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Operations Planning for a Group Medical Practice

Introduction

The paper is based on creating a business plan to open a single specialty group in healthcare field. The paper is based on recommended a business plan including management strategies, promote medical excellence and limit the risk exposure in medicine practice. The business plan will also consider the strategy for emergency preparedness. Basically, the paper will include the study of major benchmarking tool and study the importance of benchmarking tool for medical practice. Secondly, a Health Information Technology (HIT) will be recommended for newly planned medical practice. The risks to the new plan will be analyzed in order to specify the strategies to mitigate the risk practices in medicine. The main functions of medical practice will be analyzed. The strategies will be recommended to secure the patients records, organizational records, maintain communication between patients and employees and manage resources during emergency.

Compare and contrast the two (2) main levels (i.e., internal comparison and external comparison) of financial benchmarking. Next, analyze the strategic purpose of each level of benchmarking and specify the overall importance of benchmarking as a financial planning tool for a medical practice.

The two main level of financial benchmarking are external comparison and internal comparison.  Benchmarking provides evidence-based view about competitive insight and performance. The first main type of benchmarking is internal benchmarking in which the performances and practices will be compared between individuals, groups and teams of the organization. The external benchmarking is a comparison of performance of an organization with the peers within or across the industries (Brooks, 2015). 

Benchmarking mean comparing the performance of one self with the standard figures. These standard figures can be analyzed from internal environment or outside environment. Comparing the performance with internal best financial practice is one thing. On the other hand, drawing standards from outside is an external benchmarking practice.

Benchmarking is a financial planning tool for the medical practice. The strategic purpose of internal and external benchmarking differs. In the internal benchmarking, the organization can compare every month performance with its own best practice in order to determine the monthly incline or decline in performance. the external benchmarking draw standards from larger data from outside instead of single internal numbers. This provides a competitive view in more broad perspective.

Overall, benchmarking is an effective financial planning tool for the medical practice. For example, The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) provide the revenue and operational benchmark. Healthcare Billing and Management Association (HBMA) conduct reimbursement benchmark etc. Hence benchmark provide the opportunity to understand the industry standards and bring significant improvements by understanding priorities and standards in medical practices.

Recommend a Health Information Technology (HIT) system that includes an Electronic Health Record (EHR) for the new practice to implement. Support your recommendation by determining three (3) main benefits of having this type of system for the practice.  

Health Information Technology (HIT) system is the healthcare-based information technology for the management of health information, secure exchange of data and monitor the quality of data. Electronic Health Record (EHR) viewed as promising tool to ensure the quality of health delivery system. It improves the health care quality, communication, productivity and efficiency of work processes.

Electronic health record (EHR) is a recommended HIT system in the newly planted medical practice. EHR) provide variety of healthcare services in exceptional manner. Firstly, (EHR) reduce several kinds of medical errors such as errors in drug prescription, errors in tests and medical procedures and preventive care. One of a demonstrated benefit of the system is disease management clinical guidelines in the electronic record during patient treatment. Thirdly, the electronic records advance the health informatics in which patient records can be accessed by using the interoperable option to access the records at any heath care location.

According to the text (page 368), some of the main areas of risk exposure for a group practice include: property (general liability and safety), technology, and financial practices. Determine one (1) specific hazard associated with one (1) of these risk categories and propose a strategy to mitigate the impact this risk could have on the practice. Support your analysis with a real-life example.

While opening a new medical group practice, various risks are associated with the plan. The first prominent risk is related with the issue of safety and general liability of newly opened medical practice. The medical practice is liable to follow the federal and state laws and legal formalities before, during and after initiating the practice, the security and privacy of patient is the top priority in this aspect. The risk will be associated with lack of security and privacy measures for patient records and patient health. The second risk is associated with physicians’ resistance to adopt the health informatics technology within the practice. It will take time, practice and training to adopt the practice in reality. The third risk is related with the issue in managing the investment for initiating the medical practice in advance perspective. managing the lender on timely basis is subject to great risk. The dissatisfaction and firing of workforce is another risk associated with it. The worker may be hired slow but fire fast due to their insufficiency to provide the support in medical practice.

One of a specific Hazard associated with one of a risk category is cybercrime or cyber fraud which may cause corruption in health informatics record and create the hurdle in ensuring patient’s privacy and security. The proposed strategy to mitigate the risk of cybercrime and cyber fraud in health informatics is to adopt The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The law was formulated to set the privacy and security rules to protect the patients’ health informatics. The law proposes the security standards for the health information protection which is maintained or transferred in electronic form. The security of medical information of patients and organization is a critical aspect and enforcement of strict privacy and security rules will help to ensure the compliance activities within the medical practice (US Department of Health and Human Services 2015). The organization which will be failed to address the HIPPA rule will subject to civil money penalties by Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

A large number of examples of risk associated with sacrificing with health information record security and implementation of HIPPA in this aspect. For example, Huping Zhou worked in UCLA School of Medicine as surgeon and illegally accessed to the medical records of UCLA 300 time. The violation of HIPPA has subjected to punishment with fine of $ 2000- and four-month jail (Medpro, 2017).

Determine the main functions of the practice that will need to remain operational before, during, and / or after a natural disaster or public health emergency. Next, suggest a strategy that the practice should take to maintain communication with employees and patients, secure patient and financial records, and ensure that resources will available to care for patients during a disaster or emergency. Provide a rationale for your response. 

The day-to-day medical practices should remain active to provide the care to patients in the time of their need. some of the main operations of medical practice should remain active before, during and after the natural disasters or after other health emergencies. For example, the capability to manage the essential day to day health services, social services, reorganizing the physical infrastructure such as transportation, utilities and medical unit, re-gathered the emergency services to fulfill the post disaster emergency needs and settle down the emergency department to see the emergency patients (Plough et al, 2013).

The proposed strategy to the practice to manage the main functions before during and after the emergency situation include fasten the process of recovery decisions to address the short term and long-term health care needs. The administration decisions should cover the emergency plan of maintaining communication, secure patients and organization critical information and financial records and sustain a backup of all loss information. The strategy can be successfully implemented by pre-organizing the backup plans and organize staff trainings related to patient services and communication in emergency situations. For example, one quarter of the population of New Orleans population is suffering in poverty and the devastating effect of Hurricane Katrina in that region has weaken the recovery process because the pre-event health conditions were also very poor. So, it has given the lesson that lack of sufficient health care facilities in a community hinder the recovery of population in emergency situations (Paton & Johnston, 2017). 

Conclusion

The new health care practice needs a good financial plan, benchmarking tools implementation, implementation of advance health informatics technology, support of physicians and management, training to staff, risks assessments and well managed emergency plan.

References

Brooks, R. (2015). Financial management: core concepts. Pearson.

Medpro, (2017).20 catastrophic HIPAA violation cases to chill your blood. Retrieved from https://medprodisposal.com/20-catastrophic-hipaa-violation-cases-to-open-your-eyes/

Paton, D., & Johnston, D. (2017). Disaster resilience: an integrated approach. Charles C Thomas Publisher.

Plough, A., Fielding, J. E., Chandra, A., Williams, M., Eisenman, D., Wells, K. B., … &Magaña, A. (2013). Building community disaster resilience: perspectives from a large urban county department of public health. American journal of public health103(7), 1190-1197.

US Department of Health and Human Services. (2015). Guidance regarding methods for de-identification of protected health information in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule.

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