Paper Example on Hospital Readmissions: Assessing Quality & Cost of Healthcare Service Delivery in US

Introduction

The health sector continues to experience rapid growth and advancement that have promoted and improved the level of service delivery. Despite the growth and improved level of service delivery across the various medical institutions across the United States, hospital readmission persists. Notably, hospital readmissions are central to assessing the quality and cost of service delivery in the distinct medical facilities across the globe and particularly in the United States (Glickman et al., 2014). An increased rate of hospital readmission translates to increased medical cost not to mention declined patient satisfaction and vise versa. The increased rate of hospital readmissions is caused by inadequate transition of care, demographic factors, and disengagement and non-compliance.

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In addition, from the report it is evident that factors such as compromised quality of in-patient care and the process of discharging patients significantly contribute to increased rate of hospital readmissions. However, while the report indicates that a quarter of the recorded readmissions occur within the first 30 days, improving the level of service delivery and particularly in-patient care and the embraced discharging plans would lower the readmission rate considerably (Glickman et al., 2014). Overall, the report demonstrates the importance of patient satisfaction in reducing the medical cost and the rate of hospital readmission. Therefore, medical institutions through their respective management should commit to understanding the distinct factors that facilitate hospital readmission and consequently restructure their operations and services in a manner that complements and positively impact the provision of health care services.

Organization’s Information

This report is based on the information collected from different hospitals across the United States. The medical institutions used to facilitate the study are developed and serve thousands of in and out patients on a daily basis. Typically, the information collected in this report represents government owned and privately owned medical institutions to establish the competitiveness of the offered services and more importantly, the level of patients’ satisfaction. The two sets of facilities, government and privately owned, embraced diverse management and control systems to suit their needs while optimizing their operations. For instance, government owned facilities are run, controlled, and managed by the government through its respective ministry of health.

On the other hand, privately owned medical institutions are run, managed, and financed by individuals or a group of individuals. However, for compliance and conformity purposes, privately owned medical institutions are controlled by the government through its respective ministry of health. Considering the information was collected from quite a significant number of hospitals across the United States, different states and cities are sampled and represented accordingly. The sampled facilities have more than ten years of operation and offer quite a wide range of medical services. The identified facilities have affiliate medical establishments that operate in different parts of the United States not to mention other regions globally. Most of these facilities, and especially those in the United States, sit on a not less than 50 hectares of land with a total bed capacity of not less 1200 beds. In other words, the information gathered in this report offers a detailed and comprehensive insight on matters hospital operations and patient satisfaction.

Gist of the Problem

This report ex0plores and examines the level of inefficiencies in the healthcare systems across the United States. By assessing and evaluating the level of inefficiency in the healthcare systems the report identifies aspects that majorly contribute to increased rate of hospital readmissions in the distinct medical facilities.

Description of the Problem

Background

While healthcare is a critical element in society, the report indicates that the health sector and particularly in the United States has recently experienced an increased number of hospital readmissions. Most often than not, quite a considerable number of the readmission, a quarter to be precise, occur within the first 30 days after the patients are discharged from their respective medical facilities. As a result, patients incur an increased medical cost with the respective managements spending over 17.4 billion dollars in readmitting patients.

Evolving Complexity of the Situation

From the survey, it is evident that while most, if not all, medical facilities are committed to offer quality patient care quite a considerable number continue to struggle with issues of inefficiency and compromised level of service delivery primarily because of their uncoordinated services (Shalchi et al., 2009). As such, the medical practitioners are overwhelmed not to mention the fact that patients are exposed to ineffective medical services. For instance, the report indicates that owing to the uncoordinated services and operations in the distinct health facilities, medical equipment and infrastructures are stretched, thus affecting the level of service execution negatively.

Persons or Groups Involved and their Role

This report involves a team of researchers whose primary role was to gather the relevant information that would help in understanding the relationship between patient satisfaction and in-patient care with hospital readmissions within 30 days. Other participants include medical practitioners and patients who willingly agreed to take part in the research. The information was recorded instantaneously to facilitate the research. Hospital staff was also involved in the study to validate some of the information gathered from patients and medics while offering their honest opinion in regards to the subject of the study.

Local and Historical Factors Contributing to the Situation

On the other hand, considering the overwhelmed medical practitioners and health infrastructure, patients are unable to judge the level of and quality of heath care. From the report, a significant number of the sampled populace indicated that most patients assess and evaluate the level and quality of patient care based on their intuition since they are oblivious of the clinical knowledge. From the report, it is evident that most hospital across the United States experience inefficiency in their operations and increased rates of readmissions chiefly because of their uncoordinated primary administrative functions such as planning, control, evaluation, and organization among others.

While hospital operations and especially patient oriented services should be evidence based, until recently most hospitals have not been consistent with delivering based evaluations and practices. As a result, patients have been exposed to compromised diagnosis and treatment environment a situation that has triggered patients to false their recoveries while at their respective facilities (Shalchi et al., 2009). As such and despite faking their recovery, patients are discharged and based on their adverse experiences while at home they are highly likely to be readmitted within 30 days.

Other causes of hospital readmission as expressed in the survey include ineffective transition care that is often characterized by lack of follow ups, detailed care instructions, and home visits among others. Also, from the report it is also evident that hospital readmissions could be as a result of misinterpretation of discharge information where the patient and their respective caregivers ignore the diagnosis and prescribed medication (Kurtz et al., 2017). Demographic factors are also a common cause of hospital readmission. For instance, individuals without insurance covers or those with a low social and economic profiles are highly likely to be readmitted chiefly because of their inadequacy.

Other Appropriate Data Inherent to the Case

Important to note, although hospital inefficiency plays a central role in promoting the increased rate of hospital readmissions, this report identifies inherent factors that also largely contribute to the increased rate of patient readmissions. For instance, a significant number of patients who were readmitted in the various facilities within 30 days were highly likely to be diagnosed with acute conditions, including cancer, congestive cardiac failure, chronic pulmonary disease, and previous myocardial infection among other conditions (Hughes & Witham, 2018). Typically, readmission of such cases indicated the need for different strategies in addressing the conditions, including therapeutic procedures as most, if not all, patients diagnosed with those conditions experience quite a lot of pain.

Also, older people were also highly likely to be readmitted with 30 days after their discharge date chiefly because of their susceptibility. However, readmission of the ageing demographic could also be attributed to health-care factors such as sub-optimal social and health care, disease related such as the natural disease progression, or even aspects related to the patient such as treatment adherence and/ or family and social environment (Garcia-Perez et al., 2011). While some of the outlined factors are avoidable, the disease aspect is not always controlled, thus increasing the rate of hospital readmissions.

Administrative Decision

Upon evaluating and assessing the collected information, a profound decision was paramount. Typically, a sound administrative decision would play a major role in improving the level of services delivery while positively impacting the level of patient satisfaction across the United States (Whitman, 2016). Also, a robust decision would mean a reduced rate of hospital readmission especially when readmissions are tailored to health and patient care attributes. Notably, to establish the appropriate decision suitable to improving the level of service delivery while reducing the rate of hospital readmissions, different hospitals through their respective management embarked on adopting the lean six sigma toolkit. The latter is essentially a tool or rather a process that organizations use to improve their operations specifically by eliminating problems, waste, and inefficiency.

As a way of eliminating the problem at hand and the increased level of inefficiency at the various facilities, the administration resolved to offering patient centered care. Through this, medics would diagnose and treat the different conditions in close consultation with the patient in order to capture and address every single issue that could possibly derail the treatment process (CLIC, 2020). To do so, medics need to demonstrate profound communication skills to engage the patient in the treatment process. By doing so, patients would feel valued, thus reducing the untimely discharge plans that are promoted by patients who fake their recovery (CLIC, 2020). Subsequently, the rate of hospital readmissions would also reduce since patients would be discharged through an informed plan and when they are due.

Also, the administration committed to offering a competitive home-based care and follow up top ensure that patients and their respective caregivers adhere to the treatment process and mediation as prescribed. By offering homebased care and follow ups, the patients would feel valued particularly because of the continued flow of the treatment process (Laudicella et al., 2013). Besides, during follow ups the patient would communicate to the medic about their condition, thus adjusting the treatment process according...