Mercy Medical Center Benchmark Capella University
Mercy Medical Center Benchmark Capella University
The success of health organizations depend largely on their performance against the set standards. Health organizations in the US determine their performance based on the standards set at the local, regional, and national levels. The evaluation of performance based on the set standards enables health organizations to determine the effectiveness of their adopted interventions and improvement strategies that should be implemented to achieve the set standards. Mercy Medical Center is an institution that is located in Shakopee, Minnesota. Therefore, this paper examines the institution’s dashboard metrics on diabetes to identify areas of strengths in performance, challenges, and improvements that are needed to ensure the realization of the desired level of quality, safety and efficiency in the organization.
In research, the literature review describes existing knowledge about the topic, reveals gaps and further research questions to be answered, and provides a rationale for engaging in a new study. The literature review provides evidence to answer clinical questions and make informed decisions in evidence-based practice. Quality improvement studies also begin with searching the literature to gather available knowledge about a problem and explore interventions used in other settings. The appearance of journals that predatory publishers publish has introduced the danger that reviews of the literature include inadequate, poorly designed, and low-quality information being used as “evidence”—raising the possibility of risky and harmful practice. A helpful literature review requires searching various reliable and credible databases such as MEDLINE (through PubMed or Ovid) and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), among others relevant to the topic. The ease of searching using a web browser (now commonly referred to as “googling”) has increased the risk of finding sources published in predatory. Low-quality journals that have not met the standards of research and scholarship can be regarded as credible and reliable evidence ( Oermann, Wrigley, Nicoll, Ledbetter, Carter-Templeton, & Edie, 2021).
Analysis of Dashboard Metrics against Benchmarks
Mercy Medical Center is one of the leading healthcare institutions in Minnesota. The institution is rated among the leading institutions with the highest safe surgery rating by the consumer advocacy magazine. The institution also won the Healthgrades Outstanding Patient Experience Award and Women’s Choice Award for the Best Hospital for Patient Experience in Emergency Care. It was also ranked among the Shakopee’s Ledger Top 20 Workplaces 2018 and 2019. The success of Mercy Medical Center depends largely on its ability to abide with the set standards in the local, regional and national levels. Mercy Medical Center evaluates its ability to achieve the set standards by comparing its performance with the set metrics by the state. Through it, the institution understand the effectiveness of its interventions in meeting safety and quality indicators in areas of care such as medication errors, falls, patient injuries, pressure sores, and documentation errors.
The analysis of dashboard metrics on diabetes for Mercy Medical Center shows that there was a rise in the number of HbA1c examinations from first quarter of 2018 to a peak in the first quarter of 2019. The first quarter of 2018 was characterized by 1 examination of HbA1c, rising to 123 in the first quarter of 2019 and falling sharply to 6 by the fourth quarter of 2019. The utilization of diabetes screening services is one of the ways in which patients at risk and affected by diabetes can be identified. Early identification of patients at risk and those affected is important because it enables the initiation of treatment and minimization of complications of diabetes. Poor management of diabetes is associated with complications that include diabetic foot, diabetic retinopathy and diabetic nephropathy (Joseph et al., 2017). The decline in the number of HbA1c examinations undertaken by Mercy Medical Center from the second quarter of 2019 therefore points towards low identification of the population risk of diabetes. Consequently, interventions that aim at increasing the uptake of diabetes screening services in Shakopee should be adopted.
The analysis of the race of the patients who were examined in 2019 showed that the majority of the patients who were screened for HbA1c were whites while the minority population comprised of the African Americans. The existing evidence shows that the rate of diabetes among individuals from ethnic minorities is significantly high. For example, African Americans are 1.3 times likely to be affected by diabetes than the American Whites. Despite the high risk and rate of diabetes among this population, the utilization of diabetes screening services among them is low, hence, the poor outcomes of diabetes treatment (Abraham et al., 2017). Consequently, there is an increased need for Mercy Medical Center to embrace interventions that aim at increasing the awareness of the ethnic minorities in Shakopee to utilize diabetes-screening services for the promotion of their health.
The dashboard data by Mercy Medical Center further provides information about the statistics of patients with diabetes who underwent eye and foot examination. As noted initially, diabetes is associated with complications such as diabetic retinopathy and diabetic foot. Patients should undergo routine foot and eye examination to determine the retinal and peripheral system nerve involvement in diabetes. The dashboard data for eye examination performed between 2018 and 2019 shows that the number of eye examinations rose from the first quarter of 2018 and peaked at the first quarter of 2019. The number of eye examinations dropped from 41 in the first quarter of 2019 to 28 in the second quarter, 16 in the third quarter and rising to 27 in the fourth quarter of 2019. It can be seen from the two-year trend that the utilization of eye examination services by patients with diabetes remained constant from the fourth quarter of 2018 to the fourth quarter of 2019. Contrary results are however seen in the statistics of foot examination. Accordingly, the number of foot examination performed the medical center rose sharply from the first quarter of 2018 from 2 to 73 in the first quarter of 2019. The number then dropped drastically to 3 by the end of the fourth quarter of 2019. Poor utilization of foot examination services may lead to delayed detection of complications of diabetes (Kurkela et al., 2021). Therefore, the population should be educated on the importance of routine foot and eye examination to minimize and prevent complications of diabetes.
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Benchmark Challenges
Achieving the set benchmarks in performance and service provision in health organizations may be a challenge due to a number of factors. One of the factors as seen from the case study of Mercy Medical Center is the diversity in its inter-professional teams. The demographic data of Shakopee shows that 76% of the population is white, 10% being Asian, 7% Hispanic-Latino, 4% being African Americans and 2 or more races comprising 4% of the population. The statistics shows the existence of significant cultural diversity, which may affect the safety and quality of care that patients receive. For example, patients who are not of the white background may experience challenges in accessing the care that they need from the medical center since the majority of the staffs are white. Cultural diversity presents challenges such as language barriers and differences in cultural beliefs, which affect the uptake of healthcare services among the population.
The other challenge that may affect the implementation of benchmark initiatives in the medical center is the financial implications of the change initiatives. The successful implementation of quality improvement initiatives requires the use of the existing financial and human resources in the medical center. For example, addressing the issue of high rate of local readmission among patients with heart failure requires the use of financial and human resources. The medical center has to utilize financial resources in acquiring new technologies for providing care to heart failure patients alongside the need for hiring additional staffs to enhance the quality and safety of care. Therefore, the financial implications of the change initiatives that are needed to achieve the benchmark goals act as a challenge to the organization.
Benchmark Underperformance
The analysis of the dashboard safety and quality indicators of Mercy Medical Center shows that the hospital has poor performance on the utilization of foot examination services by patients with diabetes. Routine patient examination is important in diabetes to ensure the early identification and management of complications. Low utilization of foot examination services imply that patients are highly likely to develop diabetes complications, which worsen their health outcomes. Therefore, it is important that interventions that increase the uptake of routine examination services by diabetes patients be adopted in the Mercy Medical Center.
Ethical Action
It is crucial to adopt interventions that increase the utilization of foot examination services by patients with diabetes in Shakopee. One of the interventions that should be implemented to achieve this goal is providing community education to create awareness about diabetes, its complications and importance of routine examination (Dickinson et al., 2017). Patients who are attended in the medical center should also be educated on the importance of routine examination to identify and manage the risk of diabetes complications. Patient education is important in promoting positive lifestyle and behavioral change among diabetes patients. There is also the need to provide healthcare givers training opportunities on the effective management of diabetes. The training opportunities will increase their knowledge, skills and competencies in diabetes management for positive patient outcomes.
Conclusion
Dashboard evaluations are important in nursing practice. The evaluation provides insights into strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities that can be explored to improve performance in an organization. The dashboard evaluation performed in Mercy Medical Center showed that the hospital is performing poorly on foot examination in diabetic patients. Therefore, interventions such as community education and training of staffs should be adopted to increase the utilization of diabetes screening and management services in Shakopee.
References
Abraham, P. A., Attipoe, S., Kazman, J. B., Zeno, S. A., Poth, M., & Deuster, P. A. (2017). Role of plasma adiponectin /C-reactive protein ratio in obesity and type 2 diabetes among African Americans. African Health Sciences, 17(1), 99–107. https://doi.org/10.4314/ahs.v17i1.13
Dickinson, J. K., Guzman, S. J., Maryniuk, M. D., O’Brian, C. A., Kadohiro, J. K., Jackson, R. A., D’Hondt, N., Montgomery, B., Close, K. L., & Funnell, M. M. (2017). The Use of Language in Diabetes Care and Education. The Diabetes Educator, 43(6), 551–564. https://doi.org/10.1177/0145721717735535
Joseph, J. J., Echouffo-Tcheugui, J. B., Talegawkar, S. A., Effoe, V. S., Okhomina, V., Carnethon, M. R., Hsueh, W. A., & Golden, S. H. (2017). Modifiable Lifestyle Risk Factors and Incident Diabetes in African Americans. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 53(5), e165–e174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2017.06.018
Kurkela, O., Forma, L., Ilanne-Parikka, P., Nevalainen, J., & Rissanen, P. (2021). Association of diabetes type and chronic diabetes complications with early exit from the labour force: Register-based study of people with diabetes in Finland. Diabetologia, 64(4), 795–804. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00125-020-05363-6