The Key Aspects of Computational Analytics for Value Networks - Assignment Example

Assessment Task 2: Computational Analytics for Value Networks (Individual) Student Name Institutional Affiliation Data processing Efficiency (Output oriented variable returns to scale) Slack (Output oriented variable returns to scale) Target – output oriented variable returns to scale The emergency department is faced with reality of receiving emergence case that require the same attention. Many emergency departments do not want to perceive waiting and delays of providing emergency services. The case presented show that there are significant obstacles that may cause delays and saving life. One of the obstacle is getting or receiving a large number of emergency patients as is the case presented. Even though there is no evidence indicating that there will be delay, this does not seem the case. Optimization of patient flow to the emergency department is attributed to tangible and intangible services, (Lowthian et al. 2011, 63). Example of the tangible emergency department resources include services the nurses who are the emergency department services providers, the doctors and equipment that deal with the emergencies. These equipment are not limited to the emergency room, but they also include the emergency vehicle, the dispatch paramedical who will fetch the patients from the location of the accident. Technical efficiency The Emergence Dispatch The quality of the emergency dispatch unit relies on when every second matter during an emergency situation. The ED require cutting edge technology, modern equipment, adequate communication and professional skills who are first responders. The Emergence Dispatch require quick and efficient management of variety of resources that seamlessly meet the needs of the patients who need an emergency hospital services. When those at the accident scene call 000 for emergency, a high qualified advanced personnel dispatcher dispatches emergency team and an ambulance to the accident scene. The dispatcher quickly processes both emergent and non-emergent transportation requests. The dispatcher has in his disposal a computer aided dispatch system that capture the data of the nearby available ambulance services. The dispatch unit also has a customized reporting software suite that continue to improve the quality of the dispatch capabilities (Feldman et al. 2006, 954). The dispatch process is considered the beginning of the emergency department services where the health workers in the emergence department are made aware of the emergency they are expecting. The dispatch department and dispatch services are developed to improve emergency care for the public and maximize efficiency that make a difference. The NSW emergency department productivity Index is low and that is why there are plan to improve emergency department productivity. When calculating the emergency department productivity labor mix and labor costs are included as inputs, while the emergency department costs are included as inputs. Patient complexity is considered an output quality measure. Other inclusions include the time spent in the emergency department preparing and attending to each patient. Pre-surgical work up and post-emergency department components. The NSW count activity and weight that activity with complexity. The data sources of calculating the emergency department productivity index include the dispatch strategy, the first responder skills, the triage nurse skills and priorities, emergency department surgery and post-emergency department care. Prioritization of the cases is also a significant skills. When calculating the Emergency Department productivity index (EDPI) NSW indicate that a comparator of the value of 1 is used in which, the EDPI of less than 1 indicates lower productivity. However, the EDPI of greater than 1 indicates a higher productivity than the comparator used. In NSW and elsewhere in Australia, the emergence room productivity index is used as the principal of the referral hospital. What makes the productivity index lower? There are a number of things that would make the productivity index of the hospital and that of the emergence department lower. This includes the inputs in terms of staffing mix and the costing system. The output is also a significant concept that determines the productivity of the ED. Other emergency department utilizations include coding, efficiency metrics such as technology used and the hospital’s emergency room/department policy and strategy. The 20 hospitals analyzed in this paper do not have the same standardized emergency room strategies and policies, but every hospital works for sustainability and ED improvement. The differences of productivity index among hospitals ` Hospitals have different productivity index as well as different emergency department productivity indexes. The reason for different productivity indexes include having better cost management through utilization of different strategies that they perceive more effective. A good example of cost effective management strategy include staff mixing and the way they allocated resources to the staff and to department. Some hospitals allocate low resources to the emergence department as compared to other hospitals. The purpose of developing cost effective management strategy is to ensure that the hospital accounts for the resource used to attend to an emergency and the services that they offer attract more patients and referrals. Attracting more patients and referrals is mean that the emergency department may be overwhelmed (Feldman et al. 2006, 954). Without proper mechanism of balancing the patients who are being attended for at the emergency department, receiving a large number of patients at the same time will reduce the effectiveness. However, technology has been used to guide on the hospital that can receive patients if one hospital has received excess of the patients. Hospitals need to improve efficiency in NSW Hospitals with low productivity need to improve their productivity index. It is important to note that productivity index may not last for a long time. For example, a hospital with high productivity index may not last with IP for long, but will change due to dynamics of patient needs, hospital staffing and staffing response. However, when IP reduces, the affected hospitals should use some potential approaches to keep their productivity high. These potential approaches include implementing the emergency guidelines and policies of the hospital, improving the costing system through the standardized costing templates, improving the coding activities, improving the clinical redesign process and improving emergency department technology (Eckstein & Chan 2004, 102) . To enhance improvement, hospitals should develop and accumulate their data that they will use to determine if they are operating on efficiency. Metro and rural based hospitals may have different efficiencies hence a onetime data cannot be used to determine efficiencies of a hospital’s emergency department. Variables that determine efficiency change over time hence will affect the response to the emergency department. Service Value Network Service Value Network in an emergency department is enhanced through several variables. These variables are classified as inputs and outputs. The inputs include services provider’s skills. The provider’s skills are nurses, physicians and clinicians and other medical staff such as paramedics who are were the first responders to the emergency scenes. The significant output in the ED are the post ED results such as saving lives and enhancing healing, (Kramer and Blau, 2009, 194). Another output is notable productive index that is used to determine the efficiency of the emergency department. The service value network is conceived through delivery of key pathway that aim at establishing and retaining future competitive positioning of the hospital’s emergency department. The SVN offers the ED system a pathway for offering efficiency services without sacrificing resources, which come in terms of costs. Part of the SVN services is to enhance patient customer value and integrating accounting for the purpose and existence of the hospital, hospital staff and medical technology used in the emergency department (Kramer and Blau, 2009, 194). Value in the emergence department is enhanced through readily delivered upstream patients as inputs with services outputs. The transfer point occurs across patient-service counter where the emergency department should have the ability to deliver holistic emergency department solution. Emergence department SVNs offer integrated approach to investigating the services delivery mechanism that reconcile the conflicting issues with concurrent requirements for the clients who are the patients and the hospital. The leverage of the economics of scale deliver specific needs to customers hence delivering highly specific emergency department customized solutions and development of integrated sets of criteria that will make services successful. From a business point of view, Emergency Department (ED) is described as a high risk environment because the patients and health care professionals working in these departments have a constantly high demand. In the departments, nurses, physicians, clinicians and other ED approved health care workers are required to collaborate to deliver the services required. In this department a clear understanding of the communications is required. The difficulties associated with communication creates a negative impact with the design of the effectiveness of interventions that improve communications. Total timeline in the emergency department Figure 1: Service Value Network is ED. The role of proper communication in the ED is to account for the investment that has been put in place through SVN. The communication assist events in the ED activities that require fast paced care of unpredictable medical condition. One way of enhancing communication is to ensure that non-interruption of communication among the professionals who are working in the ED. Also, the communication system assist reducing medical errors in this essentially sensitive department of the hospital. Communication research in the ED has managed to outline at least 19 complex communication events that occur in the emergence department. The complex communication occur between the patient and ED services clinicians, physicians and nurses and among these services providers (Patterson et al. 2013, 109). Studies of earmarked the risk involved in the services department and have come to conclude that communication interruption is a risk factor that will reduce the emergence department effectiveness hence communication error may reduce the productivity Index of the ED even if there is adequate representation of the ED resources. The risk of broken communication is losing critical patient care information. This alone will impede the services within the ED that will greatly affected the general PI. Affected PI will threaten the safety standards of the ED hence affecting the output of this department. To enhance communication within the ED, the hospital’s strategic plan and ED policy should cover the communication protocol and ensure that communication errors are reduced to 0 percent if a positive PI is to be realized. Input and outputs within the ED The input models of the patient flow system in the ED are the diagnostics, beds, service time, resources, clerks, treatment cubicles, nurses, medical staff and diagnostic rooms. The ED also has the ambulance, the walk-ins, patient transportation resources and other hospital transfer services. The outputs have been optimal resources, optimal shifts, staffing resource, queue reduction strategy, reduced service time, smooth patient treatment process, adequate and effective communication, increased safety and adequate discharge process (Jarousse, 2011). The output process and concept has been determined through a surge of capacity and patient relationship within the patient flow that enhance implications for input and outputs. Emergence department service follow different models, but the purpose of any model is to enhance patient flow that enhance emergency department efficiency. Enhancing outputs and inputs in the emergency department require several other techniques, which involve a guide to service improvement, measurement, analysis and technique solutions. The process flow to the ED should be friendly to stakeholders who are attending to the patient from the emergence scene. Simulation modeling are also valuable resources that have been use to enhance learning, training and information to ED services providers. High quality skills are a resource for demanding high quality PI. The ED should also have a system that adequately solve challenges (Jarousse, 2011). The system of addressing problems should be contained in the communication flow chart for solving problems. The flow chart should indicate contact personnel and the appropriate response that can be provided. All stakeholders in the ED should validate the communication input and out process for the purpose of enhancing improved communication and improved PI system. A trip to the ED The emergency department has historical comprised of images for crowded waiting rooms, with extensive waiting time. There is no point that emergency rooms will have a lower number of patients to attend to regardless of their emergencies. The ED in many of the hospitals continue to experience overcrowding. However, with the high number of emergencies to attend to, the departments must demonstrate their ability to handle to handle day-to-day emergencies. However, if the EDs will demonstrate high productivity index, it will be possible to realize the law of demand and supply where the ED are in great supply with lower demands regardless of the number of patients who are need creates efficiency (Feldman et al. 2006, 954). The implications of the supply chain of the ED services will create significant quality that reduces risk of delays. There are a number of complex ED problem, but the new system of emergency department treatment show capability of addressing these problems. The purpose of developing SVNs aimed at improving services delivery at the ED is to reduce the risks associated with delays. There is need to develop proven solutions for ED problems. Some of the proposed solutions include improving the processes of handling patients within the ED. Improvement of ED require hospital wide involvement while designating stakeholders with appropriate roles. Stakeholder involvement require adequate representative with skills, communication criteria and medical equipment. Other departments such as anesthesia, pharmacy, radiology, housekeeping, hospital leadership among other stakeholders are involved in a more sustainable manner. Include tangible and intangible technologies. A mix of technologies are required to work in the emergence department. For example, one of the emergence department improvement suggestion is having access to on call specialists who are within the system and those who are out of the system. Increasing efficiency of boarding, registration and discharge processes among other specific processes that are going to developed with factors of overcrowding. Recommendations for improving the ED inputs Before achieving emergence department equilibrium, it is critical to access the emergence department input, throughput and output models. This assessment comes with speculations of considering external factors and internal factors. Therefore, addressing overcrowding is not the only issue of developing an effective ED with high quality productivity index. The three factors contributing to the potential of overcrowding include input, throughout and output. To achieve PI, hospitals are required to identify and address both problems and opportunities of improvement in the input, throughout and output. The input in the emergency department refers to the flow of patients within the emergence department. Input is highly variable and is one of the most difficult events to control within the ED because it is an external factor. The inputs also expands to other external factors such as primary patient demographics, insurance, the age of the population and alternatives ED within the community, (Jarousse, 2011). With identification of the input problems and challenges, the potential solutions for solving the input problem include providing after-hours acute clinic care, establishing an ED satellite laboratory, establishing a fast-track system for patient information including insurance and payment, establishment of an observational unit having specialists who are within reach. Reference Jarousse, L.A. 2011. Emergency Department Throughput. Hospitals & Health Networks. Retrieved on May 28, 2017 from http://www.hhnmag.com/articles/4359-emergency-department-throughput Blau, B., Kramer, J., Conte, T. and Van Dinther, C., 2009, July. Service value networks. In Commerce and Enterprise Computing, 2009. CEC'09. IEEE Conference on (pp. 194-201). IEEE. Patterson, P.D., Pfeiffer, A.J., Weaver, M.D., Krackhardt, D., Arnold, R.M., Yealy, D.M. and Lave, J.R., 2013. Network analysis of team communication in a busy emergency department. BMC health services research, 13(1), p.109. Lowthian, J.A., Cameron, P.A., Stoelwinder, J.U., Curtis, A., Currell, A., Cooke, M.W. and McNeil, J.J., 2011. Increasing utilisation of emergency ambulances. Australian Health Review, 35(1), pp.63-69. Eckstein, M. and Chan, L.S., 2004. The effect of emergency department crowding on paramedic ambulance availability. Annals of emergency medicine, 43(1), pp.100-105. Feldman, M.J., Verbeek, P.R., Lyons, D.G., Chad, S.J., Craig, A.M. and Schwartz, B., 2006. Comparison of the Medical Priority Dispatch System to an Out‐of‐hospital Patient Acuity Score. Academic emergency medicine, 13(9), pp.954-960. Read More