Physicians and hospitals play a unique and essential role in the entire healthcare environment
The American hospital association’s (AHA) Committee on performance improvement published a report outlining the changes by which hospitals undergo. The strategies presented include aligning hospitals, physicians, and other providers in the continuum of care to improve access to and quality of care. Health practitioners should work towards making a difference in terms of providing care to all patients beyond the traditional hospital experience. Physicians and hospitals play a unique and essential role in the entire healthcare environment.
The continuum of patient care involves how health providers follow up a patient from preventive care, rehabilitation, maintenance, and medical incidences. All these depend on the patient, as it includes long-term care facilities and ambulatory care. The continuum of care is essential to both the patients and the caregivers as it reduces costs, improves health, and the level of satisfaction to all parties involved. Physicians have direct and indirect roles within the health care system. Physicians are responsible for the management and maintenance of caring for patients. Health care professionals work in different capacities across the network, physicians being the leaders of these teams. Physicians give important directions and have a lot of responsibilities on the care team. They play an essential role in managing long-term chronic conditions, regular health maintenance, and over extended periods o time. Physicians practice involves credibility in quality, technology, documentation, safety, ethics, and regulatory compliance. Hospitals, on the other hand, play an essential role in improving the healthcare context, coordination of care, and transitional care interventions. The hospital coordinates the purpose of all the specialists, therefore, influencing the patient’s experience positively or negatively. Hospitals, therefore, have the responsibility of following up on the progress of all patients to ensure expertise by all the specialists.
Physician practice and hospitals hence play a significant role in the delivery of quality health care. However, lack of advancement opportunities, work overload, less staff, lack of monitoring, weak organizational structures, and limited or insufficient technology makes it difficult for physicians and hospitals to bring about the positive patient experience. If hospitals fail to be organized into process-oriented teams, there is no coordination in the transitional processes. The continuum of patient care may not be possible if there are difficulties in implementing integrated care programs.
Health care providers require a team to ensure coordination on the experience of the patient. Providers include doctors, nurses, pharmacists, administrative staff, technologists, and technicians, and therapists. Specific health care teams are involved in addressing a patient’s condition according to patient needs. Providers have distinct and essential roles in the health care processes. Doctors, for instance, having studied for many years, have the specialty of diagnosing according to their field. Doctors can be dentists, pediatricians, cardiologists, and many other types of specifications. Doctors, also referred to as physicians, examine patients, review their medical history, diagnose illness and injuries then administer treatment. They also advise patients accordingly, depending on their current medical situations. Doctors interpret lab test results, explain procedures, prescribed medications to patients, and maintain confidentiality with their patients. Doctors, therefore, play a vital role in returning their patients to their highest level of functioning.
Nurses work very closely with patients, and what they do is more critical for the recovery of the patient, than even the doctors. Nurses have primary medical responsibilities, such as examining blood pressure and drawing a patients’ blood. They provide primary care to patients, observe the patients’ reactions to medical care, record medical history and symptoms of their patients, and monitor and operate medical equipment. Nurses administer medicine and treatment to the patients, which is the most determiner of whether the patients will get better. Pharmacists give patients the medications prescribed by doctors. They play an essential role in advising over-the-counter patients with certain medical conditions. Other than that, pharmacists often advise doctors on the most appropriate type of medicine to prescribe to their patients. They help in prescribing medicine with no side effects to the patients and offer instructions on how to take medication and what to avoid during a particular type of medication. Therapists are specialists who help their patients recover from injuries and illness through working on physical aspects such as speech, movement, and coordination. The main types of therapists include physical therapists who help with an individual’s motion, muscles, and strength. Occupational therapists work with mental problems and injured patients, those who have suffered from a stroke, and need to learn things like walking, to brush, and to pick up items. Speech therapists help out people with speech problems, language, or swallowing problems.
Hospital administrators and doctors play essential roles in the success of a patient’s medical conditions. However, there are differences in responsibility and authority between the two. A hospital administrator supervises the organizational side of health services, and ensure that the medical facility employs effective and efficient practices that deliver the best medical care. Doctors are therefore involved with patients at a one on one scenario, while an administrator focuses on the entire medical facility. An administrator coordinates all the people in the health facility, including physician practice. The administrator supervises compliance of policy by all the employees of the facility, data management, HR, finances, and departmental strategies.
While an administrator manages staff, with the facility, the physician practice responds to a patient’s medical problems. An administrator oversees the financial health of the facility. The physician carries out diagnosis and treatment to patients. It is the work of an administrator to ensure that the facility complies with medical, legal regulations and internal policies. At the same time, a physician meets targets set by the government for specialized treatments such as immunization. By looking at the responsibilities of both the administrator and the physician, they play essential roles, and one can not carry out their tasks effectively without the other. The physician and the hospital administrator make differences in people’s lives. Hospitals should organize additional training courses on the modern hospital management to improve medical economics. Seminars to ensure all employees meet the growing demands of the hospital services are essential. Topics such as management performance management and benchmarking would bring about positive and significant management experience.
Management changes in the hospital setting are due to various reasons. The cooperation between physicians and hospital settings might be complicated due to differences in professional cultures. The professional culture differences are due to underlying assumptions, values and beliefs, and artifacts. Furthermore, the language of physicians is not like any other hospital practitioners. There are different perceptions between physicians and the entire hospital setting when it comes to values and beliefs.
Additionally, there is a shortage of physicians in the health system; hence most physicians want to be self-employed. Most physicians, therefore, prefer the flexibility and autonomy of independent practice. The hospital setting expects so much from the physicians, and having a dialogue can help create a healthy relationship with the hospital system. Some health systems might not fully understand the needs of their existing employed or affiliated physicians. Structured needs assessment through physician surveys, along with unstructured conversations through physician liaisons, can improve this understanding. Subsequent steps can include identifying segments with distinct business and psychographic needs and motivations and preferences. Doing so could help organizations develop customized approaches to achieve physician activation and desired behavior change. Many of the health system leaders have concluded that a physician-led structure is most effective. Organizations may approach this differently, but the underlying principle is that physicians have a voice and are empowered through formal and informal channels.