Week 5 – Assignment: Support Quality Performance Improvement through Enhanced Interprofessional Communication
For your assignment this week, you will use the case study found in the week's resources titled, Case Study: A Private Practice in the Pennsylvania Chronic Care Initiative.
After reading the case study, you will take on the role of a health administration intern hired by Dr. Johnson to run his office practice, and you will prepare a draft written communication in the form of a business letter or memorandum addressed to the local Chief Executive Officer Jamie Harper (fictitious) at Hospital Anywhere (fictitious).
According to the Agency for Health Research and Quality, a challenge to improving quality in private physician practices is the lack of communication with hospital organizations to increase the exchange of information related to the emergency room visits, hospital admissions, and discharges of their patients especially when the physician does not have privileges to practice at the hospital and is not notified of the patient's medical or surgical treatments.
Your communication in the form of a business letter or memorandum as the health administration intern wrote on Dr. Johnson's behalf to CEO Jamie Harper will include the following information:
A salutation and introduction of who you are and on whose behalf you are writing. Give Dr. Johnson a fictitious first name and give the medical practice a fictitious name.
Background information in synopsis form on the operation of your physician's office practice and how and why your practice has joined the
Pennsylvania Chronic Care Initiative (PCCI). Be sure to mention the quality outcome performance of the office before and since joining the
PCCI (this information is in the case study; so, be sure to summarize the important points regarding these quality measures as it relates to the diabetic patients).
State the reason for your written communication that includes the desire to improve the interdisciplinary communication between Hospital Anywhere and your office practice especially for your diabetic patients and the potential hospital services that would be beneficial to your diabetic patients (see the Miller-Rosales and Rodriguez (2021) resource in your Weekly Resources).
Propose how using the identified hospital services will benefit the hospital and your office practice from both a healthcare quality and financial perspective.
Provide a closing paragraph in your business letter/memorandum and the appropriate complimentary signoff. Be sure to mention the attachments you are providing.
Create a tool that you propose to collect the data from the identified hospital staff following their consultations with your diabetic patients and include it in your business letter or memorandum as an Attachment 1 (see the Miller-Rosales and Rodriguez (2021) resource in your Weekly Resources).
Lastly, create a draft checklist that you will provide to your office staff to assure your diabetic patients are completing their annual tests and screenings and include it in your business letter/memorandum as Attachment 2 (see the Florida Blue Medicare Caregiver Guide (2019) in your resources).
Be creative with this assignment and enjoy its real-world applicability. While it is not a requirement for this assignment, you may wish to embellish your business letter or memorandum. You can find a business or memo templates from the MS Word templates. Click
File at the top of your Word document, then click
More Templates. Remember, if you use a template, after the first page of a memorandum, the remaining pages usually are plain. Be sure to consult APA guidelines for the use of attachments which may be called appendices.
Length: A minimum of 3-4 pages, not including the title page, reference page, or the 2 attachments
https://www.ahrq.gov/ncepcr/research-transform-primary-care/transform/profile/gabbay.html
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20009666.2019.1593782
Florida Blue Medicare Family Caregiver Guide
Florida Blue Medicare Caregiver Guide (2019).
Florida Blue Medicare Resources.
Consult page 31 in this resource for your assignment this week to see a list of the annual tests required for diabetics.
https://www.jabfm.org/content/34/1/151
Interdisciplinary Primary Care Team Expertise and Diabetes Care Management
Miller-Rosales, C., & Rodriguez, H. P. (2021). Interdisciplinary primary care team expertise and diabetes care management.
Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 34(1), 151-161. doi: 10.3122/jabfm.2021.01.200187.
Use this resource to complete your assignment as the researchers discuss the use of interdisciplinary care to manage patients with diabetes.
