Healthcare systems in the US bear the obligation to achieve a triad objective of improving the patient experience of care, including quality and satisfaction, improving public health services, and reducing the cost of care. Despite these considerations, Americans do not receive quality, timely, and affordable care due to the prevailing healthcare disparities.According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) (2021), a healthcare disparity is a “difference between population groups in the way they access, experience, and receive healthcare” (p. 193). In this sense, the synergies between ethnic, social, economic, environmental, and geographical factors contribute to inequalities regarding access to care, experiences, and quality of life.Although the country enacts policies that ensure affordability, accessibility, and equality, eliminating ethnic and socio-economic disparities poses a public health challenge. Therefore, this proposal elaborates on strategies for measuring and assessing healthcare disparities, quality benchmarks, and evidence-based strategies for addressing the problem.
Measurements and Assessment of the Problem
It is possible to measure and assess the problem of healthcare disparities by evaluating interactions between health and social determinants of health (SDOH), including age, education, neighborhood, employment, and population’s income levels. Also, it is essential to incorporate ethnic aspects because they influence access to quality care, experiences, and quality of life. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) (2021) presents six profound domains for assessing disparities. These considerations are:
Access to person-centered care
Patient Safety
Care coordination
Care affordability
Effective treatment
Healthy living
Benchmarks for Healthcare Disparities
Often, it is possible to determine the prevailing health disparities by comparing the community’s performance against top-performing communities and state or national benchmarks. As noted earlier, it is vital to assess and measure health disparities by evaluating inequalities within the six domains, including access to patient-centered care, the level of care coordination, care affordability, the availability of effective treatment, and healthy living.Gomez et al. (2021) argue that conditions in which people live, learn, work, and worship, alongside their age and growth patterns, influence well-being outcomes, quality of life, and access to timely, affordability, and quality care. Therefore, the social determinants of health (SDOH) are the causative and contributing factors for health disparities.The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) collaborates with other agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to document national and state benchmarks for the six domains. In this sense, it is possible to gauge communities’ performance regarding eliminating healthcare disparities by comparing their prevalence with states’ and national benchmarks.One of the most profound benchmarks for healthcare disparities is the number of uninsured people of ethnic diversities. Carratala & Maxwell (2020) argue that about 10.6% of African Americans were uninsured compared with 5.9% of non-Hispanic Whites in 2017. Such statistics indicate ethnicity is a profound cause of disparities in care affordability and accessibility.The stand unit for measuring health disparities entails often computing the total number of individuals with distinct characteristics against a predetermined population (1000, 100000, and so on). For example, healthcare professionals can calculate the total number of Black Americans with new cases of HIV by identifying the numbers of new cases per 100,000 people. Consequently, it is possible to compare the prevalence of disparities with achievable benchmarks.Action PlanMany scholarly and authoritative sources proposed evidence-based interventions for analyzing and addressing health disparities in patient safety, access to quality care, care affordability, quality of life, and care coordination. These interventions include:
Identifying and addressing contextual issues contributing to healthcare disparities (Suarez-Balcazar et al., 2017). it is essential to understand the linkage between social determinants of health (SDOH) and access to care, affordability, care coordination, and quality of life.
Initiating organizational, provider-focused, and systematic changes to reduce racial healthcare disparities (Gullost et al., 2018).
Eliminating structural racism in healthcare organizations to promote fairness and equality at the institutional level (Lavizzo-Mourey et al., 2021)
Ensuring equality when distributing socio-economic resources reduces disparities within the social determinants of health, such as housing, health literacy, work conditions, and employment status (Gomez et al., 2021).
Implementing care transformative care delivery and financial arrangements to transform healthcare reimbursement strategies, including national insurance models to enhance accessibility and affordability (Garzon-Orjuela et al., 2020).
American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) Leadership Competencies
ACHE Domain
ACHE Competency Selected
How This Competency Related to the Capstone Health Care Problem Analysis Proposal
Communication and Relationship Management
Communication Skills
Communication competencies are prerequisites for effectively disseminating information and evidence regarding clinical problems as a healthcare professional. According to the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) (2020), communication skills enhance an individual’s ability to communicate clearly and concisely with internal and external audiences, establish and maintain relationships, and facilitate constructive interactions with team members. This competency is consistent with the capstone project analysis because it entails developing interdisciplinary teams for change implementation.
Leadership
Managing Change
Undoubtedly, understanding the change process is essential for inspiring evidence-based interventions to address health disparities. ACHE (2020) contends that effective leadership entails inspiring individuals and organizational excellence by creating a shared vision and successfully managing change. Therefore, this competency complements the need to initiate, implement, and sustain approaches for addressing health disparities.
Professionalism
Personal and Professional Accountability
As noted earlier, it is essential to eliminate structural discrimination in healthcare organizations to address health disparities such as access to quality care for disadvantaged patient populations, care coordination issues, and patient safety concerns (Lavizzo-Mourey et al., 2021).Personal and professional accountability is a prerequisite for ensuring equality at the institutional level because it aligns with ethical and professional standards. This competency relates to the capstone healthcare problem because it requires healthcare professionals to uphold ethical and professional practice standards, eliminating structural disparities such as discrimination.
Knowledge of the Healthcare Environmental
Healthcare Systems and Organizations
The problem of health disparities prompts healthcare professionals and policymakers to understand the synergies between social determinants of health (SDOH) and domains of quality care, including accessible, affordable, and coordinated care.Therefore, it is essential to understand external and internal organizational environments, including healthcare delivery systems like insurance and reimbursement models. Therefore, this competency aligns with the capstone healthcare problem because it emphasizes understanding care dynamics and their contribution to health disparities.
Business Skills and Knowledge
Quality Improvement
Quality improvement is an essential concept in the current healthcare systems because it emphasizes interventions for bolstering care quality, accessibility, and affordability, alongside other dimensions of quality care. Healthcare professionals should familiarize themselves with implementing evidence-based recommendations for clinical problems. This competency aligns with the capstone healthcare problem analysis because it entails understanding organizational capacity and aspects that improve dimensions of quality care.
References
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2021). National healthcare quality and disparities report (pp. 1-316). AHRQ. https://www.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/research/findings/nhqrdr/2021qdr.pdfAmerican College of Healthcare Executives. (2020). ACHE healthcare executive: 2020 competencies assessment tool. https://www.ache.org/-/media/ache/career-resource-center/competencies_booklet.pdf.Carratala, S., & Maxwell, C. (2020). Health disparities by race and ethnicity. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/health-disparities-race-ethnicity/Garzón-Orjuela, N., Samacá-Samacá, D., Luque Angulo, S., Mendes Abdala, C., Reveiz, L., & Eslava-Schmalbach, J. (2020). An overview of reviews on strategies to reduce health inequalities. International Journal for Equity in Health, 19(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-01299-wGollust, S., Cunningham, B., Bokhour, B., Gordon, H., Pope, C., & Saha, S. et al. (2018). What causes racial health care disparities? A mixed-methods study reveals variability in how health care providers perceive causal attributions. INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, 55, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1177/0046958018762840Gómez, C., Kleinman, D., Pronk, N., Wrenn Gordon, G., Ochiai, E., & Blakey, C. et al. (2021). Addressing health equity and social determinants of health through healthy people 2030. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, s249-s257. https://doi.org/10.1097/phh.0000000000001297Lavizzo-Mourey, R., Besser, R., & Williams, D. (2021). Understanding and mitigating health inequities — past, current, and future directions. New England Journal of Medicine, 384(18), 1681-1684. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmp2008628Suarez-Balcazar, Y., Mirza, M., & Garcia-Ramirez, M. (2017). Health disparities: Understanding and promoting healthy communities. Journal of Prevention & Intervention in The Community, 46(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1080/10852352.2018.1386761
BHA FPX 4020 Assessment 1 Instructions
Prepare a health care problem analysis proposal in outline format (3-10 pages) on a current, relevant health care problem. Include the rationale for selecting the problem, a description of the how the problem is assessed and measured for quality improvement purposes, a proposed industry measure of performance, action steps for completing the project, and a description of the applicable leadership competencies.
Effective health care leaders simultaneously maintain internal organizational and external industry environmental awareness. Leaders are challenged to focus on vision, mission, strategic direction, goals, and objectives while remaining mindful of emerging trends that may affect an organization’s viability.
Monitoring the external environment for issues that may represent major challenges to an organization requires ongoing diligence. Health care administrators must identify and prioritize issues affecting their organizations. Furthermore, leaders must select methods and tools with which to analyze data for identification of potential solutions.
In this first assessment in your capstone course, you will have an opportunity to select a health care problem that is relevant to your career interests and one that adds value to a current or future health care organization. By the end of the course, you will be drawing from current scholarly and/or authoritative sources to provide evidence-based recommendations to solve the problem.
Demonstration of Proficiency
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:
Competency 1: Evaluate problems in health care organizations, and apply tools to improve quality and outcomes.
Describe, using an authoritative source, how the selected health care problem is assessed and measured for quality improvement purposes. Describe how five American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) leadership competencies apply to the selected capstone project topic.
Competency 2: Analyze foundational elements of the U.S. health care system.
Identify a relevant problem along with the rationale for selecting the problem.
Competency 4: Analyze records and reports based on established benchmarks and organizational goals and performance.
Propose an industry measure of performance, such as a benchmark, which pertains to the type of organization selected for problem analysis.
Competency 5: Create comprehensive and useable data-driven actions plans, based on industry benchmarks. Provide a bulleted list of the preliminary action plan steps to review the problem and propose solutions.
Competency 6: Communicate effectively with diverse audiences, in an appropriate form and style, consistent with applicable organizational, professional, and scholarly standards.
Create a clear, well organized, professional, and generally error-free outline that describes a relevant health care problem.
Preparation
To successfully complete this first assessment in your capstone course, you will need to conduct independent research on current, relevant problems facing the U.S. health care system. The problem you select needs to meet all of the following criteria:
The selected health care problem is likely to affect your current or desired future workplace, such as a hospital, home health care agency, hospice, ambulatory clinic, et
Authoritative and scholarly health care literature addresses the problem of
Data is available for the selected
The current state can be articulated by describing major factors and the way in which these factors are For example, the selected problem can be analyzed by examining such data as average length of stay (in days) and cost (dollars).
You may begin your research on current, relevant problems facing the health care industry by studying your suggested resources for this assessment. In addition, you may want to consult the Health Care Administration Undergraduate Library Research Guide to help you begin your search for scholarly and authoritative sources on significant, contemporary problems in the health care industry.
Please ensure that the problem is relevant and of sufficient interest to your career goals since all future course work is built upon the stated problem.
FPX 4020 Assessment 1 Instructions
For this assessment, you will construct a capstone health care problem analysis proposal on your selected topic. You may wish to envision your current or future workplace as the potential site for presentation of the proposal. After your proposal is constructed, you will receive feedback from your faculty member. Later in the course, in a separate assessment, you will receive feedback from a practicing professional about the proposed approach to analyze data relating to the problem.
The requirement for this assessment is to produce a proposal that has clear section headings and contains a flow of logic. You may opt to use an outline format. Please avoid lengthy narrative paragraphs, as the proposal is intended to be presented in an imaginary workplace. Busy executives will not have time to read paragraphs word for word. Instead, expect that your audience will read the document by scanning.
Your goal is to provide succinct yet substantive information with sufficient depth to cover your selected problem. Remember to include a cover page, table of contents, section headings, and reference list. The length of the proposal is based upon the breadth and depth of your selected topic.
The following general steps in construction of your proposal contain additional specific information requirements.
Step 1: Identify a relevant problem along with the associated rationale for the selection of the problem. Be sure to substantiate content with and authoritative source.
State the problem in a single sentence, tell why it is a problem, and add a citation from a current, authoritative source. For example: Condition X if not addressed may result in Consequence Y (source, year).
Step 2: Describe, using an authoritative source, how the selected health care problem is assessed and measured for quality improvement purposes. Include relevant factors and associated units of measurement.
Select six current authoritative sources that apply to your selected problem. You may consider your problem from an industry, organization, or specific professional level. Be sure to include any industry standards, legal, and ethical considerations that relate to your problem. Summarize each of the six sources in a succinct sentence or two. Explain how each source directly relates to the problem. Be sure to add an APA formatted citation for each.
Step 3: Propose an industry measure of performance, such as a benchmark, which pertains to the type of organization selected for problem analysis.
State the major factors or performance indicators that directly relate to your problem. Assign a unit of measurement to each factor (days, dollars, percentage, et cetera.)
Identify the authoritative source(s) used to determine the major factors you selected that relate to the problem. Identify which industry assessment tool or framework you will use to analyze the problem.
Step 4: Provide a bulleted list of the preliminary action plan steps to complete the capstone health care problem analysis project. Examples include:
conduct library search, formulate problem statement, identify factors and units of measure, and so on.
Step5: Describe one competency from each of the five American College of Healthcare Executives’ (ACHE) domains that relate to your capstone health care problem analysis proposal.
Review the ACHE competency model:
Healthcare Leadership Alliance and the American College of Healthcare Executives. (2018). ACHE healthcare executive competencies assessment tool. Retrieved from https://www.ache.org/pdf/nonsecure/careers/competencies_booklet.pdf
Provide a short statement about how you practice one competency within each of the five ACHE domains. Consider including a table such as the following within your outline. Note: You have been provided with one example of how you might complete this for one competency within one domain. You will need to complete the entire table—one competency within each of the five domains.
ACHE Domain
ACHE Competency Selected
How This Competency Relates to the Capstone Health Care Problem Analysis Proposal
Communication and Relationship Management
Leadership
Professionalism
Knowledge of the Healthcare Environment
Healthcare Systems and Organizations
I chose health care systems and organizations because the capstone project will require me to develop skills in identifying substantive problems that the health care industry needs to address. It will also require me to develop skills in working to resolve a substantive problem within a health care organization.
Business Skills and Knowledge
Reminder: You will condense and use the material from your outline in your final PowerPoint presentation in the fourth course assessment.
Additional Requirements
Length: 3 to 10 double-spaced pages. Outline length will vary based on your selected topic.
Font: Use Times New Roman, 12 point font.
APA: Provide a minimum of six APA-formatted citations and references to current, scholarly and/or authoritative sources.
Problem selection criteria: Be sure your selected problem meets all four criteria listed under Preparation.
Writing: Create a clear, well-organized, professional, and generally error-free outline that describes a relevant health care problem
Next Assignments:
BHA-FPX 4020 Assessment 3: Data Collection and Analysis
BHA-FPX 4020 Assessment 4: Interdisciplinary Presentation of Evidence-Based Recommendations
BHA-FPX 4020 Assessment 5 Instructions: Health Care Leadership Self-Assessment
