The Joint Commission (2012) defines risk management in healthcare as “the clinical and administrative acts undertaken to identify and evaluate the risk of injury to staff, patients and visitors and the risk to loss of the organization itself”. Studies have shown that the litigation against nursing homes is on the rise; thus making risk management very important in day to day care. Malpractice insurance premiums for nursing homes are also on the rise; this contributes to bankruptcy and forces many facilities to operate without malpractice coverage (Weinburg M.D & Levine, 2008). This threatens quality of care and access to healthcare for ill elderly people that need round the clock care. Effective risk management in a nursing home requires one to accurately
An Institute of Medicine report estimates that medical errors cost the nation 17 billion dollars in preventable medical errors each year (“A Guide,” 2011). In addition, these errors rob the medical community of the trust and confidence of its patients. This paper will explore: why the Joint Commission goals are important, examples of problems that have been experienced, potential hindrances to meeting these goals, and strategies to help maintain adherence to these goals. It goes without saying that it is of paramount importance to the safety and well-being of a patient to be correctly identified and to have medications administered safely. There are hundreds of patients in a hospital; and at any given time there may be several with the same last name.
The primary ethical dilemmas surrounding organ transplantation arise from the shortage of available organs and the criteria on who should receive an organ first and why. Not everyone who needs an organ transplant gets one. But not just that, Medicare funded organ transplants add another set of ethical issues to the equation. Medicare is a federally-funded health insurance program available to retirees over the age of
The rising cost of health care has cause the government to step in and control regulations and spending; thus creating a health care reform system. America is now entering into this reform. The purpose of having a universal health care system is to provide covered care for all its residence, dispel misnomers about the program, and America's health care system, before Obama Care, was organized around private insurance companies, which many of our citizens could not afford. With the new Obama health care system, everyone pays into the system and everyone receives care. Just like Britain's health care system, they provides free public healthcare to all permanent residents at the point of need.
Certification affords hospitals to participate in federally funded Medicare and Medicaid programs. Accreditation is defined as “A self-assessment and external peer assessment process used by health care organizations to accurately assess their level of performance in relation to established standards and to implement ways to continuously improve.” (Raik, 2001) Continuous improvement should be the ultimate goal when providing health care to the public whether it is a private for profit organizations or a community health center that is not for profit. There are both national and international accreditation bodies that survey and provide hospitals with accreditation. In the United States the standard for hospital accreditation is the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), which per
Health care providers should provide care that meets the needs of each individual patient, including the use of appropriate advances in medical technology. Health care should also be non-discriminatory, providing the same quality of service regardless of race, ethnicity, age, sex or health status” (Quality of Care, n.d.). The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) named a program ‘the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative’ (PQRI), based on the 2006 Tax Relief and Health Care Act (TRHCA). The Act necessitated the creation and implementation of a physician quality reporting system which includes incentive payments for those eligible professionals who disclose measures of quality taken for covered Medicare beneficiaries. The quality reporting is done on a voluntary basis offering contributing physicians bonus payments based on Medicare claims for services.
Social Factors Affecting the Delivery of Healthcare Social Factors Affecting the Delivery of Healthcare Access to care can be defined as the ability to obtain needed, affordable, convenient, acceptable, and effective person health services in a timely manner (Shi & Singh, 2010). In regards to the health care delivery system in America, one would be ignorant to believe that everybody has equal and parallel access and utilization of our health care system. Significant inequalities in health care and status exist across varying income groups, social classes, and ethnic groups. Due to these inequalities in health status, major challenges are facing the distribution of health care among certain groups, if not all, Americans. In order to improve the nation’s health and end the disproportion in health care to vulnerable populations, the social determinants of health must be addressed foremost in order to achieve an understanding of the issues that are affecting so many Americans and what must be done in the fight toward equality in the U.S. health care delivery system.
“Hospital-acquired infection” (HAI) is a serious and prevalent issue in today’s healthcare field. The Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital finds this issue to be grave and is doing all that they can to eradicate HAI for good. Hospital-acquired infections are infections that come about during the course of the hospitalization and treatment, but were not present when the patient was admitted to the hospital. According to the CDC, hospital-acquired infections show up “48 to 72 hours after admission or 10 days after discharge” (Collins, n.d.). The reason for this window of time for the infection to develop is because hospitals try to have the duration of hospital stays decreased.
When someone only accesses health services on emergency basis they are often have astronomical medical bills they are expected to cover out of pocket. The vulnerable population I have the most experience with in the workplace is the homeless population. As a house supervisor in a psychiatric hospital, my role is to treat this aggregate of the population with the same dignity and respect as every other patient, while providing exemplary care. Another important role in the care
Instead of debating whether or not health care should be universal, the U.S. should be debating on which venues to take to guarantee that all of its citizens have the right to health care. Health care should be considered a basic right not a luxury reserved for the wealthy and the struggling middle class that is able to afford some of it. Human life has greater value than money. Ironically, in the U.S. we rely on private insurance companies that are for profit and that don’t take into a consideration a patient’s health or economic condition. Why do we allow such a system to