Capstones: MBA in Healthcare

EATON, Erin. (2022). In order to expand the diversity of the healthcare workforce, organizations need to leverage niche communities of people who can build internal comradery and provide strategic connections that will help to retain employees and improve recruiting. The strengthening of community partnerships can be used to help identify healthcare needs and develop more clinical services. To achieve these goals, organizations need to invest in Employee Resource Groups (ERG). ERGs strengthen organizations by bringing employees together over common interests and providing employees an opportunity to be strategic partners for the organization (Jobs Mission, 2014). Implementing a Veteran ERG (VERG) will improve recruitment and retention, impact the market, and elevate the brand (Jobs Mission, 2014). Having a VERG for a healthcare organization will not only positively impact employees by providing resources and opportunities, but will allow for community networking that could bring more opportunities to provide health care to a growing number of Gulf-War Era II Veterans. Healthcare is an ever-growing need in the United States that covers more than just basic preventative care. Gulf-War Era II Veterans are civilians who were once active duty between 2001 and the present, and current data show that 40% of these Veterans have service-based disabilities (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS], 2021). Investing in the employment of Veterans not only helps reduce the unemployment rate, but provides an internal community of Veterans, military spouses, and military allies who can help provide education, training, and resources to the organization and the healthcare providers. With this investment comes the ability for the healthcare organization to not only bring more visibility to the brand, but also provide more healthcare partnerships within the region.

HUTTEGER, Gregory. (2022). The Community Health System (CHS) currently utilizes telehealth to provide on-demand urgent visits, scheduled office visits, and specialty consults to key outreach partners. The proposed strategic plan would expand the telehealth platform to provide remote patient monitoring (RPM) for ambulatory chronic condition management. The following proposal examines new billing and patient care opportunities for the health system to meet the needs of the community and fulfill the organizational mission. The expansion of telehealth services will enhance the ambulatory care management by offering RPM for chronic conditions. RPM will focus on the complex and high cost conditions of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and congestive heart failure (CHF). There are over 11,000 patients in the organization’s current population who can be enrolled in the program from these two conditions alone. Careful selection of 200 participants from the population will allow for the most impactful improvement and reduction of hospital admissions for this at-risk group. Integration of the proposed RPM solution is slated for the fourth quarter of 2022 to coincide with care management software upgrades. An initial $80,000 dollar capital expense is required for deployment of the solution. Conservative billing estimates revenue of over $391,000 dollars annually, surpassing the anticipated expenses of $244,000, as shown in Appendix A. The expansion of telehealth with RPM aligns with the Patient Centered Medical Home and transition to value-based care that is already established at the health system’s affiliated Community Physicians Clinic (CPC). RPM provides an opportunity to add more efficient and precise care with a very favorable financial outlook to improve care coordination and sustain the program for future expansion.

PEMBERTON, Mark. (2022). The digital pathology revolution is upon us. This innovative technology will become the standard of diagnosis in the near future. For the Midwest Health System, a digital pathology platform will enable pathologists to equitably share caseloads, streamline workflows, and ease consultation logistics across the five hospital locations that they currently serve. By merging and centralizing pathology laboratory services into one central location, and digitally distributing cases, efficiencies will be gained throughout the laboratory. Investing in a digital platform and incrementally scaling up the use of digital images will lead to full digital transition within two years and prepares the laboratory for future technological advances. Much like the transition of radiology away from printed x-rays, the implementation of a digital pathology platform has the potential to radically transform the practice of pathology and bring tools like artificial intelligence, analysis of big data, and automation to maximize workflows that lead to better patient outcomes.

CLARK, Elizabeth. (2022). At The Midwest Health System, as at most health systems, lab tests are over-ordered, resulting in increased costs and waste of resources. The proposed lab utilization management program combines information technology (IT) and education to ensure all patients receive the right test at the right time, ultimately allowing the health system to provide quality care while decreasing waste. The target population includes all patients within The Midwest Health System that receive laboratory services. This program would be implemented within the entire health system in Quarter 2 of 2023. The entire process will take place between December of 2022, with the start of the planning phase, and end with a go-live date of May 2023. The upfront monetary investment is $5,860, which includes a one-time purchase of a server and 16 hours of IT and laboratory information system (LIS) time. On-going investment includes a monthly service fee for the new server, annual review of the continuing education and test ordering guidelines by the lead pathologist and lab management team, and the monthly reporting of metrics by the quality manager for the laboratory quality dashboard. The potential net cost savings after two months post implementation are $48,158.85, and $923,628.21 after one year.

BLACKWELL, Jackie. (2022). An effective Quality Assurance Process Improvement Program (QAPI) is a key measure in good patient outcomes (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS], 2021). Having a structured program allows for trends to be monitored and variances to be identified in real-time to prevent future adverse outcomes. At XYZ organization, staff engagement in the QAPI Program needs strengthening. The proposal for an updated program is low-cost, low-risk, and will result in organizational cost savings along with improved outcomes for patients.

GOLDAPP, Jodi. (2022). As healthcare costs rise, healthcare systems are continuously being pressured to lower costs and improve the quality of care. Over the past decade, government and private payers have incorporated value-based care models within their provider markets. Value-based care is the concept of improving patient care by changing how patients receive care. Value-based care models focus on patient outcomes and how well providers can enhance the quality of care through specific measures, such as reducing hospital readmissions, using certified health information technology, and improving preventive care (LaPointe, 2016). Although there are many benefits to adopting value-based care, many healthcare organizations still struggle to engage physicians. For value-based care to be successful, healthcare leaders must educate physicians and take steps to implement performance incentives that tie back to their value-based care agreements. Implementing a two-bucket approach to physician compensation that includes quality incentives and a two-sided financial risk will encourage physicians at XYZ Health to focus more on quality and less on productivity. It will help engage physicians in completing preventive care services and meeting quality care metrics, which will increase quality scores through the health system's value-based agreements. The new physician compensation model will be limited to primary care physicians specializing in internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatrics who are currently paid based on work relative value units. The new model will incorporate quality incentives, including a two-sided financial risk based on the physician's overall quality star rating. Physicians can earn up to an additional 5% in year one, 8% in year two, and 10% thereafter. The project will require an initial investment of $82,000 in administration costs and education and an additional .5 full-time equivalent of $62,720 for year one, with a 3% increase thereafter. With a 2% increase in four preventative services, an anticipated $772,823 increase in revenue is projected for year one. The projected benefit-cost ratio averages 4.83 for the first three years and is projected to have a $2.5 million increase in revenue.

LOZZANO, Nancy. (2022). At Midwest Medical Center, a hospital follow-up program is needed to help close the loops on the discharge process. Currently, many of the patients that are discharged from the pediatric unit are complex and have many needs. Parents are overloaded with information during their transition to home, making it difficult to remember all details of the discharge. A phone call to caregivers/parents after discharge will allow them to gather their thoughts and ask any questions, and the nurse can identify whether there are any issues or barriers. The proposed program will not only improve the discharge process but will reduce readmission rates, increase revenue, and increase patient satisfaction. As a nurse-driven initiative, the follow-up phone call will be completed utilizing current staff, a care transition nurse. This project can be implemented in as little as three months and with minimal cost there could be a potential boost in revenue by $2000 after the first three months of go-live.