Measuring efficiency in health care delivery through electronic records and patient-centered care

¶ … efficiency of care delivery? Define the term "efficiency." Use specific examples and discuss why they would be appropriate measures.

Unlike some other service-oriented organizations, efficiency in health care cannot be measured purely according to customer satisfaction. Of course, dispensing surveys to patients upon exiting the hospital are one way to subjectively measure care efficiency. Such surveys can ask patients how long they waited to see a doctor and how clearly they understood the information conveyed to them during their visit. But a satisfied health care consumer might respond well to a nurse or doctor who was attentive to his or her needs on a personal level. This does not mean that the doctor or nurse attended to the patient's most critical need, first and foremost, with due speed and cost and care efficiency. Speed, attentiveness to the most critical needs of the patient, yet examining the individual with a comprehensive eye so not as to ignore future problems -- all of these elements are critical in improving health care efficiency.

One way to improve health care efficiency that has been proposed is the so-called "patient-centered New Model of care, with its emphasis on electronic health records and primary care," which is though to "lead to improved quality of care for patients and significant savings for the U.S. health care system," by increasing the data available to physicians and encouraging more frequent but shorter visits with a focus on preventative medicine. Using electronic records for patients could eliminate many potential errors and ideally, increase patient flow through offices; two of the main ways efficiency can be measured in a quantitative method. (Spann, 2004)