Developing Organizational Policies and Practices Paper

Developing Organizational Policies and Practices Paper

Developing Organizational Policies and Practices

Healthcare organization is a system that brings people, institutions, and resources that deliver healthcare services together to meet the needs of the target population. Except for government healthcare institutions, other healthcare organizations operate as business entities that need to be handled with care to remain profitable. In these organizations, patients get the best healthcare services. Healthcare providers need to get good and sustainable pay as they advance their professional development (Singh, & Singh, 2019). At the same time, the organization needs to make a profit and incorporate recent healthcare techniques. This makes the organizations to have a competing interest amongst each other. The paper describes the competitions, interests, and policies in the healthcare organization about up-skilling. Developing Organizational Policies and Practices Paper

Two Competing Needs that Impact Up-skilling in My Organization

Upskilling is the process of keeping up with the latest technology. It is the most challenging advancement in many companies. It creates powerful business opportunities and skills gaps, especially in the healthcare sector. This up-skilling needs highly efficient personnel to run the technology and to keep the company competitive. Up-skilling improves the retention of healthcare workers, boosts the morale of working, enables client satisfaction, and attracts new talent (Singh, & Singh, 2019). Two competing healthcare needs need up-skilling. This is maintaining quality healthcare to meet the needs of the community and operating with a cost-effective and affordable budget to accommodate the latest medical advancements. Developing Organizational Policies and Practices Paper

Patients are the primary stakeholders in the healthcare organization that demand the latest, quality, and affordable healthcare services. These services are offered by highly efficient doctors, nurses, laboratory technologists, pharmacists, therapists, and other healthcare providers. For example, with the increase in the population suffering chronic illnesses like cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and heart diseases, the patient requires a highly efficient healthcare provider or doctors with a specialty in the different sectors to prevent long-term disabilities and improve the quality of life.

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The second competing need that improves upskilling is operating within a tight budget to incorporate the latest medical advancement. As a private healthcare institution, it needs to make a profit, pay the workers in good time, and at the same time train their staff about the new technology. Therefore, the organization needs to cut down all their miscellaneous expenses to retain the workers and have technological advancement. Developing Organizational Policies and Practices Paper

A Relevant Policy in My Organization Influencing Up-skilling

For the organization to remain proactive and competitive, the care providers need to upskill to meet the demands in the competitive market. The organization needs some funds aside to offer the upskilling scholarship to the most proactive care provider. The criteria can be the person who has worked for the company for over five years and is willing to learn. The organization needs to accommodate different styles of learning. It can be the traditional classroom style or micro-learning (Brown, & Andrews, 2020). The organization needs to empower the employees to choose their path of career advancement to take ownership of their career development. The organization should also reward their employees for upskilling. In my organization, with the new advancement of the EHR, a general nurse up skilled to an informaticist. Other nurses were trained as renal and ICU specialists. This has improved the phase of the company’s development as well as keeping it competitive to realize the patient’s satisfaction.

Policy Critique

A policy is a principle of action proposed by the organization. In this organization’s policy, both the employee and the organization will benefit. The employee will have the advantage of career advancement that will make him or her competitive to the needs of society. The organization will benefit from having competitive services and a workforce attracting clients that enables them to make more profit. The policy of training staff who have worked for over five years makes the newly employed staff delay upgrading their skills as they wait for the scholarship after the five years of practice. In the ethical principles, there is no justice for these employees (Amann, et al, 2020). At the same time, it would not be fair for the company to leave the new employees to pay for their upskilling. This leaves the company in a dilemma of making new policies that will allow the willing employees to up-grade their careers. This policy needs to motivate the employees in career development with no bias whatsoever.

The greatest beneficiary is the patient and the healthcare provider. The patient gets the best care with the newly acquired skills that improve the health outcome. The employee gains new skills and knowledge without their own expense. This creates the morale of the employee and achieves patient satisfaction that gives the organization higher ratings and reviews. The organization reduces the expense of advertisement and recruitment of the new staff. The organization attracts new clients who need the new services provided. Developing Organizational Policies and Practices Paper

The challenge associated with the policy is funding. As a private institution, it needs to make a profit to keep it proactive, maintain its employees as well as offer scholarships to its most proactive employee. The policy of offering scholarships may be an issue for the organization due to the scarcity of the resources available. The organization may stretch financially to put the employee on school. This makes other potential beneficiaries miss the opportunity for upgrading. The dilemma of making profits or giving scholarships to the employees is solved by the organizational committee considering the external competitions. Developing Organizational Policies and Practices Paper

The recommended policy for balancing competing needs for resources, patients, and workforce

 Training

An organization needs to send its employees to upgrade their skills to fit in the competitive market. After the employee leaves for school, the gap left must be replaced by new staff that makes the organization incur an additional cost. Training done within the working premises reduces the extra cost incurred by the organization and enables the employee to continue working when they are out of class (Lyons, 2020). This policy may be implemented to help the organization to train more employees at the same time. The company benefits by getting new skills and reducing the expenses of hiring new staff. It motivated the employees in their career growth because everyone has equal opportunities for training.

Partnerships with Foundations and Philanthropists

Mangold, (2020) A philanthropic partnership is a resource to those who want to achieve more in giving partnerships, giving opportunities, for example, co-funding, collaboration, and networks for individuals. The philanthropist partnership in an organization helps in the provision of scholarship to the best performing employee hence relieving the pressure of the costs and resources of the organization. For example, in a period of 5 years, the bill and Melinda foundation gave over 70% of health-related funding. Developing Organizational Policies and Practices Paper

Ethical Principles

The ethical principles in this policy are beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. However, the ethical shortcoming in this is the lack of payment during the study period. This does not observe the principle of non-maleficence because it causes stress and pressure to the employee despite upgrading of the skills (Amann, et al, 2020). The health organizational development of policies and practices helps to meet the needs of the patient as well as improve the skills of the healthcare practitioners.

Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Several national healthcare issues impact the healthcare system and healthcare organizations in the US. These issues should be addressed to improve healthcare standards; however, some issues are more urgent than others. Transformational healthcare leaders are challenged to stay abreast with the ever-evolving multifaceted culture and climate of the healthcare system to address emerging healthcare issues (Broome & Marshall, 2021, p. 36). The selected healthcare issue is the Cures Act, also known as the 21st Century Act. Cures Act is a regulation that aims to accelerate the access of medication and medical devices and ensure patients have complete transparency and information regarding their healthcare costs and their healthcare outcomes (Martin, 2020).

National Healthcare Issue

The 21st Century Cures Act was enacted in December of 2016 and is a regulation that aimed to accelerate innovation and promote health information technology for patients, clinicians, and healthcare organizations (Lye et al., 2018). The Cures Act addresses the complex area of health information technology, especially electronic health records (EHRs), and the critical issue of interoperability. The Act also prohibits information-blocking practices and thus increases information transparency for patients. Through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the health information is made more computable. This gives patients more control of their health records, thus increasing patient engagement and empowerment in their care. Consisting of three elements price transparency, information blocking, sharing of admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) to providers and other healthcare organizations, the Cures Act ensures improved interoperability of EHRs (DesRoches et al., 2020).

The Impact of the Cures Act on the Healthcare Organization

Organizations have begun making changes to comply with the Cures Act. Hence, as a healthcare practitioner and nurse informaticist, I have been proactive in supporting and implementing changes to adhere to the regulation. Organizations are required to ensure the immediate release of patients’ results and ensure that healthcare providers’ notes are shared with patients as per the Massachusetts State Law.

In order to eliminate information blocking, interprofessional members from the information technology department, legal, compliance, and clinical informatics worked together to ensure that the patient information is documented in the patient portal, where patients can easily access the information. Therefore, the Cures Act has improved access to patient information and eliminated information blocking in my organization. Developing Organizational Policies and Practices Paper

Moreover, to adhere to the price transparency as per the Act, a payment estimator application was added to the organization’s electronic system. The estimator includes procedural costs and the charges of various medications and medical supplies. Adhering with price transparency aims to reduce healthcare costs and allows patients to seek out health care of the best value. Also, the Cures Act addresses admission, discharge, and transfer information sharing. As a result, healthcare organizations are required to notify post-acute care services providers or pre-identified primary care providers or healthcare groups after a patient registers in the emergency department, admitted, discharged, or transferred from the hospital (Barlas, 2018). My organization has adopted an interprofessional team approach to leverage the electronic health record system to create notifications to the appropriate professionals and facilitate information sharing (ADT).

Summary of the Articles

Increased interoperability will create a larger technology footprint and incorporation of additional software and implementations. However, as healthcare organizations introduce other vendors and third-party software, there are always growing concerns about security breaches. Easing the access of patient information across systems and platforms for the patient, provider, and other healthcare organizations has its pros and cons.

The 21st Century Cures Act incorporation of price transparency is challenging and requires innovation. According to Helton (2019), recognition of healthcare disconnects between price structure and payment structure will be problematic as organizations move forward to attain price transparency. Innovation should not hinder the workflow or place a burden on resources. The development of a price calculator draws attention to the need to change pricing structures and the utilization of a tracking resource. This article supports the importance of price transparency and accelerates access to price information by consumers.

In the article by Mangino & Danis (2020), patients have a right to access their information through the electronic health records system. This includes the use of patient online portals to promote information access and ensure information transparency as per the Cures Act. Mangino & Danis (2020) thus explain that health systems have implemented online patient portals to ensure that patients can easily access and view their health records. However, the article notes that there are various ethical issues involved with availing patient information in online patient portals, such as confidentiality and privacy. Hence, healthcare organizations should implement security measures to protect the privacy and confidentiality of patient information. Developing Organizational Policies and Practices Paper

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Strategies Used to Address the Organizational Impact of the 21st Century Cure

According to Helton (2019), one of the strategies healthcare organizations can use to create price transparency is innovation. Patients can easily access this information and make informed medical choices with the ability to price compare. A concern is the price transparency to the itemized bill the patient will receive aftercare is delivered. As an organization, we should ensure that what information we put forth for the consumer matches the itemized bill. Analysis of workflows and improvements to the utilization of our current tracking resource utility is needed to prevent discrepancies.

Additionally, we should aim to align our current charges and data within our patient accounting with the data that we plan to publish as an organization. By proactively addressing this concern, we as an organization can improve productivity and resources provided to patients. Furthermore, we can intercept any instances of pricing concerns from patients and eliminate the need to allocate resources to field the calls and questions.

Secondly, the organization needs to ensure that all patient information is documented electronically and integrates into the online patient portals to access their health information easily. Mangino & Danis (2020) explain that sharing patient information in online patient portals ensures information transparency per the Cures Act. For every instance that the organization does not conform with the regulation, a stiff fine is incurred. The penalty can total as much as one million dollars per violation. It is imperative as an organization that appropriate measures are taken to comply with the regulation. The recent $62 million construction project, the $33 million acquisition of the urgent care facilities, and the $124 million cost of the new electronic health record have weakened the organization’s financial performance (Bartlett, 2019). If citations occur due to non-compliance with the regulation, the organization could be further debilitated. By sharing patient information, the organization should also ensure that the privacy of such information is protected. The healthcare organization must implement the appropriate security measures to ensure only authorized parties can access the information. Incorporating a dual-layer authentication for encryption is vital to create an additional security layer to the PHI to ensure no data breach. Although the dual encryption would add an extra log-in step for patients, providers, and other institutions, the organization and patients can take comfort in knowing their patient health information is secure.

Conclusion

The 21st Century Act (Cures Act) facilitates complete transparency regarding the costs of medications, care, and care outcomes for the patients. Adhering to this regulation ensures that patients have more control of their health information and empowers them to be more engaged in their care. Moreover, through this Act, patients are provided with up-to-date information regarding their health, empowering them to make informed treatment decisions. Developing Organizational Policies and Practices Paper

Transformational leaders in healthcare must develop solutions for the rapidly evolving healthcare and regulations changes to strategically align with the overall goal of the Quadruple Aim (Laureate Education, 2018). As a transformational leader, it is critical to champion change and engage clinicians and organizations to ensure workflows are followed for compliance and regulatory standards and guarantee safe, high-quality, cost-effective care for patients with improved outcomes.

Identify and describe at least two competing needs impacting the Cures Act and information blocking Describe a relevant policy or practice in your organization that may influence your selected healthcare issue/stressor. Critique the policy for ethical considerations, and explain the policy’s strengths and challenges in promoting ethics and the sharing of notes and labs(the impact to delivery summary information that has maternal information, also drug screenings, behavioral health consults and medications that include antipsychotics and antivirals. Recommend one or more policy or practice changes designed to balance the competing needs of resources, workers, and patients, while addressing any ethical shortcomings of the existing policies. Be specific and provide examples. Cite evidence that informs the healthcare issue/stressor and/or the policies, and provide two scholarly resources in support of your policy or practice recommendations See attached file – connecting it with this paper

References

Barlas, S. (2018). Health care price transparency initiatives are all the rage: but burgeoning efforts suffer from myriad shortcomings. P&T: A Peer-Reviewed Journal for Managed Care & Formulary Management, 43(12), 744–768.

Bartlett, J. (2019, June 13). South Shore Hospital bonds downgraded after Q2 losses. bizjournals.com. https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2019/06/13/south-shore-hospital-bonds-downgraded-after-q2.html. Developing Organizational Policies and Practices Paper

Broome, M., & Marshall, E. S. (2021).Transformational leadership: complexity, change, and strategic planning. In M. E. Broome & E. S. Marshall (Eds.). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (3rd ed. pp. 35-62). Springer.

DesRoches, C. M., Leveille, S., Bell, S. K., Dong, Z. J., Elmore, J. G., Fernandez, L., Harcourt, K., Fitzgerald, P., Payne, T. H., Stametz, R., Delbanco, T., & Walker, J. (2020). The views and experiences of clinicians sharing medical record notes with patients. JAMA Network Open, 3(3), e201753. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.1753

Helton, J. (2019). Why the call for price transparency is a call for innovation: In order to navigate and respond to the murky issue of price transparency, hospitals and health systems must innovate. Healthcare Financial Management, 8, 48.

Laureate Education (Producer). (2018). The Healthcare Environment [Video]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Lye, C. T., Forman, H. P., Daniel, J. G., & Krumholz, H. M. (2018). The 21st Century Cures Act and electronic health records one year later: will patients see the benefits? Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 25(9), 1218–1220. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocy065

Mangino, D. R., & Danis, M. (2020). Sharing ethics consultation notes with patients through online portals. AMA Journal of Ethics, 22(9), 784-791.

Martin, M. (2020). The ethics of emergent health technologies: implications of the 21st Century Cures Act for nursing. Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, 21(4), 195-201.

References

Amann, J., Blasimme, A., Vayena, E., Frey, D., & Madai, V. I. (2020). Explainability for artificial intelligence in healthcare: a multidisciplinary perspective. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 20(1), 1-9.

Brown, & Andrews, (2020) Supporting ‘successful knowledge transfer’for early childhood professionals–An emerging conceptual framework in an Australian context. Early Years, 1-16.

Lyons, (2020). The impact of job training on temporary worker performance: Field experimental evidence from insurance sales agents. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 29(1), 122-146.

Mangold, (2020). Philanthropic Foundations in Higher Education. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.

Singh, & Singh,  (2019). Interplay of organizational justice, psychological empowerment, organizational citizenship behavior, and job satisfaction in the context of circular economy. Management Decision. Developing Organizational Policies and Practices Paper