Enhancing Quality and Performance- Policy Proposal and Practice Guidelines for Benchmark Metric Improvement

Enhancing Quality and Performance- Policy Proposal and Practice Guidelines for Benchmark Metric Improvement

Throughout this paper, I will explain the need to create an organizational policy to combat the shortfall of Mercy Health’s suggested metric benchmarks. Secondly, provide ethical strategies that would improve metric performance issues and highlight potential environmental factors and their effects on those strategies. Thirdly, propose a succinct policy plan and provide recommendations to resolve performance issues related to local, state, or federal policies. Lastly, it will describe how stakeholders and group involvement play a part in the successful policy implementation.

Do you want an entirely new and genuine copy of the “Policy Proposal”? Contact us.

Proposed Change in Organizational Policy

 Mercy Health’s current benchmark was established to provide optimal quality services in diabetes screening and preventative care—three testing methods were offered during the years 2016 and 2017. Testing included eye, foot, and HgbA1C exams. Services provided were required to adhere to suggested benchmarks as goals for each quarter. Benchmark exams proposed 45 exams for eyes, 80 for foot, and 140 for Hgb1Ac testing. All three services fell below benchmark recommendations and required actions on what steps to take to improve patient and community involvement. The underperforming benchmarks confirm a disconnect between hospital and community involvement in healthy living and practices.

Quality of care is impacted because, as testing decreases, community illness increases, and health outcomes inversely decrease.

The resultant repercussion will warrant a spike within the surrounding demographics of African Americans, Caucasians, and American Indian communities. Testing has shown an increase in diabetes occurs when hospital and community engagement are limited in rural areas. Patients’ illnesses and preventable sicknesses are rising because health centers are defined in community outreach and inconsistent commitments. (Farokhzadian, Nayeri & Borhani, 2018).

Ethical Evidence-Based Strategies

 To improve hospital benchmarks, Kacik (2018) suggests hospitals should develop and maintain relationships with their surrounding community despite community leaders with varying priorities and interests. A hospital’s priority goal should be building trust to generate consensus for health needs and community participation. Hospital executives and community leaders must develop a strong rapport, clearly understanding the organization’s purpose within the community and what health initiatives would be created to improve residents’ health. Patient participation will improve as community leaders are made aware of the intentions and goals for community improvements. While these relationships are cultivated, incorporating federal health policies, such as the Eliminating Disparities in Diabetes Prevention, Access, and Care Act (EDDPAC), can be used as a bridge to improve hospital testing benchmarks (Bright & Sakurada, 2016). In addition, hospitals should incorporate diabetes workshops and community health fairs to garner patient support.

By establishing hospital and community partnerships, hospital visitors and patients will be open to partake in hospital preventative health or screening activities. The recommendations that I propose will consist of implementing educational programs through small groups in a question-and-answer open floor format. Secondly, incorporate advertising by handing out brochures highlighting the benefits of diabetes testing and promoting Mercy Health’s steps to combat this preventable disease. Lastly, diabetes management training and awareness should be endorsed quarterly. This will refresh efforts to patients and Mercy employees on the hospital’s commitment to fighting this disease.

Ethical-based practices such as beneficence, which refers to actions that serve the best interests of patients and their families, resonate with the application of community diabetes workshops and health fairs (Reddy & Mythri, 2016). These events aim to promote awareness, safety, and preventable testing to aid in the improvement and well-being of the patients and the surrounding Mercy Hospital community. Furthermore, these actions are culturally inclusive because they provide society cohesiveness, with a central focus on patient safety and health improvement.

Analyze Environmental Factors

 Potential effects of environmental factors that could impact my recommended strategies would be the lack of hospital financial resources and facility availability. When engaging in community proposals, these two environmental factors affect the quality of medical services offered by hospitals (Mosadeghrad, 2014). These factors can come to fruition if the demand for medical services is beyond the capability of healthcare organizations. Mosadeghrad (2014) reaffirms that patients’ expectations for the care they receive are very high, even though healthcare resources may be financially unable to meet them. Therefore, hospital community outreach programs are influenced by the facility’s ability to manage financial resources. Failure to do so will impact how services are delivered, including diagnosis and treatment plan implementation (Mosadeghrad, 2014).

Recommended considerations affecting suggested strategies would be the hospital’s compliance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regulations.

The creation of the CDC’s Healthy People 2020 program aims to promote healthy living and identify preventable diseases, such as diabetes, intending to reduce its effects on the population in 2020 (CDC, 2017). Hospitals, communities, and health centers must meet recommended CDC guidelines, testing, and education programs to ensure adequate steps to improve patient health (CDC, 2017).

Organizational resources that could affect strategies would entail hospital staffing and the incurring financial compensation associated with it establishing a community gathering.

Hospitals are under immense strain to be innovative, provide excellent patient services, adhere to healthcare regulations, and generate income while remaining under budget (Lochner & Hill, 2020). To offset these challenges, Mercy Hospital can suggest that employees volunteer their time and services to know their actions are being used to serve the community and improve hospital benchmarks. Also, holding events on hospital grounds and community centers can alleviate high expenses and unwarranted operational expenditures.

Propose A Succinct Policy

 The proposed policy I would establish to implement the recommended strategies to resolve the performance issue related to the relevant federal healthcare policy will consist of community medical outreach programs through hospital workshops and community health fairs. This policy will require Mercy Health to create semi-annual workshops or community health fairs to garner community awareness and participation. Additionally, provide the hospital opportunities to educate the residents of local, state, or federal programs such as the CDC’s Healthy People 2020 and the federal mandate of Eliminating Disparities in Diabetes Prevention, Access, and Care Act (EDDPAC). For this strategy to succeed, a team must be created to ensure proper execution and averting of unforeseen challenges. This team will comprise a hospital executive team member, public relations director, public health nurses, and community leaders. Applying the recommended policy will make improvements, and dashboard participation will increase favorably.

Proposes Stakeholders and Groups

 All colleagues and stakeholders must be actively engaged when applied for this policy to succeed. All colleagues must familiarize themselves with the procedures from upper management and down to clearly understand the hospital’s vision. Stakeholders should sustain participation in community activities and will be tasked to establish and build trust, increasing patient involvement in preventative measures offered by the hospital.

Hospital stakeholders such as nurses, physicians, and allied health personnel are responsible for upholding healthcare ethical principles. When transparency of a hospital’s purpose is demonstrated, community fears will be broken down, cultivating confidence and a better understanding of the hospital’s purpose in serving and improving the community’s overall health and wellness (Golden et al., 2017).

Conclusion

 The goals for improving the quality of diabetes care consist of closing the healthcare availability gaps and enhancing its accessibility to reduce its effect on the population. To apply these efforts, hospitals and communities should form partnerships and implement policies and strategies to improve residents’ health and outcomes.

Similar Post: Nutritional Teaching Project

References

Bright, R., & Sakurada, B. (2016). A Population Health Strategy for Diabetes: New Partners, New Opportunities. NAM Perspectives, 6(2). https://doi.org/10.31478/201602d

CDC. (2017). Diabetes Report Card Diabetics. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pdfs/ library/diabetesreportcard2017-508.pdf

Farokhzadian, J., Dehghan Nayeri, N., & Borhani, F. (2018). The Long Way Ahead to Achieve an Effective Patient Safety Culture: Challenges Perceived by Nurses. BMC Health Services Research, 18(1), 654. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-3467-1

Golden, S. H., Maruthur, N., Mathioudakis, N., Spanakis, E., Rubin, D., Silberman, M., & Hill-Briggs, F. (2017). The Case for Diabetes Population Health Improvement: Evidence-Based Programming for Population Outcomes in Diabetes. Current Diabetes Reports, 17(7), 51. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11892-017-0875-2

Kacik, A. (2018). In-Depth: Flaws in Hospital Community Benefits Reporting Create Knowledge Vacuum. Modern Healthcare. https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20181201

/NEWS/181119965/in-depth-flaws-in-hospital-community-benefit-reporting-create-knowledge-vacuum

Mosadeghrad A. M. (2014). Factors Affecting Medical Service Quality. Iranian journal of public health, 43(2), 210–220

Reddy, M. S., & Mythri, S. V. (2016). Healthcare Ethics and the Free Market Value System.

Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 38(5), 371–375. https://doi.org/10.4103/0253- 7176.191387

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

Write a 4-6 page policy proposal and practice guidelines for improving quality and performance associated with the benchmark metric underperformance you advocated for improving in Assessment 1.

Policy Proposal

Introduction
In advocating for institutional policy changes related to local, state, or federal healthcare laws or policies, health leaders must be able to develop and present clear and well-written policy and practice guideline proposals that will enable a team, a unit, or an organization as a whole to resolve relevant performance issues and bring about improvements in the quality and safety of health care. This assessment allows you to take the lead in proposing such changes.
As a master’s-level health care practitioner, you have a valuable viewpoint and voice on policy development inside and outside your care setting. Developing policy for internal purposes can be a helpful process for quality and safety improvement and ensuring compliance with various healthcare regulatory pressures. This assessment allows you to take the lead in proposing such changes.
Instructions
Propose an organizational policy and practice guidelines that you believe will improve quality and performance associated with the benchmark underperformance you advocated for improving in Assessment 1. Be precise, professional, and persuasive in demonstrating the merit of your proposed actions.
Requirements
The policy proposal requirements below correspond to the scoring guide criteria, so address each main point. Read the performance-level descriptions for each bar to see how your work will be assessed. In addition, be sure to note the requirements for document format, length, and supporting evidence.

• Explain the need to create policy and practice guidelines to address a shortfall in meeting a benchmark metric prescribed by local, state, or federal health care policies or laws.
  • What is the current benchmark for the organization and the numeric score for underperformance?
  • How is the benchmark underperformance potentially affecting the provision of quality care or the organization’s operations?
  • What are the potential repercussions of not making any changes?
    • What evidence supports your conclusions?
• Summarize your proposed organizational policy and practice guidelines.
  • Identify applicable local, state, or federal health care policy or law that prescribes relevant performance benchmarks your policy proposal addresses.
  • Keep your audience in mind when creating this summary.
• Analyze the potential effects of environmental factors on your recommended practice guidelines.
  • What regulatory considerations could affect your recommended guidelines?
  • What resources could affect your recommended guidelines (staffing, financial, logistical considerations, or support services)?
• Explain ethical, evidence-based practice guidelines to improve targeted benchmark performance and the impact the proposed changes will have on the targeted group.
  • What does the evidence-based literature suggest are potential strategies to improve performance for your targeted benchmark?
  • How would these strategies ensure performance improvement or compliance with applicable local, state, or federal health care policy or law?
  • How can you ensure that these strategies are ethical and culturally inclusive in their application?
  • What is the direct impact of these changes on the stakeholders’ work setting and job requirements?
• Explain why particular stakeholders and groups must be involved in further developing and implementing your proposed policy and practice guidelines.
  • Why is it important to engage these stakeholders and groups?
  • How can their participation produce a more robust policy and facilitate its implementation?
• Present strategies for collaborating with the stakeholder group to implement your proposed policy and practice guidelines.
  • What role will the stakeholder group play in implementing your proposal?
  • Why are the stakeholder group and their collaboration necessary for successful implementation?
• Organize content so ideas flow logically with smooth transitions.
  • Proofread your proposal before you submit it to minimize errors that could distract readers and make it more difficult for them to focus on the substance of your submission.
• Use paraphrasing and summarization to represent ideas from external sources.
  • Be sure to apply correct APA formatting to source citations and references.
• Policy Proposal Format and Length
  It may be helpful to use a template or format for your proposal that is used in your current organization. The risk management or quality department could be a good resource for finding an appropriate template or design. If you are not currently in practice, or your organization does not have these resources, many suitable templates are freely available on the Internet.
  Your policy should be brief (about one paragraph). Overall, your proposal should be 4–6 pages in length.
  Supporting Evidence
  Cite 3–5 references to relevant research, case studies, or best practices to support your analysis and recommendations.
  Portfolio Prompt: You may save your policy proposal to your ePortfolio.
  Competencies Measured
  By completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:
• Competency 1: Analyze relevant healthcare laws, policies, and regulations; their application; and their effects on organizations, interprofessional teams, and professional practice.
  • Explain and interpret for stakeholders the need to create policy and practice guidelines to address a shortfall in meeting a benchmark metric prescribed by local, state, or federal healthcare policies or laws.
• Competency 2: Lead the development and implementation of ethical and culturally sensitive policies that improve health outcomes for individuals, organizations, and populations.
  • Summarize a proposed organizational policy or practice change guideline and analyze the potential effects of environmental factors on recommended practice guidelines.
• Competency 3: Evaluate relevant performance indicators, such as benchmarks, research, and best practices, to inform healthcare laws and policies for patients, organizations, and populations.
  • Explain how ethical, evidence-based practice guidelines to improve targeted benchmark performance will impact a stakeholder group needed to implement the policy or practice change successfully.
• Competency 4: Develop strategies to work collaboratively with policymakers, stakeholders, and colleagues to address environmental (governmental and regulatory) forces.
  • Explain why particular stakeholders and groups must be involved in further developing and implementing a proposed policy or practice change to improve quality and outcomes.
  • Present strategies for collaborating with a stakeholder group to implement a proposed policy and practice guidelines.
• Competency 5: Produce precise, coherent, professional work by Capella’s writing standards.
  • Organize content so ideas flow logically with smooth transitions.
  • Support main points, assertions, arguments, conclusions, or recommendations with relevant and credible evidence.