Operational Effectiveness in Healthcare Organizations

Which hospital did you select and why?

The hospital selected is Mount Sinai Hospital. The Health System is aimed to increase competences and economies of scale, enhance levels of quality and results, and develop accessibility to cutting-edge primary, specialty, and ambulatory care services all the way through a comprehensive clinical network (Mount Sinai, 2017). The healthcare organization is a general medical and surgical facility that consists of over 1,100 beds. In the past financial year, the healthcare facility admitted more than 60,000 patients. In addition, the organization conducted more than 30,000 inpatient surgeries throughout the year and over 33,000 outpatient surgeries. Moreover, the emergency room of the healthcare organization experienced over 100,000 visits. The healthcare organization is not only a facility that offers general medical care, but is also a teaching hospital. With an amazing assortment of resources for the delivery of considerate, up-to-date care, the Mount Sinai Health System is set to detect and respond to health-associated necessities of the diverse populaces it serves (U.S. News, 2017). The reason why I selected this hospital is because I have previously worked in the establishment and attained considerable knowledge and competence.

What information did you find about the hospital?

There are statistics and information obtained about Mount Sinai Hospital with regards to its performance measures. To begin with, the healthcare facility has a performance rate of 81.72% with respect to getting timely care, appointments, and information. Another important measure is that the organization has a performance rate of 93.22% with respect to the patient's rating of doctors rendering care. In addition, accessibility to specialists as a performance measure was ranked as at 83.64%. A poor performance for Mount Sinai Hospital encompassed Health promotion and Education, which was set at 54.69 (Mount Sinai, 2017).

Using the HOE framework in the article indicated above, select one aspect of hospital operations and develop a set of measures for that unit. Remember that HOE = A x Q. x E. so be sure to include measures for each model element

The HOE approach makes use of a measure, which is made of three indicators. These three indicators are availability (A), quality (Q) and efficiency (E). The HOE measure is delineated as:

HOE = A x Q. x E

Where:

A -- Availability: the capability of the operational system to provide the necessary healthcare services.

Q -- Quality: the capability of the operational healthcare system to provide services steady with quality anticipations of patients.

E -- Efficiency: the capability of the operational healthcare system to provide services, as measured by the premeditated contrasted with the actual provided healthcare services (Gomes et al., 2010).

The unit selected from Mount Sinai Hospital is the Ambulatory Care Unit. Through this unit, the healthcare organization is able to render basic primary health care and an extensive assortment of specialty services to individuals of all ages. The care is rendered to individuals hailing from all financial and economic settings and is founded on the organization's patients and their households (Mount Sinai, 2017). With respect to availability, the measure will be to assess the total number of patients that seek patient care in Mount Sinai Hospital and the total actual number of patients that are provided with healthcare. Secondly, with respect to quality, the measure will be the quality of care. The measure of this particular component will encompass the hospital patient experience in the duration they are provided with health care. Third of all, with respect to efficiency, the measure will encompass the health outcomes. This will take into account the health status of the patient when coming to the hospital and when leaving. It will also include the quality of life of the patients.

How difficult do you think it will be to collect data for each of your proposed measures?

It will not be considerably difficult to collect data for each of the proposed measures above. This is because majority of the information can be quantified and easily obtained within the healthcare unit in the organization. However, there are challenges that will be faced in the process.

What challenges do you think will be encountered in trying to measure what you suggest?

A key challenge will be establishing criteria. Measurement of efficiency will take different criteria. For instance, when considering the measure of health outcomes, should the hospital be considered 100% efficient even when patient health has improved minimally? In addition, will death of patients be considered as a criterion for inefficiency of the organization? Another challenge will be establishing a criterion as to what is considered to be the accurate and satisfactory quality of life of the patient. Another challenge will be the lack of patient feedback. In order to assess quality, it is imperative for the patient to provide feedback regarding their experience at the hospital. Devoid of such patient feedback, it becomes considerably challenging to assess this particular measure. In addition, a challenge in this regard is to consider whether quality encompasses overall care or specific aspects of care. For instance, does poor or commendable experience encompass the physicians or medication, or bed facilities? How does the patient rank the hospital accurately in relation to all these aspects of quality? Another challenge might be to consider whether patient transfers are a negative sign regarding measuring patient accessibility to healthcare (McGlynn, 1997).

References

Gomes, C. F., Yasin, M. M., & Yasin, Y. (2010). Assessing operational effectiveness in healthcare organizations: a systematic approach. International journal of health care quality assurance, 23(2), 127-140.

McGlynn, E. A. (1997). Six challenges in measuring the quality of health care. Health Affairs, 16(3), 7-21.

Mount Sinai. (2017). 2015 Quality Measure Results. Retrieved from: http://www.mountsinai.org/static_files/MSMC/Files/Patient%20Care/ACO%20-%20Performance%20Year%203%20-%20ACO%20Quality%20Measures%20Results%20(2015).pdf

Mount Sinai. (2017). About Us. Retrieved from: http://www.mountsinai.org/about

U.S News. (2017). Mount Sinai Hospital. Retrieved from: http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/area/ny/mount-sinai-medical-center-6213140