintentional, are noted and incorporated in the strategic plan such that the resultant VBP services can produce the best patient outcome with the least amount of harm (Sroka & Szántó, 2018).
The second ethical clinical practice will be autonomy, which requires that the rights, beliefs, and opinions of patients be respected in the process of making decisions. While outlining the strategic plan of implementing the VBP, the management department, nursing department and the information technology department will be educated on the need to respect patients’ views. They are made to understand that it is vital to provide patients and their family members relevant information regarding the medication process before conducting any medication process (Sroka & Szántó, 2018). The third ethical practice incorporated in the strategic plan is justice, which will ensure that care providers are fair and that they handle similar cases in identical ways without bias or discrimination.
One of the ethical business practices used in the development of the current strategic plan is honesty. All the team members are educated on the need to remain truthful in all their dealings. Additionally, they are reminded not to mislead others through practices such as misrepresentation, selective omissions, overstatements, or any other way (Chaet et al., 2017). The second practice concerns others, where policies ensure service providers show care, kindness, compassion, and benevolence to patients and team members. In other words, this practice will ensure that care providers can help people in need and accomplish their business objectives in a way that causes the least harm and the most significant possible medical outcomes (Chee et al., 2016).
Accountability is the third ethical practice used. It ensures that care providers acknowledge and accept individual accountability regarding the ethical quality of decisions they make. Besides, this practice is vital in ensuring that care providers take responsibility for omissions and errors they make (Chaet et al., 2017). As such, the resultant VBP purpose of lowering service costs and providing the best care outcomes will be established because care providers will be keener.
Timeline
Executive Summary
Hennepin Healthcare, Minnesota: Value-Based Purchasing (VBP)
Components of VBP Most Pertinent to the Organization
The primary components of VBP that are pertinent with the organization include safety, improved clinical care, improved efficiency and costs reduction, and enhancement of patient and caregiver centered experience. VBP improves efficiency and reduces medical costs by reducing Medicare spending per beneficiary. In other words, VBP will help in incentivizing the organization and improving value and quality of care.
Preparation Needed by the Three Departments for Implementation of VBP in the Next Three Years
For effective implementation of VBP in the next three years, each of the three departments will have to prepare adequately, in different ways.
Organization Management Team
The organization management team plays vital roles in formulating strategies that ensure the whole VBP implementation process is successful. Some of the ways through which this department will prepare for implementation of VBP in the next three years include:
- Creation and management of budget reports, with the help of chief financial officer
- Establishment of strategies to ensure effective supervision of financial operations
- Predetermination of the service workforce needed in the implementation of VBP and establishment of appropriate salaries by the HR management.
- Formulation of relevant strategies to aid in ensuring preparedness, and timely responses to emergencies that will arise in the course of implementing VBP.
The Records and Information Technology Department
The preparations required by this department include:
- Effective training of IT personnel to ensure that all the information related to patients is recorded and managed, so that it can benefit the management, service providers, and patients across the three years
- Develop strategies that will facilitate easy accessibility of patient information
- Establish strategies that will ensure that IT department works in collaboration with the financial department. Such preparation is necessary because it facilitates determination of the best costs of care services to be offered after implementing the VBP.
- Teach all its members on how to use EMRs, which will improve the communication process in the entire medical care process and support decision making regarding diagnosis and treatment. Thus, smooth implementation of VBP across the three years.
Nursing Department
In preparation, the nursing department will:
- Establish better strategies of identifying nursing sensitive indicators, then communicating the findings to management department for incorporation in the implemented VBPs.
- In addition, this department will focus on how to provide high quality direct care to patients, for easy identification of more nursing sensitive indicators.
- Nursing department will also formulate strategies on how to coordinate communication between caregivers such as physicians and patients in the course of implementing VBPs.
Necessary Education and Training
To fully implement VBP in the facility, education and training will be offered to all the personnel in all three departments, this education will be in yearly phases. The first phase in all the departments’ will involve awareness creation concerning VBP. Then the second phase will be for planning, controlling, and evaluating information about VBP. The third phase will be implementing the VBP plan to ensure all the departments achieve core goals of VBP.
References
Cattel, D., & Eijkenaar, F. (2019). Value-based provider payment initiatives combining global payments with explicit quality incentives: A systematic review. Medical Care Research and Review, 77(6), 511-537. Web.
Chaet, D., Clearfield, R., Sabin, J. E., & Skimming, K. (2017). Ethical practice in telehealth and telemedicine. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 32(10), 1136-1140. Web.
Chee, T. T., Ryan, A. M., Wasfy, J. H., & Borden, W. B. (2016). Current state of value-based purchasing programs. Circulation, 133(22), 2197-2205. Web.
Gardner, R. L., Cooper, E., Haskell, J., Harris, D. A., Poplau, S., Kroth, P. J., & Linzer, M. (2019). Physician stress and burnout: the impact of health information technology. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 26(2), 106-114. Web.
Park, M. J., & Choi, D. W. (2017). The convergence effect of career education program for freshmen of nursing department on learning motivation, college life adaptation and self-efficacy. Journal of Digital Convergence, 15(4), 339-349. Web.
Rosen, M. A., DiazGranados, D., Dietz, A. S., Benishek, L. E., Thompson, D., Pronovost, P. J., & Weaver, S. J. (2018). Teamwork in healthcare: Key discoveries enabling safer, high-quality care. American Psychologist, 73(4), 433-450. Web.
Salas, E., Zajac, S., & Marlow, S. L. (2018). Transforming health care one team at a time: ten observations and the trail ahead. Group & Organization Management, 43(3), 357-381. Web.
Sroka, W., & Szántó, R. (2018). Corporate social responsibility and business ethics in controversial sectors: Analysis of research results. Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation, 14(3), 111-126.