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Cost and Quality Analysis


Introduction

The cost and the quality of services differ from one hospital to another. There are several aspects that make these differences vivid that is the management, the objectives and also the operations and processes in the healthcare agency. A comparison between Dupont Hospital and Orlando Regional Medical Centre illustrates the differences in detail. Even though both share a similar objective that is to offer quality healthcare services, they also have other different objectives. Dupont Hospital is a profit based hospital; therefore, getting turn back for the services they offer is mandatory. The fact that ORMC is a public hospital dims the possibility that it offers services to receive profits. These differences affect the approach in the processes and operations in the healthcare agencies (Clemmer et al., 1999).

ORMC used it weaknesses and threats to come up with an effective strategic plan for the expansion of the hospital by adding more practitioners and beds as well as modifying the patient waiting plans. These adjustments offer better and satisfactory services to the patients. The healthcare agency does not pass on the costs of the services to the employees as it receives its funds from external sources. The agency also has improved technology and management systems to manage its operations to ensure that they deliver effective and cost appropriate services (Clemmer et al., 1999).

Dupont is a private hospital that specializes in the provision of healthcare services with the intention of attaining profit and growth. The cost and quality of the services impact the processes of the healthcare agency. The agency has to moderate its operations such that they do not become a liability to its economic status. The organization exhausts its reserves and also other external sources to acquire funds for the projects it initiates. The agency seeks to expand its premises such that it can offer better services. The tactic seeks to maximize on the economies of scope as well as the economies of scale. By doing so, the agency can standardize the costs and offer better quality services. The approach allows the organization to maintain the costs of the services but offer better quality services without damaging its profits (Clemmer et al., 1999).

The escalating costs of healthcare services in the health care industry have become a throbbing menace in the United States. The industry seeks to deploy strategies and introduce initiatives that improve the quality of healthcare services while solving the cost issue. One of the strategies applied is employee empowerment (Clemmer et al., 1999). Under this strategy, the system seeks to develop benefit revamp and value-based purchasing. The system also seeks to reform reimbursement and make robust efforts to engage employees in their care. These strategies ensure that the practitioners in the healthcare industry can better their ability to deliver services. The healthcare agencies do not accrue great expenses when engaging in this approach (Shortell et al., 1995). The healthcare industry also seeks to improve the technology in the industry to improve the quality of services it offers. The industry seeks to integrate information technology into its operations. The technology betters the operations of the hospital and also reduces the overhead costs of an agency (Clemmer et al., 1999).

The healthcare agencies are also searching for other innovative approaches to improving health care quality and controlling costs by directly addressing some of the underlying flaws in the health care system (Shortell et al., 1995). Some of the flaws identified in the system include; the failure to engage patients in their care; hindrances to obtaining care; a lack of correspondence among providers. The healthcare agencies are applying pay-for-volume approaches to compensation and also counterproductive benefits designs (Shortell et al., 1995). Rectification of the flaws in the system allows the healthcare industry improve the quality of services and control of costs. These tactics are all beneficial; however, are liable to hindrances. One such hindrance is low tolerance to change. It is a setback since it prevents the integration of the modifications into the system that makes the possibility of creating better plans grim (Shortell et al., 1995). The execution of these changes requires collaboration and cooperation. Low tolerance to change affects the cooperation in the industry.

The healthcare industry needs new knowledge that must get modified into forms that are useful in the clinic (Covell& Sidani, 2013). The healthcare system should then effectively implement the new knowledge across the all the practitioners working under the systems. It is mandatory that the system measures its usefulness in terms of significant impact on productivity and health outcomes. The nurses are part of this new knowledge (Stevens, 2013). The best approach to offering quality healthcare services at controlled prices is through effective service delivery by the practitioners. The system needs to define the quality of services offered by the nurses in the healthcare facilities. The services, prospected outcomes of health, and uniformity with existing understanding should define the quality of services that nurses deliver to the patients (Covell& Sidani, 2013). The nurses should have met all the credentials as well as have the minimum required skills to offer high-quality services to the patients. The nurses should indulge in useful research for better methods of offering their services to the patients such that they are satisfactory (Stevens, 2013).

Conclusion

The escalating cost in the healthcare industry makes the provision of quality healthcare services a joke. Agencies in the healthcare industry differ in how they offer their services to the patients. The difference in these processes defines the difference in the quality of services offered and the costs. The healthcare industry should seek tactics that better the services they offer and control the costs of these services.

Reference

Clemmer, T., Spuhler, V., Miki, T., & Horn, S. Results of a collaborative quality improvement program on outcomes and costs in a tertiary critical care unit. Critical care medicine, 27(9), (1999):1768-1774.

Covell, C., Sidani, S., Nursing Intellectual Capital Theory: Implications for Research and Practice OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing Vol. 18, No. 2, Manuscript 2. (2013)

Shortell, S., O’Brien, J., Carman, J., Foster, R., Hughes, E., Boerstler, H., & O’Connor, E. Assessing the impact of continuous quality improvement/total quality management: concept versus implementation.Health services research, 30(2), (1995): 377.

Stevens, K., The Impact of Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing and the Next Big Ideas. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing Vol. 18, No. 2, Manuscript 4. (2013)

Carolyn Morgan is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in legitimate essay writing service. If you need a similar paper you can place your order from research paper services.

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