Running head: EXECUTIVE BRIEF 1

Executive Brief: Proposal of New Economic Opportunity

Student’s Name:

Institutional Affiliation:

EXECUTIVE BRIEF 2

Proposal for New Economic Opportunity

Executive Summary

The healthcare organization in which I work has been at the forefront of ensuring quality

healthcare services to the community. It achieves this by providing holistic and comprehensive

care entailing disease eradication, and prevention services. However, recently, the organization

has been experiencing increased clinical expenditure on the treatment of chronic illness due to

the rising number of patients suffering from chronic diseases. This has resulted in increased

hospital congestion, nurse shortage, and burnout, which has necessitated the employment of

more health workers, thus increasing organizational spending. It has also impacted the quality of

care, thus leading to medication errors that are costly to the organization in regards to negligence

lawsuits and penalties from the center of Medicare services due to poor patient satisfaction

ratings. Setting up a chronic disease preventive service department within the organization is a

promising step in mitigating this problem.

A clinical preventive service department specializes in preventive services such as

disease screening medical procedures and tests, counseling, health education, immunizations. As

opposed to the current state in the organization where these services are offered during the

treatment process along with other care services, this department will function independently,

therefore, will admit patients visiting the hospital specifically for preventive services. It will

ensure comprehensive coverage of these services. The department will be equipped with

advanced screening equipment and will also practitioners specialized in preventive services. The

benefits that this proposed initiative aims at achieving include health promotion in regards to

influencing healthy behaviors which will consequently reduce cases of chronic illnesses reported

and treated in the facility, thus saving treatment cost. Through screening and immunization

EXECUTIVE BRIEF 3

services, the initiative will promote early detection of chronic diseases. Early diagnosis is a

factor in successful treatment, thus eliminating cost associated with adverse treatment outcomes

and caring for chronic illnesses (Delgado, Acosta, Ginde, Wang, Strehlow, Khandwala &

Camargo, 2011).

My healthcare organization serves a densely populated community whose highest

population is elderly individuals. The risk of chronic illness increases with old age; therefore,

this is a rampant problem in this community. Research shows that preventive services such as

screening, immunization, and health education reduce the risk with more than 70%. However, in

this community, these screening services are offered by community clinics, which are

characterized by staff shortage, inadequate facilities, and congestion. My organization also

provides services as part of the treatment process; therefore, in a limited scope. Establishing this

department will elevate this burden as it will ease congestion and facilitate the effectiveness of

the services as they will be tackled extensively because the department will specialize in

preventive services.

Outcomes of the Proposed Initiative

The organization is seeking an initiative that will reduce healthcare costs, promote quality

care, timeliness, safety, efficiency, and reduce congestion. The preventive service department

will help the medical center achieve these goals. The organization is located in a multicultural

society; therefore, the target population has diverse cultures. To ensure the department maintains

culturally sensitive care, thus promoting better outcomes, the department will employ

multicultural nurses obtained from the target community and offer regular cultural training to the

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care providers. Additionally, the department will serve people of all socioeconomic status

because the screening services are included in the government Medicare medical insurance.

After legislation of the increased coverage act, most members of this population, including the

low-income earners, are covered. Although the treatment of chronic illnesses is partially covered,

preventive services are fully covered (Grossman, Curry, Owens, Barry, Davidson, Doubeni &

Landefeld, 2017). So this initiative will eliminate the burden of bad debts incurred by the

organization when chronic illness patients from low-income status are unable to cover their

treatment cost.

Additionally, Coverage of clinical preventive services by employers provided health

insurance has increased steadily over the past decade in the US. They see it as an initiative to

prevent incurring treatment costs that would arise if preventive services are not employed. The

department will facilitate efficiency as patients seeking preventive services will not have to

queue with those seeking treatment, thus wait for long hours before they are attended to. This is

one of the factors that discourage patients from seeking preventive services. Also. Separating

preventive from retreatment services will ensure care providers give full concentration to their

areas of specialization, thus promoting quality and effective care. Efficiency and improved care

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will result in increased patient satisfaction. One of the recent government implemented policies

is the patient satisfaction score and reimbursement act. It requires the center of Medicare services

to offer insurance reimbursements to Medicare registered organizations based on their specific

patient satisfaction scores (Guirguis-Blake, Senger, Webber, Mularski & Whitlock, 2016).

Therefore, increased patient satisfaction will improve the revenue earnings of the

organization. Besides, setting up the department will create more space for the patient seeking

treatment, as well as create more room for those seeking preventive services. This will generate

more revenue t for the healthcare organization. This makes it an economically viable health care

solution for the organization. Despite these projected positive outcomes, implementing the

clinical prevention service department has some negative implications. First, separating the

preventive services and treatment departments, means the decentralization of clinical services,

such that different physicians will treat patients. This also results in the devolution of patient's

data, such as patients’ personal or family health history, which is likely to cause errors and affect

the quality of care. This will be mitigated through the adoption of an electronic health system

that helps consolidate patents health data. Secondly, the organization will incur more cost in

hiring more staff, purchase of advanced infrastructure, and expansion of physical space.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF 6

However, Compared to the cost involved in treating chronic illnesses and the money lost through

low patient satisfaction scores, Expenses that will be incurred setting up the new department are

comparatively low (Maciosek, LaFrance, Dehmer, McGree, Flottemesch, Xu & Solberg, 2017).

Factors Influencing the Setting up of the Clinical Preventive Service Department

Factors that make the initiative the best suit for the target community include the

presence of a high elderly population at risk of chronic illnesses and the presence of a

multicultural society with many unhealthy habits like a poor diet. Others include the presence of

limited care facilities in the community, with the organization being the largest and others being

medical clinics. Another factor is that the organization employs multicultural nurses and

provides cultural education to nurses, thus ensuring culturally competent care. The organization

is the only one that offers 24-hour service in the community; thus, it will be of great benefit to

residents.

Economic Analysis

The resources needed for the project implementation include physical space for

expansion, more medical staff specialized in chronic disease prevention, advanced disease

EXECUTIVE BRIEF 7

screening tools, and support infrastructures like electronic health records and furniture (Drew,

Judge, May, Farmer, Cooper, Javaid & REFReSH study group, 2015). The implementation

budget is estimated to be $4000, 000. The initiative will be funded by the medical center’s

reserves, after approval by the budgetary committee. Based on the population of people of the

target community, It is assumed that an average of 1600 patients will visit the chronic disease

preventive service department every month. If the consultation fee for each patient is set at

$1800, the department will record a cash surplus in the first five years. Thus, this is an

economically viable initiative.

Analysis of Supply and Demand for the Chronic Disease Preventive Service Initiative

There is a supply and demand gap in the community. The community has a population of

approximately 5000 individuals, of which 40% are elderly. Despite the high demand for

preventive services, the community is endowed with only three health clinics that don’t have

preventive service departments and lack advanced medical tools. Besides, none of the clinics

offers 24-hour service. Therefore establishing this department will contribute toward bridging the

supply-demand gap and its advanced tools and specialized practitioners with improving the

quality of preventive services.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF 8

Areas of uncertainty in the project implementation include a time frame for project

completion. This will depend on the duration taken by the organizational board of directors to

approve the projected budget. Another issue is low patients turn up due to limited awareness of

the benefits of the proposed initiative. It can be addressed by creating public awareness of the

benefits of chronic disease preventive services (Brown, Curran, Palinkas, Aarons, Wells, Jones

& Tabak, 2017).

Conclusion

Implementation of a chronic disease preventive service department will enable early

detection of chronic illness, thus promote successful treatment. This will reduce healthcare

expenditure on chronic diseases. It ill also reduce hospital congestion, thus improving quality

care and better patient outcomes. The initiative will also bring in additional revenue to the

organization by creating space for more patients. Therefore, introducing a chronic disease

preventive service department will be a lucrative economic opportunity.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF 9

EXECUTIVE BRIEF 10

References

Brown, C. H., Curran, G., Palinkas, L. A., Aarons, G. A., Wells, K. B., Jones, L., ... & Tabak, R.

G. (2017). An overview of research and evaluation designs for dissemination and

implementation. Annual review of public health, 38, 1-22.

Delgado, M. K., Acosta, C. D., Ginde, A. A., Wang, N. E., Strehlow, M. C., Khandwala, Y. S.,

& Camargo Jr, C. A. (2011). National survey of preventive health services in US

emergency departments. Annals of emergency medicine, 57(2), 104-108.

Drew, S., Judge, A., May, C., Farmer, A., Cooper, C., Javaid, M. K., ... & REFReSH study

group. (2015). Implementation of secondary fracture prevention services after hip

fracture: a qualitative study using extended Normalization Process

Theory. Implementation Science, 10(1), 57.

Grossman, D. C., Curry, S. J., Owens, D. K., Barry, M. J., Davidson, K. W., Doubeni, C. A., ...

& Landefeld, C. S. (2017). Hormone therapy for the primary prevention of chronic

conditions in postmenopausal women: US Preventive Services Task Force

recommendation statement. Jama, 318(22), 2224-2233.

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Guirguis-Blake, J. M., Senger, C. A., Webber, E. M., Mularski, R. A., & Whitlock, E. P. (2016).

Screening for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: evidence report and systematic

review for the US preventive services task force. Jama, 315(13), 1378-1393.

Maciosek, M. V., LaFrance, A. B., Dehmer, S. P., McGree, D. A., Flottemesch, T. J., Xu, Z., &

Solberg, L. I. (2017). Updated priorities among effective clinical preventive services. The

Annals of Family Medicine, 15(1), 14-22.