INNOVATIONS IN PRIMARY CARE THE KEYS TO EFFECTIVE AMBULATORY– HOSPITAL INTEGRATION by Michael Hochman, MD (A) quality of the written article in terms of your understanding of the content, handling of factual information, opinions expressed, conclusions drawn,
Health systems are trying to integrate ambulatory and inpatient care in response to delivering high quality low cost patient care. Health system integrations have transitioned to inpatient and outpatient settings where improved information, sharing of resources and a better payment model that rewards have made it between hospitals and ambulatory providers. However, this article believes that the “key to the success of health system integrations will be primary care” (Hochman, 2015). Because …show more content…
It is said that by 2020, more than half of the patients will become part of networks that are in accountable care, thus health systems will grow and expand their primary care providers (Hochman, 2015). But even though there is a demand for primary care providers, physicians are not going into that setting. So to meet the primary care demands, primary care will evolve to team based approaches. This means that professionals will be doing more different duties to cover for the short staff. “Studies have demonstrated, for example, that clinical pharmacists can safely and effectively manage medications for patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and even heart failure. Medical assistants can provide routine preventive care, such as vaccinations and cancer screenings; nurses, health educators, dieticians can provide counseling and education to patients; and midlevel providers can provide most stable chronic disease care and basic acute care services” (Hochman, 2015). This means that physicians will have to spend less time with direct patient care but instead take on more leadership roles to improve efficiency of …show more content…
That being said, mental health professionals will be added to the primary care team as well. Another innovation for patients who visit the emergency room often will soon be able to contact their primary care team before visiting the ER. This makes the ER less crowded for more serious matters.
The increased demand of health care professionals will mean increase in salary. This has already happened in some states due to the Affordable Care Act (Hochman, 2015). Due to more patient, hospitals and health care systems leaders will have to train more professionals to become leaders. Lower quality care happens when there are too many patients and not enough staff to help, so to fix this issue, another innovation that will be made is a benchmark system to make sure providers are accountable for low scores.
Everything this article discuss directly relates to finances. There will be reforms to make the reimbursement and insurance systems work more financially sound. Everything also relates to the exchange of information in health care. Better and faster exchange of information leads to better care. Health care systems are working on real time information exchanges, electronic health information. As the future proceeds, integration of hospital and ambulatory care will grow. To aid primary care innovations, hospitals and health systems have to make sure they make the right financial