Standards of Evaluation
BHS 450 Health care Delivery System Module 2 - SLP STANDARDS OF EVALUATION The overall goal of the Session Long Project is to examine health care delivery in the United States. In Module 1 we studied the economic realities that may ultimately impact the healthcare industry. However despite the impending bursting of the bubble, we must still implement Obamacare. One of the important aspects of the new law is the connecting the evaluation standard of quality to reimbursement. This is a departure for our industry and might have a significant impact on how we do business. Many experts argue that quality of care is subjective but is ultimately based upon those providing the care. This will be the topic of Module 2's SLP. Please read the article by Zallman, Ma, Xiao, and Lasser entitled "Quality of US Primary Care Delivered by Resident and Staff Physicians" and respond to the following questions. Briefly summarize the issue being addressed as found in the "Background section." Identify and discuss the five categories of quality indicators. Discuss what the researchers found when they analyzed the "Performance on Quality Indicators." Where you surprised by their findings? Why are there differences in the quality of outpatient care provided by resident and staff physicians? What are some possible strategies an organization can implement to remedy this problem? SLP Assignment Expectations Use information from the modular home and background pages as well as other credible and peer reviewed sources retrieved from a library or an Internet search. LENGTH: 2-3 pages typed and double-spaced using 12pt Times New Roman font and 1-inch page margins. Please use headers throughout the paper. This will aid you in not overlooking vital elements of the assignment and make the document easier for the reader to follow. Your SLP paper will be further evaluated based on the rubric criteria.
CASE STUDY: SLP Standards of Evaluation
Author
Course:
Date:
Summary
According to the article, the ongoing efforts to improve the quality of primary health care in the United States need to visit the training aspect of health care. Studies indicate that the quality of outpatient care provided by resident physicians is actually better than the care provided by staff physicians (Zallman et al, 2010). But the problem was that such a conclusion was limited because the researchers who came to such a conclusion used few variables to conduct the study such as using a specific illness and population. The purpose of this article was, therefore, to test this conclusion by comparing outpatient care over a range of different factors which would offer a more reliable conclusion.
Five Quality Indicators
In preparations for the study, the group of medical researchers initially had 20 quality indicators which eventually became 5 categories in accordance with clinical importance. The first indicator was the management of chronic diseases; this is related to conditions such as coronary artery disease, the indicator checked if physicians used the most efficient method to treat. The second indicator was appropriate antibiotic use. While antibiotics can be used for most infections, the use of antibiotics is actually not recommended for some conditions such as infections in the upper respiratory tract (Zallman et al., 2010). The third indicator reviewed preventive counseling; physicians are responsible for advising patients especially if they fall into high risk categories which make them susceptible for chronic illnesses. The fourth indicator is screening tests such as blood pressure tests; these are very important because they give comprehensive studies concerning a patient’s overall wellbeing with each visit. The fifth indicator had to do with the improper medical prescriptions for elderly patients who are 65 or older. In fact, there are 33 medications which physicians are strongly recommended not to prescribe to elderly patients, but some physicians do it anyway (Zallman et al., 2010).
Performance on Quality Indicators
According to the performance rates, the resident physicians outperformed the staff physicians on two indicators and performed similar to the staff physician on the rest. The measures where the resident physicians outperformed the staff included:...