Managing a Primary Care Facility Essay

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Manager of a Primary Care Clinic

A new primary care facility has been established approximately 25 miles outside of a small city that has a population of 50,000 people. This facility currently has five family physicians, two nurse practitioners, twenty clinical support staff, and two physician assistants. The main objective of this new primary care facility is to provide primary care services to an increasingly diverse community of people within and outside the city. Despites the tremendous growth opportunities in the city, most of the residents still struggle to make end meet. Since the central city comprises two huge acute care facilities and one tertiary care facility, the residents are forced to use the facilities' emergency departments for routine conditions and illnesses in cases where their private physicians are unavailable. Therefore, this new primary care facility will play a crucial role in enhancing the health and well-being of this population through providing quality and timely care services.

Proliferation of Urgent Care Facilities and Primary Care Practices

One of the most important steps toward ensuring this new clinical facility provides quality care services to residents in this area is to examine the various factors that have contributed to the proliferation of primary care practices and urgent care facilities in the past three decades. Generally, the increased growth of urgent care facilities and urgent care facilities over the past two to three decades have been influenced by political, social, and economic factors. Through these factors, urgent care facilities and primary care practices have developed to become important parts of the current health care system and practices.

The social factor that has influenced the proliferation of urgent care facilities and primary care practices is frustration over long waits in emergency rooms. In the past three decades, patients have constantly expressed their frustrations regarding the long waits they are subjected to when visiting emergency rooms. These long waits have in turn acted as major impediments to their efforts to receive timely and quality care services. As a result of the increase in long waits in emergency rooms, policymakers and industry stakeholders have been forced to examine and develop new health care settings to address these needs. These efforts have in turn contributed to the proliferation of urgent care facilities and primary care practices in attempts to reduce the long waits in emergency rooms and provide timely care.

From a political perspective, the growth of these facilities and practices has been influenced by the emergence of retail healthcare. Policymakers have enacted policies and laws such as the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act that have partly worsened access to care despite increased healthcare demands. The enactment of such policies have in turn forced the various stakeholders to develop additional care settings, which has contributed to proliferation of urgent care facilities and primary care practices (Alvarez & Marsal Holdings, 2015). In this case, public policy has contributed to the development of additional care settings, especially urgent care facilities to help meet increased demands for care services.

Economically, the proliferation of urgent care facilities and primary care practices is attributable to the fact that these facilities and practices are seemingly cheaper and convenient as compared to other care settings. Actually, urgent care facilities and primary care practices have experienced significant growth in the recent past because of extended hours, improved wait times, and lower prices as compared to emergency departments in hospitals.

Mission Statement for the Clinic

The mission of this new primary care clinic is to provide quality, comprehensive, and preventive health care services to patients irrespective of their ability to pay. This mission will facilitate the provision of quality services through ensuring that care services are comprehensive and focus on improving the health and well-being of patients. Moreover, quality services will be ensured through compassion, which will help in identifying individual needs, maintaining good relationships with patients and their families over time, and maintaining highest-standard care practices in a cost-effective way.

Growth of the Business

One of the most important elements in managing the new primary care clinic is ensuring its growth through effective health care policies and practices. The growth of this business is specifically important because of the health status of the population and the increased care demands of people within and outside the city. Since it's the only primary care facility in this area, growing this facility is crucial towards providing primary care services to the growing population in the community and city.

The growth of this business will involve two major steps or strategic directions that are crucial for a primary care strategy.

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First, this new primary care facility will take a population-centered approach in order to address the evolving health care needs of the population. This approach is crucial towards the facility's growth since it helps in reducing repeat visits, enhances access to more patients, and results in healthier patients (Heidenreich & Peterson, 2013). Secondly, the provision of care services will be based on strategic use of available physicians to help avoid their unavailability when needed and ensure their easy access by patients. This will help promote the business' growth through developing a model where physicians and non-physicians work collaborative and to the full extent of their knowledge. This has proven to be a crucial approach in many health care settings as compared to limiting primary care access to a single physician.

The process of promoting and ensuring the growth of this institution will also entail making appropriate decisions regarding in-house services and those to affiliate with other institutions. Some of the major factors that will be used in the decision-making process for these aspects include assessment of individual needs, the most common diseases within the community, cost-effectiveness of approaches, and evolving care needs of the population.

Determining if the Clinic is Meeting its Goals

The effectiveness of this new primary care clinic is dependent on its ability to meet its goals relative to delivery of quality care services to patients. The most suitable means that will be utilized to determine if the clinic is meeting its respective goals is performance measurement and management. Performance measurement and management will help indicate the clinic's effectiveness in meeting its goals through examining clinical programs, processes, and systems, establishing goals regularly, and evaluating progress towards achievement of the established goals (Health Resources and Services Administration, 2011). Moreover, the use of this process will help provide insights regarding the key drivers of the clinic's performance and the outcomes or results of its systems, processes, and programs.

The use of performance measurement and management in determining if the clinic is meeting its goals also entails using quantifiable performance measurement. The first goal that the new primary care clinic seeks to achieve is improving the health status of a patient and promoting his/her well-being. This goal will be evaluated through outcome performance measurement i.e. a patient's test value, which will compare a patient's outcome with the care standard. This will also involve capturing reports on patient satisfaction through examining complaints and satisfaction statistics.

The second goal is to use quality standards across all health care programs, practices, and systems. This will be measured through statistical indicators or tables that provide information regarding quality improvement and performance management. In this case, the clinic will rely on observational and experimental data that indicates the performance of the various systems and programs in the facility. The observational and experimental data will indicate whether the clinic is meeting this goal or falling short through showing areas that have improved and those that need improvement. Inspections will also be conducted on the facility to examine the safety of personnel and patients.

The third goal is utilization of cost-effective means to ensure that patient care services are reasonable and affordable to the population. Surveys and third-party assessments will be utilized as performance measurements tools to examine what is valued by patients and the population and compare the clinic's costs against the financial standards at a national level. This will entail consideration of the socio-economic status of the population.

Opportunities for Improvement

In order for this primary care clinic to reach its full potential, adequate and effective measures for addressing opportunities for improvement are required. Opportunities for improvement for this clinical facility will be addressed through capacity building and clinical-community linkages. This will entail establishing external infrastructure and support networks that link the organization with community organizations and other health care agencies. As part of quality improvement initiatives, the clinic will utilize its capacity to take advantage of opportunities for improvements and collaborate with other relevant agencies and organizations towards this process in order to enhance access to and quality of patient care services.

In conclusion, the new primary care facility needs to establish effective policies and practices that will help meet the evolving health care needs of this population. This requires the development and use of suitable primary care strategies that promote and foster the growth of the clinic based on its mission. The adopted strategy should also be geared towards ensuring….....

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