Week 2 – DiscussionNo unread replies.No replies.
Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses. Refer to the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric under the Settings icon above for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated.
Comparative Performance
Prior to beginning work on this discussion, read chapters 3 and 4 from the course text.
For this discussion, you are tasked with comparing two hospitals, one that is considered a safety-net hospital (public hospitals who care for a large segment of the population who are uninsured or underinsured) and one hospital from a more affluent area in the state where you live.
Visit The Joint Commission: Quality Check (Links to an external site.).Take the following steps to find two hospitals: https://www.qualitycheck.org/
- Enter a city and state, and then select Locate.
- A list of hospitals for that city and state will populate on the page. Select View Report.
- Select View Accreditation History. Next, select the most recent Quality Report, which will open as a PDF document. Scroll down to the pages that list the National Patient Safety Goals and then the National Quality Improvement Goals. Choose one from either list.
- If you choose a National Patient Safety Goal,
- State the goal and the procedure(s) indicated in the Organization Should
- Discuss the implications to the patient, staff (physicians, nurses, medical assistance, pharmacists, etc.) and hospital if the health care professional fails to follow the procedure indicated.
- If you choose a Quality Improvement Goal,
- State the measure and explanation of that goal.
- Discuss how the hospital can improve their performance to meet the target.
- Repeat the above steps for a second hospital. Reminder, one hospital should be a safety-net hospital and one should serve an affluent community.
- Next, compare and contrast the differences between the two facilities. After review of the two hospitals, discuss your opinion about the reasons these hospitals could have disparities.
Your initial post should be 250 to 300 words and utilize at least one scholarly source from the University of Arizona Global Campus Library to justify your recommendations for improvement. Cite all sources in APA format as outlined in the Writing Center’s Introduction to APA (Links to an external site.). The Research, Keywords, Databases: An Overview (Links to an external site.) video tutorial is available to help you become more familiar with the library database search features and how to generate keywords.
Expert Solution Preview
Introduction:
In this assignment, two hospitals are compared- one safety-net hospital and another hospital from a more affluent area. The Joint Commission: Quality Check will be used as a reference to find the hospitals and their performance goals. The differences between the two facilities will be discussed, and the reasons for the disparities will be analyzed.
Answer:
The safety-net hospital selected from Quality Check is the Community Medical Center in Fresno, California. The hospital’s National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) chosen was the “Effective Communication” goal, which indicates that the hospital should, “Improve the effectiveness of communication among caregivers” (The Joint Commission, n.d.). The procedure stated in the NPSG is that “telephone orders and critical test results require a timely response from the intended recipient.”
If this procedure is not followed, it could lead to the poor communication of critical information, such as medical orders, test results, or patient information. This could lead to poor patient outcomes or medical errors, which can cause harm to the patient. It could also lead to poor staff performance, as this miscommunication could lead to confusion, delay, and frustration among staff members.
The comparative hospital selected was Stanford Health Care in Stanford, California. The Quality Improvement Goal (QIG) selected was the “Timeliness of Discharge to Post-Acute Care,” which states that the hospital, “Will Improve the timely transfer of patients to post-acute care settings to reduce the length of stay for medically stable patients by the end of the year” (The Joint Commission, n.d.).
To improve the hospital’s performance to meet the target, the hospital could implement policies and procedures for clinical decision-making, collaboration among medical professionals, and timely discharge planning. Additionally, the hospital could enhance its communication pathways and patient-family engagement strategies. This could improve the patient experience, reduce the patient’s length of stay, and optimize the utilization of medical resources.
In comparing the two hospitals, Community Medical Center faces additional challenges as a safety-net hospital. These challenges could be related to limited funding and resources, a high patient volume, and caring for patients with limited access to care. Stanford Health Care may have easier access to resources, funding, and technology. The disparities between the facilities could also arise from differences in patient population, staff knowledge, and expertise, and the hospital’s workforce structure.
In conclusion, the hospitals have different performance goals, but both of them are essential in addressing the needs of their respective patient populations. The hospital staff needs to follow standard procedures to improve patient outcomes, and the hospital needs to develop strategies to improve its performance according to Quality Improvement Goals. The disparities between the two hospitals could have arisen from structural and institutional factors, including funding, resources, patient populations, and technology.
