- NURS FPX 6612 Assessment 2 Cost Savings Analysis
Introduction:
This assessment is a written executive summary for my organization’s manager. My manager has charged me with researching how to use care coordination to help control costs and outcomes, gather data, and ultimately benefit the quality of health of the community. From her instruction, I created a spreadsheet of accounting information on saving costs and prepared and presented the information in an executive summary format.
Healthcare cost analysis is a component of business plans that aims to analyze and evaluate the costs of the hospital’s services for patients. This is due to direct costs, including medical supplies and equipment, and sometimes the associated costs, such as administrative and staffing costs. Cost analysis entails the realistic opportunity of reducing expenses, yet providing quality patient care is the most critical factor. This might range from the study of specific procedures in terms of cost-efficiency to examining the entire structure of a company to attain a better staffing or supply management strategy. Cost analysis is a continuous process in which costs are compared with actual performance indicators at least every 3-5 months to track the enterprise’s progress. Another common approach to hospital performance is to compare costs and performance with that of other healthcare providers.
Here is what cost-saving data in the hospital would look like:
| Cost-Saving Element | Current Costs | Anticipated Savings |
| Switch to LED lighting | $30,000 per year | $8,000 per year |
| Implement an electronic medical records system | $120,000 per year | $70,000 per year |
| Reduce staff overtime hours | $80,000 per year | $30,000 per year |
| Use an energy-efficient HVAC system | $60,000 per year | $9,000 per year |
Based on the analysis and suggestions in this spreadsheet, the hospital has listed four cost-saving factors and estimated the current costs and savings. The first one includes changing the lighting source from the standard light bulbs to the LED lights, which are expected to cost the hospital $8,000 per year, unlike the current $30,000. The second element is instituting the use of electronic medical records whose benefits, compared to the existing paper system, are expected to amount to $70,000 yearly instead of the $120000 currently being incurred on paper records. The third element is limiting the hours staff worked overtime, allowing the hospital to save $30,000 yearly instead of the current $80,000 used in overtime payments. Other components include installing an energy-efficient HVAC system, which is expected to save the hospital $9,000 per year compared to $90,000 per year used for heating and cooling.
Care Coordination Can be Cost-saving
Care coordination issues can be tackled in many ways to save money. First, you can start by saying that one of the advantages of integrating healthcare services is that the different types of healthcare providers are involved in the process of avoiding duplication of healthcare services and also help in preventing medical errors while keeping the costs of healthcare relatively low (Rawlinson et al., 2021). Secondly, care coordination can decrease the length of stay and prevent rehospitalizations, the most expensive section of healthcare costs (Kripalani et al., 2019). Third, if care coordination services are provided before acute conditions develop, individuals will not require costly treatments (Peikes et al., 2009).
They also have assumptions that underline the concept of care coordination. A cost-saving measure is the perception that we must work together to provide quality care, leading to better outcomes and fewer errors. Further, it presupposes that providers can access the resources and support required to coordinate care and services across multiple settings. From the review of evidence in the literature discussed above, the author claims that care coordination can lead to cost-saving while delivering better patient outcomes (Phua et al., 2020). Research on care coordination effectiveness has revealed that care coordination alleviates readmission rates, ED use, and patient satisfaction (Hoyer et al., 2017). In addition, various cost-saving benefits of care coordination have been established in multiple healthcare settings, such as ambulatory and primary care settings, specialty care settings, and long-term settings (Hoyer et al., 2017).
At the same time, care coordination is a promising opportunity for healthcare solutions that simultaneously tackle cost and result in efficiency. Nursing collaboration needs help from other healthcare providers and expects coordination to occur and resources to be accessible. If correct investments are made in infrastructure and resources, care coordination can turn into an opportunity to save on healthcare costs and improve handling results.
Care Coordination Improves Health Consumerism and Outcome
Integrated care management is one of the most crucial models in healthcare. It enhances and ensures better healthcare consumption and positive patient outcomes. It means the purposeful coordination of patient care services and resources between healthcare providers such as a patient’s physician, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, and other healthcare professionals to achieve the most appropriate patient outcomes. The primary purpose of care coordination is to provide timely, effective, high-quality care that fits patients’ preferences, needs, and goals (Squitieri et al. D., 2020 ).
One of the most critical positive things about care coordination is that it leads to better patient results. Integrating the concepts of the system of care and patient safety at multiple system levels will enable providers to respond to patient’s comprehensive medical, social, and psychological needs and decrease the incidence of adverse events. For instance, a care coordinator may assist patients with multiple chronic conditions to ensure they are seen at the correct times, receive necessary preventive services, get regular visits from the physician or other healthcare practitioners, and manage their medications well. This can assist in avoiding detrimental outcomes and curbing the number of hospital admissions that are usually very expensive, leading to deterioration in health conditions.
Overall, care coordination also helps increase health consumerism. The results show that patients receiving coordinated care are more likely to self-activate and view themselves as partnering with healthcare providers (Bombard et al., 2018). This can lead to stakeholders increasing patient satisfaction, improved health outcomes, and lower healthcare costs.
Care Coordination Efforts Can Enhance the Collection of Evidence-Based Data
Care coordination is a systems approach that aims at organizing and controlling healthcare resources and services for patients to ensure that the care delivered is appropriate and provided at the best time and location. Therefore, it implies that a PCMH model will reinforce diversity by increasing data use for evidence and quality of care coordination. It also fulfills a definition of the primary care model as it focuses more on the patient’s care and ensures that all aspects of care are provided to the patient (Veet et al., 2020). It also promotes health maintenance and control of chronic illnesses and health care.
It fosters more health promotion and the control of chronic conditions and health care. It cannot be denied that the PCMH model has been effective in improving the quality of care, lowering healthcare costs, and enhancing patient experience. In this regard, the following are the five ways through which care coordination efforts can be applied in the PCMH model to enhance the quality and improve the collection of evidence-based data: As for this, the following are the five solution strategies that show how care coordination efforts can be implemented in the PCMH model to promote the quality and the collection of evidence-based data:
- The first way coordination can improve outcomes is through enhanced patient data capture and documentation management. Thus, with the help of EHRs and various digital tools, care teams can efficiently and effectively collect and manage essential information, promoting accurate and timely diagnosis, care management, and treatment.
- Secondly, to make the PCMH work well, close coordination between the care team members is needed. Working in conjunction enables the teams to collate information from various sources, decouple repeats, and ensure the entire team understands the patient’s requirements and waste.
- Thirdly, care coordination will increase the use of evidence-based guidelines for diagnosing, treating, and managing the various aspects of care. This will also help the care teams see future trends in research and the care they have to pass on to their patients.
- Fourthly, effective care coordination can also support education and patient engagement. Care teams that involve patients in their care and provide them with input that would help them with their health needs could also give patients high satisfaction.
- Population health strategies within a PCMH model may be more successful because of increased care coordination. Information about any impacts on patients and the long-term outcomes can help care teams determine health trends in their community and the steps that need to be taken to improve the general state of the population. Consequently, using care coordination to ensure better guidelines in the PCMH provides better outcomes within the population.
Conclusion
Cost accounting is essential for determining economies of scale that hospitals could adopt to keep the costs of treatment low without jeopardizing the quality of service. The spreadsheet presented four cost-saving elements for the hospital: Using LED lights, introducing an EMR, cutting overtime hours, and reducing air conditioning unit service hours. It is important to note that single coordination can lead to cost savings in such aspects as coordinated care, shorter lengths of stay in the hospital, and early intervention and preventive services. It can also help patients and health consumers better and address growing concerns about ill-equipped patients in their health decisions. Care coordination can help collect data and referral status to provide evidence-based practices and reduce medical errors. In the end, it is possible to say that care coordination is a prospective tool for the development of cost savings in health care and the achievement of positive results for patients while providing for the participation of the necessary staff of medical institutions and the correct use of infrastructure and other resources. Read more about our sample NURS FPX 6612 Assessment 3 for complete information about this class.
References
Bombard, Y., Baker, G. R., Orlando, E., Fancott, C., Bhatia, P., Casalino, S., Onate, K., Denis, J.-L., & Pomey, M.-P. (2018). Engaging patients to improve quality of care: A systematic review. Implementation Science, 13(1), 1–22.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-018-0784-z
Hoyer, E. H., Brotman, D. J., Apfel, A., Leung, C., Boonyasai, R. T., Richardson, M., Lepley, D., & Deutschendorf, A. (2017). Improving outcomes after hospitalization: A prospective observational multicentre evaluation of care coordination strategies for reducing 30-day readmissions to Maryland Hospitals. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 33(5), 621–627.
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Kripalani, S., Chen, G., Ciampa, P., Theobald, C., Cao, A., McBride, M., Dittus, R. S., & Speroff, T. (2019). A transition care coordinator model reduces hospital readmissions and costs. Contemporary Clinical Trials, pp. 81, 55–61.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cct.2019.04.014
Peikes, D., Chen, A., Schore, J., & Brown, R. (2009). Effects of care coordination on hospitalization, quality of care, and health care expenditures among Medicare beneficiaries. JAMA, 301(6), 603.
https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2009.126
Phua, J., Weng, L., Ling, L., Egi, M., Lim, C.-M., Divatia, J. V., Shrestha, B. R., Arabi, Y. M., Ng, J., Gomersall, C. D., Nishimura, M., Koh, Y., & Du, B. (2020). Intensive care management of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): challenges and recommendations. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, 8(5), 506–517.
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Rawlinson, C., Carron, T., Cohidon, C., Arditi, C., Hong, Q. N., Pluye, P., Peytremann-Bridevaux, I., & Gilles, I. (2021). An overview of reviews on interprofessional collaboration in primary care: Barriers and facilitators. International Journal of Integrated Care, 21(2), 32.
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Squitieri, L., Tsangaris, E., Klassen, A. F., Haren, E. L. W. G., Poulsen, L., Longmire, N. M., Alphen, T. C., Hoogbergen, M. M., Sorensen, J. A., Cross, K., & Pusic, A. L. (2020). Patient‐reported experience measures are essential to improving quality of care for chronic wounds: An international qualitative study. International Wound Journal, 17(4), 1052–1061.
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Veet, C. A., Radomski, T. R., D’Avella, C., Hernandez, I., Wessel, C., Swart, E. C. S., Shrank, W. H., & Parekh, N. (2020). Impact of healthcare delivery system type on clinical, utilization, and cost outcomes of patient-centred medical homes: A systematic review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 35(4), 1276–1284.