Meet a New Breed of Medical Professional: The Health Coach

           Like having a personal trainer for personalized finesses development, a health coach will help people make easy-to-say, hard-to-do behavioral changes that promote good health-getting enough exercise, eating a balance diet, and managing stress according to a recent NPR article (Feidt, 2012).This new health care field is relatively small but is slowly growing. On top of managing their patient’s wellness and health, the coaches are helping to drive down health care costs. Chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are the most common types of aliments afflicting Americans today

These chronic diseases are preventable; therefore, the marketability of having a good health coach is becoming more desirable. Employers are realizing the high medical cost associated from caring for these individuals. Providence, the company mention in this article reported over the three years of health coaching, they have seen a small but steady decrease in the number of obese employees- from 36 percent in 2009 to 32 percent in 2011 (Feidt, 2012). The article also reported that Medicare has started paying for up to 20 percent on obesity counseling sessions a year, translating into positive growth for this profession. With health care cost unabated and continuing to rise annually, simple initiatives like this can help shift the burden back to the individual and create a more sustainable health care system.

Reference

Feidt, A. (2012, July 23). Meet a New Breed of Medical Professional: The Health Coach. Retrieved July 24, 2012, from KaiserHealthNews: http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2012/July/23/health-coach-alaska.aspx

A Patient’s Perspective

I believe that the perspective of the patient is an important piece of the puzzle regarding whether an adverse event has occurred. I do think that patient’s must play a more active role in their health care by actively listen, asking questions, and critically thinking when someone is caring for them. As a health care provider, a majority of my patients do not ask me questions when I am caring for them. They acquiesce quite easily and favor for the procedure to be completed quickly. I can understand from their perspective that they do not want to be of a burden and be rude to those who is caring from them. But should an adverse event occur; the patient’s perspective can help prevent future mistakes from occurring again. Also, we must recognize that most adverse events are results from processes or systematic breakdown and not from a single source; “Blaming and punishing an individual and failing to change the process do not reverse the harm that has occurred and do nothing to decrease the likelihood of the same adverse event occurring again elsewhere in the organization” (Ransom, Joshi, Nash, & Ransom, 2008).

But the power of patient’s voicing their opinion is often overlooked. The Joint Commission established “Sentinel Events” for accredited organization; these are mandatory reporting for certain types of adverse events such as: infant abduction, suicide, radiation therapy to the wrong body region, or surgery on the wrong individual or wrong body part. This regulation was intended to increase accountability and is still use today. But for minimal or harmless errors, little to no reporting was done because there was no incentive in doing so (monetary returns) compared to a sentinel event. These “small” errors will likely remain unchanged and the likelihood for improvements will be nil. That is why patients must help voice any problems large or small by filling out surveys or reporting it directly to management, we cannot eliminate all human error but we can help minimize it; “When safety is part of everyone’s daily routine, errors exist but adverse events do not” (Ransom et al., 2008). We should not be fearful when making mistakes because errors will occur, it is how we learn and we must create a system in which human factors and safety are integrated together, only then we can fully approach solving patient safety.

Bibliography

 

Ransom, E. R., Joshi, M. S., Nash, D. B., & Ransom, S. B. (2008). The Healthcare Quality Book Second Edition. Chicago: Health Administration Press.

Hospitals are trying a new business model, treating patients at home

That is true, with the cost of health care per patient is rising with no end in sight, hospitals are now turning towards home care to help reduce cost. A recent article in the Kaiser Health News network reported “More than 13 percent of all federal spending goes toward Medicare. Two thirds of that spending goes to the sickest 20 percent of Medicare beneficiaries, the ones with multiple chronic health conditions” (Schultz, 2012). These statistics are staggering, health care in the United States cannot continue down this path without any intervention.  With pressure mounting, health care leaders; doctors, hospital administrators, and researchers came up with a solution to rein in cost, by focusing patient care in their own home, hospitals can then reduce their liabilities versus having patient’s being cared for in the hospital.

Dr. Bruce Leff, a geriatrician and health researcher at Johns Hopkins University published a study showing how medical facilities can reduce cost by implementing six models of caring for seniors. The most popular model is called “Nurses Improving Care to Health system Elders, or NICHE, allowing nurses to take on a more proactive role towards focusing on common complications seniors would encounter; catheter infections or delirium. In contrast, another model called “Hospital at Home” did not garner much praise because unfortunately, Medicare does not pay hospitals for taking care of patient’s at their home as of yet, the system of revenue is still filing up hospital beds. Dr. Leff stated “Right now hospitals make money by filling beds, if I go to the hospital president and say, I’ll do a patient’s care at home, and Medicare doesn’t pay for that. It’s hard for them to give up revenue in that way” (Schultz, 2012). The results from his study have shown a reduction in cost and better patient outcomes, if this country is serious about lowering health care cost then all viable options should be utilized and antiquated laws amended, this country cannot afford inaction when there are helpful ideas out there.

Bibliography

Schultz, D. (2012, June 4). To Curb Spending On Elderly, Hospitals Try New Business Models. Retrieved June 5, 2012, from KaiserHeatlhNews: http://capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org/index.php/2012/06/to-curb-spending-on-elderly-hospitals-try-new-business-models/

 

What Quality Means to Me

The word “quality” means to me is something safe, usable, has value, grants me and the people around me personal satisfaction, and can be replicated consistently. Quality is subjective and can be judged by the “eye of the beholder”, however, people do agree that good quality will not cause harm onto the users of that product and/or service. Quality should also be measurable via other things of similar form; the information gathered from the competition will help business grow and achieve better efficiency. Quality is a reflection of a whole, if the quality was poor; it is safe to assume that the leadership at that facility did not care about their company and product, which is unfortunate and creates a caustic environment for their employees and customers. Leadership is vital for ensuring excellent quality at any establishment and it is sometime that I look for. I also view quality as a good indicator of one’s personal work ethic, for me, providing exceptional quality care for my patients’ returns personal satisfaction and fulfillment. It is impossible to reach “perfect” quality because it is biased, however we should make every effort in order to do so.

Applying quality to the health care industry is not a difficulty process if the right tools are present. In order for health care providers to understand more about what matters during a patient’s hospital visit, they should observe their own daily interactions with other services that they use frequently and assess what they like about that service, the dislikes, and ideas on how to make it better. Every patient when entering a health care facility will have an initial impression about their overall care, it is in the best interest of that health care facility to invest and develop strategies in order to prevent a negative impression. Some core principles that should be used are; focusing on customer value, making sure that a positive organizational culture is a part of that company’s goal, using benchmarks when comparing against competitors, and establishing a continual improvement plan. Health care is no different from any other commodity; everybody expects a decent amount of care and satisfaction when parting away their hard earned finite resources (time and money), it is those exceptionally well thought out businesses that will succeed in a world of choices.