Assessment 1: Proposing a New Initiative
Assessment 1: Proposing a New Initiative
An organization’s internal and external environments keep on shifting as health care demand and supply change. In response, health care organizations, through their leaders, must identify current and emerging opportunities and exploit them innovatively to improve health outcomes. Interventions include improving the current service line, changing some products, or integrating new ideas in the current line to advance the approach to care. In any case, the overarching goal is to improve outcomes in terms of health care quality, patient safety, and resource utilization, among other factors. This paper describes an economic opportunity at micro and macro levels for providing ethical and culturally equitable improvements to the quality of care.
The Proposed Initiative: Overview
Like other organizations, health care organizations should constantly seek ways of generating and increasing their revenue base. The proposed initiative presents a viable and beneficial economic opportunity since it will help the organization to generate more revenue due to increased patient visits through referrals. Besides, creating an informed populace is critical to optimizing resource utilization since preventive health reduce hospital visits for chronic and lifestyle diseases, among other conditions challenging to manage financially (Levine et al., 2019). Increased revenue and a cost-effective approach to care will be vital in enabling the organization to achieve more with the current resources, mainly through more preventive health interventions and technology adoption.
The economic opportunity involves a partnership with the local association of greengrocers. Over the years, the association has intensified its efforts in community awareness to sensitize the community to consume more healthy foods and live healthily. It has been organizing awareness programs in schools, religious institutions, and community-based forums. However, the association has limited resource capacity, and partnering with it will improve health outcomes. The partnership will be keen on community and home visitations, screening and referring patients to the hospital for advanced medication, and promoting preventive health through education and awareness on healthy eating and living. Some patients will receive care at home as nurses link with physicians via telehealth services while others will be referred to the hospital depending on the magnitude of their health needs.
A Micro Level and Macro Level Opportunity
Health care organizations should constantly pursue improvement goals to improve their departments and overall productivity. At the micro-level, there has been a gradual increase in the population with lifestyle diseases, prompting a significant rise in patient visits related to the same problem. There has been gradual excellence in community-based health care at the micro level as health care organizations partner with nongovernmental organizations, corporate organizations, and community health groups to promote wellness in the community. The partnership will be an excellent opportunity for the organization to respond to micro level and macro level health demands.
Providing Ethical and Culturally Equitable Improvements
Health care organizations apply many strategies to achieve their goals, and ethical and cultural competence should dominate every practice. The initiative will provide ethical and culturally equitable improvements in quality of care by reaching the population through an inclusive workforce. In health practice, an inclusive workforce plays an integral role in providing culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate care (Jongen et al., 2018). The program, including screening, patient referrals, and awareness programs, will use culturally-sensitive materials, particularly printed materials. Above all, the partnership will be highly inclusive. All ethnic groups will be welcome, provided within the program’s geographical reach.
Economic Factors of Supply and Demand
The viability of an economic opportunity depends on the supply-demand connection. The organization is located in an area with
plenty of fast foods restaurants, which contributes to the increased case of lifestyle diseases. Such restaurants pose a risk to healthy living, increasing the demand for preventive health services and health care initiatives focusing on reducing the burden of chronic illnesses. The elderly (above 60 years) also form a significant proportion of the population in the community. They would highly benefit from community-based care and home visitations since traveling is a challenge to them. The COVID-19 pandemic has also increased the demand for tech-based and home-based care to reduce infections and reinfections (Monaghesh & Hajizadeh, 2020). Importantly, only three other organizations are involved in such a partnership, presenting a huge opportunity for the organization to succeed. Regarding economic and demographic data, lifestyle diseases affect low- and middle-income families the most (Smith et al., 2019). It is the same case in this area. Accordingly, the program should target this vulnerable population more, and a higher proportion of the same population should be expected in the health care setting in terms of outpatient visits.
Additional Information to Improve Analysis
The analysis would be better with more information on the community’s perception of health care. It is crucial to have adequate information regarding the same to determine the extent to which the community requires the program. Information on the exact number of health care providers required in the partnership is necessary too. Importantly, the community’s technological knowledge is vital to determine the extent to which technology will be used in the education and awareness components of the program.
Data to Support the Initiative
Economic and environmental data support the initiative justifying its potential to promote positive organizational change and economic viability. From an economic perspective, competition is currently low since the other three organizations involved in partnerships do not frequently engage in community awareness and screening programs. The organization is also close to many fast food restaurants implying that it is close to the population that the initiative targets. Furthermore, health care organizations must be committed to reducing overall health care costs. For instance, health care organizations and communities should increasingly focus on healthy living since society pays two dollars in health costs for every dollar spent on unhealthy food (MacArthur, 2019). Unhealthy living is also a significant barrier to preventive health since the increased health care costs impede people from seeking the same. Besides, costly health care services bar women from seeking productive health (Chattu & Yaya, 2020). This challenge continues to increase society’s illness burden. More so, unhealthy living increases the prevalence of obesity and diabetes, whose management accounts for over $5.7 trillion globally (MacArthur, 2019). The initiative is economically viable since it will save communities and health care organizations this exorbitant cost. It will also empower it to focus on capacity building and technology integration in care, among other proactive initiatives for health improvement.
Conclusion
Health care organizations should continually strive to improve outcomes. Achieving this goal requires them to exploit current and emerging economic opportunities. The partnership with the local association of greengrocers is a massive economic opportunity since it will increase the organization’s revenue in the long run. However, it is crucial to seek more information on the target community’s technological knowledge and perceptions of current health practices to plan effectively.
References
Chattu, V. K., & Yaya, S. (2020). Emerging infectious diseases and outbreaks: Implications for women’s reproductive health and rights in resource-poor settings. Reproductive Health, 17(1), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12978-020-0899-y
Jongen, C., McCalman, J., & Bainbridge, R. (2018). Health workforce cultural competency interventions: A systematic scoping review. BMC Health Services Research, 18(1), 232. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-3001-5
Levine, S., Malone, E., Lekiachvili, A., & Briss, P. (2019). Health care industry insights: Why the use of preventive services is still low. Preventing Chronic Disease, 16. http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd16.180625
MacArthur, E. (2019). Our food system is no longer fit for the 21st century. Here are three ways to fix it. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/how-to-build-a-circular-economy-for-food/
Monaghesh, E., & Hajizadeh, A. (2020). The role of telehealth during COVID-19 outbreak: A systematic review based on current evidence. BMC Public Health, 20(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09301-4
Smith, K. M., Machalaba, C. C., Seifman, R., Feferholtz, Y., & Karesh, W. B. (2019). Infectious disease and economics: The case for considering multi-sectoral impacts. One Health, 7, 100080. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.onehlt.2018.100080