Triple aim initiative
Instructions
Assignment:
Reflect upon the patient experience, patient safety, and healthcare cost as well as Joint Commission’s role in quality healthcare. Write a paper that addresses the following questions:
- How would you apply the principles of the Triple Aim initiative to improve quality, safety and satisfaction in the acute care or long-term care setting?
- Reflect on your current or future role in healthcare. How you would you, in the role of director of nursing or healthcare administrator contribute to improving cost effective quality care, patient satisfaction, and patient safety?
- What practices would you apply to minimize medical errors among front-line nursing staff?
Assignment Expectations
Length: 1500-2000 words in length
Structure: Include a title page and reference page in APA format. These do not count towards the minimal word amount for this assignment. Your essay must include an introduction and a conclusion.
References: Use the appropriate APA style in-text citations and references for all resources utilized to answer the questions. A minimum of two (2) scholarly sources are required for this assignment.
SAMPLE STUDENT ANSWER
The Triple Aim initiative, Joint Commission and Patient Care
Introduction
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement developed the Triple Aim Initiative in the United States to improve the care experience for patients, which includes satisfaction and quality of care. It is also designed to reduce the costs of healthcare and improve the health of populations. Health care in the United States is costly globally, pushing for the implementation of the triple aim. The Joint Commission is responsible for the steady improvement of health care for the public by constantly evaluating medical organizations and providing solutions to improve safe and effective care delivery.
Application of Principles of Triple Aim Initiative
Reducing The Cost of Health Care.
The United States has the most expensive health care system, which has recently risen to 20% Gross Domestic Product as recorded in 2020. The services are not improving as the outcomes of healthcare are worse than other countries that spend less ((Bisognano, & Kabcenell, 2021). The triple aim initiative discourages misuse or overuse of drugs and treatment to cut costs. Doctors can also minimize tests. Doctors are encouraged to link symptoms with diseases; hence few tests can give accurate results (Karaca, & Durna, 2019). Another method of reducing costs is through preventive care.
Preventative care enables doctors to keep a check on the populations’ health status. Regular checkups like diabetes, blood pressure, and cancer screening help doctors treat diseases early. Treating diseases like cancer and blood pressure at an early stage saves on medication costs. Some diseases, when diagnosed earlier, like cancer, can be eradicated rather than having to manage it with drugs eventually.
Home care services can also be implemented to reduce costs. The action prevents emergency admissions in the hospital wards where patients have to pay an extra coin for care, treatment and accommodation. Research conducted from 2008 to 2010 shows that 1774 emergency visits to the department were avoided hence saving $9000000 (Bisognano, & Kabcenell, 2021). Home care services also promote the rate of patient recovery as they are used to the environment. The patients also get motivated by family members.
The efforts of reducing costs, health care systems should embrace ambulatory care initiatives. Medical professionals in outpatient settings provide ambulatory care. Medical clinics, dialysis centres, hospital outpatient clinics and even ambulatory surgery centres are outpatient settings (Bisognano, & Kabcenell, 2021). Since patients won’t be admitted, this method can save on costs. This method has been successful in The Queens Health Network, whereby cost per member dropped by 5.7% in a study done between 2006-2009.
Improving Patient Care Experience.
Providing medical care used to be enough for health care providers in the past. Today, it is mandatory for medics to provide efficient and high-quality services to patients to improve the patient care experience. First, the physician-patient relationship matters a lot in a patient’s experience. A doctor should discuss with the patient ways he feels comfortable about his treatment. Consulting allows a patient to give his preferences about the treatment, which a doctor will try to incorporate in the treatment schedule. There is power in patient engagement. (Bisognano, & Kabcenell, 2021). Medics should also include some family members from the patient’s side to know the skills and experiences they can relate to the triple aim initiative.
Providing quality care leads to patient satisfaction. The study results showed that most patients got satisfying experiences when nurses were concerned and caring. They are dissatisfied when nurses give information about their conditions without much care. This group amounted to 63.9%. (Karaca, 2019). Satisfaction is the best indicator of quality care which translates to total quality management.
Comprehensive quality management can be termed as competence, professional knowledge, and the use of appropriate technology (Bisognano, & Kabcenell, 2021).) Satisfaction ranks a healthcare system as either good or bad. Patients need a diagnosis, proper treatment, and quality care while in hospitals.
Prompt responses to patient phone calls for inpatient and outpatient services are crucial in improving the patient care experience. If a physician handles phone calls inappropriately, the patient’s side results can be devastating as he may require emergency guidelines or help. (O’Brien, 2017) Since most doctors are usually busy, health care systems should come up with telephone triage systems to play a role in managing phone patient phone calls. This system will ensure that phone calls are returned within realistic time frames. The triage will also allow for documentation.
Nurses can also improve quality care by reducing causes and risk factors of other health issues through safe medication. They can also offer motivation to patients, monitoring and basic knowledge. Wound treatment should be done to satisfy the patient by using methods that reduce pain but increase mobility. Lastly, medics should strive to maintain their health status and reduce the chances of further complications.
Improvement of Populations Health
Population health improvement can be achieved through segmenting patient populations. These groups are made based on age, disease or condition, gender, and risk factors. Risk stratification can be considered the best parameter as it effectively addresses the high costs of chronic diseases like cancer. People considered to be at increased risk should be closely monitored with regular screening (Bisognano, & Kabcenell, 2021). If they are found with the disease at an early stage, they can be treated, reducing costs. Evaluating risk factors that contribute to chronic diseases is also essential. Risk factors can include unhealthy consumption of food, use of tobacco and physical inactivity. These factors can lead to hypertension and obesity.
Another way to promote population health is through evidence-based screening to help prevent the invasion of diseases into the population. Concentrating on already sick people in society alone will not improve population health. Mass and regular medical screening of populations will enable the healthcare systems to determine whether people are healthy or sick. The action will also save on costs since it prevents diseases from getting to chronic levels.
Even though the triple aim initiative aims at saving on costs, funds should be set aside for the less privileged people in society (Bisognano, & Kabcenell, 2021). Less privileged people tend to have higher mortality rates and low immunity, making diseases easier to invade. Focusing on the overall health of populations will improve population health.
Ways of Improving Cost-Effective Quality Care, Patient Satisfaction and Patient Safety
Health care administrators should implement some strategies that will see the face of patient satisfaction and safety shining. Firstly, audit and feedback should be encouraged in healthcare systems. In these audits, patients should give feedback about the performance of an individual nurse or medic. This will enable the management to know on weaknesses of a respective provider and make necessary improvements. On audits, data about patient satisfaction should be yearly released publicly (O’Brien et al., 2017). Through the public release of data, benchmarking can be done from the best health care providers.
Another strategy is through providing education to nurses and other providers. Education can be achieved through conferences, workshops, outreach and distributed learning materials. The education content should include new or emerging ways of treatment, new technology or new effective drugs. It can also cover new wound nursing techniques. Keeping nurses and medics up to date on trends in the medical world improves delivery in care and patient safety.
Creating nurse reminders through creating reminder charts, computer-based decision support, and computer reminders will ease work. When nurses are unsure about a decision, they can confirm from their computer decision support, hence making minor mistakes. Automated decisions are also easy to access, making it easier for work to flow smoothly. Charts on guidelines, for example, in labor rooms, helps a lot. Making good and right decisions improves patient safety. (O’Brien et al., 2017). Health care system organizational change will promote patient safety and satisfaction.
Increasing staff members like nurses will allow room for nurses to concentrate on few patients in care delivery. Making use of disciplinary teams will encourage nurses to be careful when working, minimizing errors as they know any mistake committed will lead to disciplinary action. Grouping nurses according to skills that they are best in improves patient satisfaction. If a nurse has the best skills in nursing wounds, she can be deployed to the accidents section and if best in maternal delivery, she should be deployed to the maternity section.
Another way of improving patient safety and satisfaction is through the promotion of patient self-management. Self-management can be done through calls explaining how a patient should manage his condition or diseases. It can also be done through the creation of reminder messages sent to patients. Postcards can also act as reminders of self-care. A patient reminder system can also be created with materials in which explain self-management.
Giving financial incentives, developing regulations and policies will encourage cutting down costs of health care. Encouraging patients to use their medical insurance cards for treatment is one of the ways of cutting down costs. According to his performance level, a policy on paying a provider encourages value for money and motivation for better service delivery. All the above strategies will either improve on cutting medical costs, improving patient safety, or enhancing patient satisfaction.
Practices That Minimize Medical Errors Among Nursing Staff
Medical errors are severe errors in public health as they are the leading cause of mortality rates. There are various practices that have been put into place by The Joint Commission Patient Safety Goals that minimize medical errors (Rodziewicz, Houseman, & Hipskind, 2021). A frontline nurse should correctly identify a patient by using at least two different ways of confirming identity. He should also get lab tests to the patient quickly before confusion occurs with many samples.
A nurse should also ensure that surgery is done on the correct body part by double-checking the patient and records. Medications should be correctly used. To ensure proper usage of drugs, a nurse should always double-check the labelling on containers. Another practice is that frontline nurses should always label medications to avoid confusion. Even medicines that are in syringes should always be labelled. If confusion occurs, a patient will take the wrong medication, and the results could be adverse.
Frontline nurses should also ensure that they spend more time with patients that are on anticoagulants and chemotherapeutics to monitor their response. Patients taking anticoagulants are at risk of bleeding, therefore, need extra monitoring. Nurses are also advised to wash hands before and after visiting patients routinely (Rodziewicz, Houseman, & Hipskind, 2021). This encourages the prevention of nosocomial infections. Before giving medication, nurses are encouraged to identify patient risks and dangers to prevent reactivity. If a patient is allergic to a particular medicine component, the nurse should look for an alternative.
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Conclusion
The triple aim initiative has excellent benefits to the healthcare system and the patients at large. People can now access medical care at reduced costs. It is essential that the initiative encourages patient satisfaction and proper medical care. Populations are benefiting from the initiative so that people can get free medical screening as it aims at treating diseases at early stages to reduce medication costs. Currently, healthcare administrators and directors of nurses are required to make a few contributions, like providing education on new medical trends and technologies to medical providers.
To increase customer satisfaction and safety, health care systems should make platforms that provide self-management guidelines to patients. Nurses are also encouraged to be careful by taking precautions before administering medications to patients to avoid medical errors. Such precautions can lead to fatal and adverse results like death if ignored.
References
Bisognano, M., & Kabcenell, A., (2021). Better health, patient experiences and lower costs can be achieved with the triple aim. Healio. Retrieved from https://www.healio.com/news/orthopedics/20120325/better-health-patient- experiences-and-lower-costs-can-be-achieved-with-the-triple-aim
Rodziewicz T. L, Houseman B, & Hipskind J. E. (2021). Medical error reduction and prevention. StatPearls Publishing.
O’Brien, L. K., et al., (2017). Improving Responsiveness to Patient Phone Calls: A Pilot Study. Journal of Patient Experience, 4(3), 101–107. https://doi.org/10.1177/2374373517706611
Karaca, A., & Durna, Z. (2019). Patient satisfaction with the quality of nursing care. Nursing Open, 6(2), 535–545. https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.237
Jermaine Byrant
Nicole Johnson
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