The
challenging and changing nature of healthcare industry is leading to
the emergence of Accountable Care Organizations or ACOs. An ACO is
actually a group comprising of primary care specialists, doctors,
hospitals along with associated healthcare providers who work together
and have a common aim to deliver coordinated high quality care to the
patients. The ACO was created by ACA or Affordable Care Act, based on
the vision of creating a health care system, which is more effective as
well as connected. In ACOs, accountability for clinical processes as
well as patient care coordination are shared by multiple providers. The
main aim is to help in the reduction of health care expenses and also
for quality improvement of national healthcare.
One
of the must-have competencies that is required for the proper formation
as well as functioning of ACO is interprofessional team care along with
aid management. In the unforeseeable future, it may be assumed that
there will be a shortage in the supply of skilled healthcare
professionals. With a constrained supply, more effective models of
leverage will be required, which will lead to interprofessional team
care applications. In fact, it is best to come out with a design of
physician compensation, since the financial scenario is such that having
plans of salary-based compensations might be a good idea. It is also a
good idea to manage the system properly by regularly updating the
performance metrics as well as benchmarks along with regular evaluation.
Recording the performance in balance sheets is another addition on the
to-do list.
From
both clinical and operational perspective, ACOs actually make sense.
The healthcare organizations these days are often filled with faulty
communication habits as well as inefficient workflows, which affects
both outcomes as well as quality in a negative way. The issues can be
countered by the recognized ACOs, only if they meet some indicators
along with derived data of some key areas, like experience of care
providers along with patients, care coordination, safety of patients
through analysis, reporting along with error prevention and the 'at-risk
population' which includes health of elderly as well as physically sick
people.
The
complex nature of healthcare makes it necessary to approach issues in
cohesive groups that work together, so that objectives like expertise
sharing, creativity, development of new skills, influencing decisions as
well as increase of personal autonomy are achieved. The formation of
such teams may be possible only by elimination of barriers that may be
encountered in regular communications. For unlocking the quality
outcomes as well as team performance, communication excellence is
needed. In healthcare, communication must be simple through simple
conversation with each other. Any gap in communication may result in
limited quality service. If issues are not addressed, it may result in
ineffective, inefficient as well as potentially unsafe performance,
which might lead to unintended outcomes.
Since
healthcare system products are services, to make ACOs really effective
as well as the potential future of healthcare, evaluation should be done
in respect of parameters like reliability, tangibles, empathy,
assurance, communication, accessibility along with clinical measures.
When these measures are achieved, then high performance teams can be
developed and bonus benefits will be experienced along with job
satisfaction.
The
diverse nature of ACO is complimentary to the diverse natures of the
patients that they serve. Almost half of them are organizations led by
physicians, with 20% including critical access hospitals, rural health
centers as well as community health centers, which serve rural along
with low income communities. Their good work helps ensure that high
quality medical services are accessed by normally under-served
populations. It is possible by putting extra attention on the patients.
Currently, the demand as well as popularity of ACOs are growing
steadily. With more than 3 million medicare beneficiaries being served
by ACOs, the program may seem to be the future of the healthcare
industry. There are plans of launching some additional ACOs in 2014
which will be continued annually. You can build healthcare apps within
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