Posted: January 13th, 2023

Assignment: Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Assignment: Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Analysis of Pertinent Healthcare Issue

The healthcare issue addressed at Bergen New Bridge Medical Center Paramus, NJ (BNBMC) entails timely access to aftercare either in Psychiatric partial hospitalization, (PHP) intensive outpatient (IOP), or outpatient (OP) level of care. The ACA’s focus on increasing and improving healthcare systems remains an issue at BNBMC (Broom & Marshall, 2021). The ACA goal for healthcare in the United States to enhance healthcare access to health rather than disease is germane to expanding resource availability. PHP, IOP, and OP remain limited at BNBMC. PHP evaluations are only available Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Therefore, a request to expand available PHP appointments to more than three and IOP and OP appointments for evaluations to more than two per week. The inadequacy puts patients at high risk for relapse after leaving the emergency department and in need of inpatient hospitalization Assignment: Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue.

The leadership proposal is to expand virtual appointments for evaluations for all outpatient levels of care mentioned. Furthermore, the request is for hiring additional staff to accommodate the need for timely appointments to evaluate and have patients begin treatment within the same week they have presented to the emergency department due to a psychiatric crisis. A review of two recent studies regarding the effectiveness of virtual psychiatric care will follow.

First Brief Summary of an Article Supporting Efficacy and Effectiveness to Expand use of

Telepsychiatry to Accommodate Healthcare Needs

The broad study of literature found the COVID-19 pandemic has initiated extraordinary healthcare system adjustments benefiting psychiatry for one through telepsychiatry (Chen et al.,2020). The pandemic propelled insurance payment for telepsychiatry by reducing regulations previously prohibiting the same (2020). The research findings show effectiveness, and at times telepsychiatry demonstrates above-average benefits than in-person psychiatric treatment (2020). Psychotherapist and psychiatric clinicians note the advantage of seeing a glimpse into the patients’ lives while in their home environment through virtual treatment connections (2020) Assignment: Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue. Psychiatric clinician reviews of their experience of conducting telepsychiatry provide communication to the leadership of additional needs to effectively provide care (2020). Some of those needs include additional supervision, support and validation, and ongoing research on telepsychiatry care (2020).

Advocacy for the expansion of outpatient providers in psychiatry to comply with enhancing healthcare access to focus on health rather than disease is pertinent to expanding resource availability at BNBMC.

 Second Brief Summary of Article Supporting Efficacy and Effectiveness to Expand use of

Telepsychiatry to Accommodate

Transition from in-person to psychiatry’s virtual format during the COVID-19 pandemic thrust upon the healthcare community. The experience has demonstrated the capability of healthcare services to be creative and resilient. Once considered limited out of necessity in remote locations has become the dominant form of outpatient psychiatric treatment. One facility readily adapted to the development of a virtual psychiatric partial hospitalization by patients and clinical staff. Clinical staffs’ creation of protocols for evaluation with the inpatient clinical team to determine patient appropriateness for virtual PHP became routine (Hom et al., 2020). Based on a basic assessment of the patients’ capability to use a smartphone or iPad, focusing and engaging mentally and emotionally came first. Confirmation that the patient had established an outpatient therapist and psychiatric clinician was necessary for the patients’ emergency needs during off-hours (2020). Patients accepted into the PHP were given an orientation while still inpatient to accessing the virtual environment in addition to a packet of written material with a schedule (2020) Assignment: Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue.

Gathering treatment outcome data and patients’ evaluations to determine the effectiveness of this essential modality of treatment will further inform of overall strengths and feasibility to continue virtual PHP, IOP, and outpatient treatment post-COVID-10 pandemic (2020). These activities will serve well to inform leadership and the payor sources of the same. Again, the need to expand virtual psychiatry is at hand to accommodate those patients in need who may otherwise fall through the cracks when discharged without a follow-up plan.

Strategies Used to Address the Organizational Impact of National Healthcare

Issues/Stressors

The national healthcare issue of COVID-19, while striving to reach the ACA focus to increase and improve healthcare systems, remains an issue at BNBMC. The problem existing at BNBMC to accommodate patients discharged from the emergency department with a timely appointment in PHP, IOP, or OP levels of care requires attention…

Assignment: Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

The Quadruple Aim provides broad categories of goals to pursue to maintain and improve healthcare. Within each goal are many issues that, if addressed successfully, may have a positive impact on outcomes. For example, healthcare leaders are being tasked to shift from an emphasis on disease management often provided in an acute care setting to health promotion and disease prevention delivered in primary care settings. Efforts in this area can have significant positive impacts by reducing the need for primary healthcare and by reducing the stress on the healthcare system.