Establishing a Pediatric Medical Group Home - Essay Example

Establishing a Pediatric Medical Group Home Establishing a Pediatric Medical Group Home The establishment of pediatric medical group centers is an important idea towards addressing the prevailing poor quality, significant fragmentation, and high cost that characterize most pediatric homes. A pediatric medical home model should encompass the core components of patient-centered care. These major components are defined by the developments in health information technology as well as the latest innovations in practice redesign. In order to achieve the best medical group home model, several initiatives have been launched by many health practitioners. However, in order to achieve the best model that can be utilized in the establishment of the best medical group home, there is a need to provide a clear set of standards that best addresses the clinical impact that such a model is going to pose to the health fraternity. This paper attempts to describe the criteria of establishing a pediatric medical group home, based on the recommendations that have been made from past experiences. The paper mainly focuses on explaining the core set of best approved practices that can be used in predicting the performance of a medical group home. The significant areas of consideration include the significant outcomes such as cost utilization and the clinical impact predictions. Keywords: clinical impact, pediatric care, health model, cost measurement, guidelines and clinical quality. Introduction The provision of quality pediatric care is a core function of any established health care delivery system. However, it is discernible that majority health care systems need to implement major strategies in order to improve their systems of pediatric health care delivery. The medical practitioners should develop objectives that will aim at addressing the menace of poor quality, fragmentation, and high costs that characterize many pediatric health care centers. One key objective should be the establishment of a pediatric medical group home. The establishment of such a medical home must be guided by the key tenets that govern the delivery of other primary care objectives. These include the integration of health information technology and the utilization of any recent innovations that have been realized in the field of pediatric care (McAllister and Cooley, 2004) Standardization model Despite the involvement of many health groups in the establishment of model pediatric health care homes, very little advancement has been achieved. Therefore, there is a need to initiate rigorous evaluations with a key to establishing a standardization model that can guide the operations of a pediatric group home. The development of a general standard will assist in anchoring the empirical basis of the pediatric home concept. It will also help in assessing the clinical impact that will be created during the implementation of the group home model. The establishment of a replicable pediatric group home model will ensure efficient coordination of all stakeholders in achieving the key objectives of the group home model. This means that the medical providers together with the patients will be better informed in understanding the results generated from the model (Wolper, 2012). This will create a better catalyst for improving the performance of the model, and hence achieving the key of objective of strengthening pediatric care delivery system. In order to understand the major clinical impact of the pediatric group home model, the health providers must develop key objectives that will focus on the core domains of clinical quality and cost/utilization. Some of the major objectives that can assist in understanding the clinical impact include the following; i. The medical providers must find a consensus on the best core set of expected outcome instruments and measures. ii. There is a need to share the agreement on methodological lessons and metrics with other key stakeholders and interested parties. iii. It is important to establish a supportive exchange program that will facilitate the sharing of information and exchange of ideas with other similar groups. This will help in forming the best evaluation designs and analytical approaches. Clinical quality In recent years, medical practitioners have been involved in finding the best approach towards the establishment of the best pediatric medical group centers. The medical groups have mainly been concerned with the core concepts of clinical quality, clinician and staff experience, as well as patient experience. Results from these recent studies indicate that the establishment of a functional pediatric health group home is a viable undertaking. The best approach should involve the review of the feasibility study and other logic models that have been developed in the past. It is important for researchers to have frequent debates on the effectiveness of the available feasible measures (Lisa and Chiang, 2007). This will assist in forming a sound evaluation and re-evaluation of pediatric home pilot projects that have been identified to be feasible. Health care providers should understand that children to be harbored at the pediatric health group home will have complex and varying clinical characteristics. Therefore, the model pediatric home must consider the development of the necessary mechanisms that will effectively address these needs. The implementation of suitable guidelines will ensure sustained provision of quality pediatric care and improve primary health care delivery at the pediatric group home. It is worth to put into consideration the fact that pediatric medical homes usually require holistic medical care for the children. Therefore, the model home must ensure the provision of a wide range of pediatric skills and necessary expertise for coordination of pediatric care (Kelly, Golnik, and Cady, 2008). Major indicators that are consistent with the logic model of a pediatric health care home are usually based on the concept of cost and utilization. This concept entails the effectiveness of hospitalizations and readmissions as well coordinated visits to the emergency departments. Shareholder participation The successful implementation of a pediatric health group home initiative relies heavily on the participation of all major stakeholders. These involve the parents, patients, government, other health departments, and other support staff. Suitable mechanism must be availed to facilitate effective communication with families and other medical and non-medical care providers. Shareholder participation is important in addressing the cost measures as this forms a core criterion for effective operations of the pediatric health care home. There is a broad spectrum agreement, and understanding, among health care providers that effective assessment of frequent changes in clinical quality should be a clear goal for any pediatric home program. It is worth noting that population variations within the pediatric group home might make it difficult to maintain uniform quality control measures. It is imperative to institute a set of guidelines that should govern the evaluation of clinical quality (Rushton, 1998). The presence of exigencies in home-based or clinic-based care is another factor that should be addressed during design of a long term pediatric care delivery system. It has been noted that most health practitioners deploy their efficacy studies into real-world set-ups without considering the presence of these exigencies (Michael, Alexander, Dennis, and Matthews, 2009). Conclusion The emerging need for complex health care has been intertwined with the emerging field of pediatric health care. It is expected that the prevailing changes in response to complex health problems will be reflected through advancements in pediatric health care delivery. Indeed, major advances are needed to ensure the provision of quality pediatric health care to all children. The establishment of pediatric health group home will help improve the lives of children. It will also help in streamlining the overall delivery of primary health care to all people. Model pediatric homes should be aimed at advancing quality improvement in clinical care. When coupled with further education and research, this will ensure increased access to quality health care available for all children. References Cooley WC, McAllister JW. (2004). Building medical homes: Improvement strategies in primary care for children with special health care needs. Pediatrics. [PubMed]. Francis E. Rushton. (1998). Family Support in Community Pediatrics: Confronting New Challenges. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. Kelly A, Golnik A, Cady R. (2008). A medical home center: Specializing in the care of children with special health care needs of high intensity. Maternal Child Health Journal. [PubMed] Lawrence F. Wolper. (2012). Physician Practice Management: Essential Operational and Financial Knowledge. Burlington: Jones & Bartlett Publishers Lisa B. Zaoutis, Vincent W. Chiang. (2007). Comprehensive Pediatric Hospital Medicine. Philadelphia: Elsevier Health Sciences. Michael A. Alexander, MD, Dennis J. Matthews, MD. (2009). Pediatric Rehabilitation: Principles & Practices, Fourth Edition. New York: Demos Medical Publishing. Read More