1. The risk of medical errors has been estimated to cause 98,000 unnecessary dea
ID: 2746208 • Letter: 1
Question
1. The risk of medical errors has been estimated to cause 98,000 unnecessary deaths in hospitals each year. Do you believe the risk of medical care in ambulatory settings is the same, greater, or less? Why?
2. Discuss the reasons for healthcare costs being higher per capita in the United States than in any other country. Will the upward trend continue or decline? Why?
3. Medicare and Medicaid have traditionally been leaders in designing and implementing costs containment and quality initiatives in the healthcare industry. What are the reasons for this leadership?
4. Describe the value proposition.
5. How does the value proposition apply to your life?
6. What are the six standards of quality healthcare defined by the Institute of Medicine? Explain one of the standards and give examples.
7. What is pay for performance? How should the approach influence the quality and cost of healthcare services?
REFERENCES:
Lighter, D. (2011). Advanced Performance Improvement in Health Care Principles and Methods. Boston: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, LLC.
Explanation / Answer
1. Ambulatory settings refers to those medical services that are performed on an outpatient basis. Patients are not required to be admitted to a hospital or any kind of facility. For example, dialysis clinics, outpatient departments of hospitals, are examples of ambulatory settings.
Now, risk of errors will be much higher in case of ambulatory settings. This is beacuse in an ambulatory setting, there is lower interaction between providers of healthcare and the patient (than in case of a hospital setting). The role of a patient in an ambulatory setting is greater the patient has to be more responsible for managing one's health. The error rate may increase if the patient does not properly understand their illnesses and treatments. Secondly, the level of communication between physicians in the outpatient setting and the patients is of a lower quality than the level in the setting of a hospital. In a hospital, care is always available at hand and communication is real time and strong. In case of ambulatory setting, a clinician may not be immediately available and many a times the patients have to rely on telephone advice. This increases the risk factor of errors.
Thus, considering the nature of ambulatory settings vis a vis the settings in a hospital, it is clear that risk of medical care in ambulatory settings is greater.
Related Questions
Navigate
Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.