Reference no: EM133353369 , Length: word count:2400

INTRODUCTION

In this task, you will explore how innovation in technology can address healthcare needs and how it affects various dimensions of healthcare organizations. After gaining perspective by analyzing a variety of examples, you will develop and propose a technology innovation to improve patient experience in your medical group.

SCENARIO

The Affordable Care Act has increased healthcare access to a large population base. As a result, there has been an increase in the number of patients seen by primary care doctors. Tensions are mounting in the primary care clinics of your medical group. Long wait times have brought patient satisfaction to an all-time low and stress levels to an all-time high. As the administrator of your medical group, you are charged with developing a technology innovation to reduce wait times and restore patient satisfaction before your medical group experiences a heavy loss of revenue.

The following groups should be your main focus:

• Physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners: These members of the team are all being rated low, which results in loss of professional prestige and income through either bonuses or third-party payers.

• Front and back office staff (i.e., medical assistants and receptionists): These staff members engage with the patients first and are getting significant complaints. The intensified stress of the job is increasing the likelihood of a negative care incident through ineffective triage, increased staff dissatisfaction, and practitioner oversight concerns. Staff morale is suffering, and some employees are considering leaving the clinics.
• Patients: During the last six months, patient flow has increased 10%, and new patient scheduling is trending upward for four of the six months. New patient appointments are 45 days out for specialists and 10 days for primary care physicians. Established patients cannot schedule for the times they would like and have to take time off from work or other commitments. Scheduling for these patients is four days out for a primary care physician and 15 days for a specialist. Patient wait time is an average of 25 minutes from check-in for the waiting room and 10 minutes in the clinic room. Checkout averages seven minutes. Interoffice phlebotomist wait times average four minutes.

The following factors may be influencing wait times and patient satisfaction:

• ineffective procedures and policies for scheduling
• ineffective communication skills in personnel
• no protocols for when staff call in ill or are unable to work
• no formal training to assist staff in handling increased patient volume

The following times are when the issues are most prevalent:

• Peak times for adult patients are after 4:00 p.m. and prior to 9:00 a.m. due to working patients.
• Peak times for pediatrics are in the morning and in the early afternoon after school.
• Office lunch, between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., reduces staff and increases call times.
• Monday mornings have an increase in patient volume since the clinic is only open on weekdays.

The following information describes current scheduling factors in your medical group:

• Patients check in at the front desk and wait in the waiting room until a medical assistant (MA) brings them back into a free treatment room.
• Providers do not have a system to know the order of patients without asking an MA.
• Providers have rooms solely assigned to them, with some underutilized and others overburdened.
• Providers complete charting in between seeing patients.
• One-third of providers have surgical or hospital patients at a local hospital 30 minutes away.
• Half of the providers are on staff or on call at the hospital.
• Scheduling is done only via phone and the main line. There is one receptionist per three practitioners.

REQUIREMENTS

Your submission must be your original work. No more than a combined total of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly. The similarity report that is provided when you submit your task can be used as a guide.

You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.

Tasks may not be submitted as cloud links, such as links to Google Docs, Google Slides, OneDrive, etc., unless specified in the task requirements. All other submissions must be file types that are uploaded and submitted as attachments (e.g., .docx, .pdf, .ppt).

Propose a healthcare technology innovation to address the challenge of long wait times. Complete the attached "Innovation Proposal Form" to be submitted to an innovation board for approval (suggested length of 8-10 pages) by doing the following:

A.  Propose a healthcare technology innovation by doing the following:

1. Describe your technology innovation, including each of the following four points:

• name of the innovation
• two key features of the innovation
• two relevant functions of the innovation
• general justification as to why this innovation should be considered

Note: Images or sketches may be included as part of this description.

2. Explain whether your proposed technology innovation is disruptive or sustaining.

B. Analyze your innovation by doing the following:

1. Analyze your technology innovation using two factors from Herzlinger's six-factor analysis to determine the likelihood of the success of your proposed innovation.

2. Complete an impact assessment of your technology innovation based on the Impact Assessment Framework (IAF) by doing the following:

a. Discuss two potential outcomes from the Strategy and Finance dimension that should be monitored.

b. Choose one additional dimension and discuss one potential outcome of your technology innovation, and how the potential outcome is related to the chosen dimension.

C. Compare solutions by doing the following:

1. Identify one existing technology that is similar to the proposed solution from part A1.

a. Describe the strengths of the existing technology in addressing the problem presented in the scenario.

b. Describe the limitations of the existing technology in addressing the problem presented in the scenario.

2. Identify one low-tech solution or practice that could be used in the scenario.

a. Describe the strengths of the low-tech solution or practice in addressing the problem in the scenario.

b. Describe the limitations of the low-tech solution or practice in addressing the problem in the scenario.

3. Compare the proposed technology innovation, the identified existing technology, and the existing low-tech solution. Include the following four points in your comparison:

• a discussion of a perceived positive impact ofeachof thethreesolutions on patient outcomes
• a discussion of a perceived negative impact ofeachof thethreesolutions on patient outcomes
• a discussion of a perceived positive impact ofeachof thethreesolutions on cost savings
• a discussion of a perceived negative impact ofeachof thethreesolutions on cost savings

4.  Discuss the key lessons you learned in designing your proposed technology innovation by including the following two points:

• an explanation of which solution provides the best positive impact on patient outcomes and cost savings
• a conclusion of whether or not your proposed innovation is the best solution for the problem presented in the scenario

D.  Acknowledge sources, using APA-formatted in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized. 

Note: Sources should be reputable and reliable. Sources such as wiki pages are not acceptable.

E.  Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission.