Capstone change project
Healthcare is increasingly becoming a critical aspect of the life of every ordinary person. The essentiality of this service in the context of today’s world is geared towards the emergence of lifestyle and exacerbation of the prevalence of non-communicable diseases. The situation in totality has caused increased visits to the outpatient care units. Consequently, the predicament in question forms the basis of this paper that seeks to review the needs assessment and outline the proposed topics for the capstone change project.
Eden medical center is a subsidiary of Sutter Health, an organization that caters to the healthcare needs of the general United States population. The medical center encompasses various specialized and generalized units to cater to patient needs as well as respective healthcare workers. The 130-bed facility poses as the trauma center for the southern region of Alameda county (Sutter, 2020). The facility offers a broad raft of services, including cancer care, imaging, birthing center, rehabilitation, and orthopedics. In this context, however, the universal care unit that caters for minor illnesses in the outpatient unit will form the basis of the capstone project.
The universal care center offers services to patients affected by minor ailments that require minimal attention by specialists. Following a needs assessment that captured the various strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats as encoded in the SWOT analysis, there was a raft of concerns (Gürel, Emet, and Merba, 2017). The unit has a superb workforce dedicated to providing essential health services to the clientele. Moreover, the unit includes efficient infrastructure that encodes a seismologically insensitive complex that offers adaptive technology to the trends in health care. Following an independent review by Truven Health Analytics, the facility, in general, was ranked among the best health care providers, which denoted trust from the clientele base.
However, conscious of the weaknesses ever-present in any organization, the analysis denoted that patient volumes in the outpatient unit posed a risk to the health of the general population. There were concerns about the impact of the high numbers of clients in the universal care unit on the nursing workforce. Staff motivation was another significant concern noticed during the analysis. These factors proved to be the universal care unit’s weaknesses in the outpatient center of Eden health care center. The elements were critical in formulating the opportunities for the unit in question.
Consequent to the analysis, the role of technology was highly viewed as a possible opportunity in a view to elude unnecessary patient visits due to blood pressure and random blood sugar management. Moreover, the efficient workforce in the unit provided insight into a possible formulation of an auxiliary health program where home management of minor conditions would suffice towards the adoption of universal health coverage. These opportunities were relevant to the betterment of services provided in the unit. However, there exist significant threats to the comprehensive health care unit, including high nurse to patient ratios.
The imbalanced ratios contribute to patient mismanagement as well as missed opportunities in addition to more extended hospitalizations. The impact of these scenarios is reduced levels of healthcare services, which could translate into low client turn out. Additionally, the high nurse-to-patient ratios significantly impact the nurses in the respective units, including physical exhaustion, mental stress, workplace pressure, and depression (Miller, Anne, et al., .2019). These factors contribute to the threats affecting the unit in general.
Following the SWOT analysis, it is evident that the weaknesses and threats, together with strengths and weaknesses, form the critical components in the formulation of the capstone change proposal. Consequent to this development, these topics would suffice in tackling the visible threats and vulnerabilities of the universal health care unit. The role of technology in monitoring patient’s conditions would be a significant topic tailored to address unnecessary hospital visits due to the management of lifestyle conditions.
Low Nurse-to-patient ratios and their effects will be another capstone change project topic that would be essential in tackling the significantly high ratios in the unit attributed to clientele volume. Moreover, the importance of staff motivation would an alternative change topic that would aid in reducing the impact of workplace pressure, depression, mental exhaustion, and demoralization,
Works cited
Gürel, Emet, and Merba Tat. “SWOT analysis: a theoretical review.” Journal of International Social Research 10.51 (2017).
Miller, Anne, et al. “Using telephone call rates and nurse-to-patient ratios as measures of resilient performance under high patient flow conditions.” Cognition, Technology & Work 21.2 (2019): 225-236.
Sutter, Health. “Eden Medical Center | Sutter Health.” Sutterhealth.org. N.p., 2020. Web. 20 May 2020.