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Challenges faced by International Quality Home Care

When asked about the challenges the company is facing, Mohdi told us that it is so difficult to find the perfect staff for her organization. She thinks that quality staff that is good in their knowledge and technical skills of the field needs to be hired very carefully. Her organization is striving for the best healthcare provision for the people in their homes, and she has no compromise in the quality of care delivered to the patients. The organization faces difficulties as the staff they hired do not stay in the jobs for longer periods. This makes the delivery of health care difficult for any medical organization as the organization has to hire new people with some work experience in the field who are willing to work in the organization for a longer period, and eventually the end users, i.e., the patients suffer.

Another challenge she was the shift to the new Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system which took about six months to be fully operational. She told us that they had to provide training to the staff in understanding the operation of the system and to shift to the new technology of record keeping. This change was hard to undergo and the productivity of the company was reduced during the shift. However, after the implementation, the organization started benefiting from the new record-keeping system.

According to Mohdi, the organization is facing certain issues that are caused by environmental and social factors. The rising cost of healthcare has made it difficult for the organization to provide the same healthcare service to patients. The equipment the organization is using needs to be updated with the passage of time and this update makes the provision more costly. Increasing cost of service by both organizational improvement and increasing the cost of healthcare by the government eventually increases the cost for the end user who had to pay a high cost for their services. This increase in costs has affected the organization’s business and its market satisfaction rate.

The patient’s expectations from organizations are increasing by the increased competition of healthcare providers. The patient apparently can never compromise on healthcare and if there are multiple options available they choose the best one that can provide the home services at less cost without compromising quality. This factor is forcing the organizations to focus on their quality and ensure patient medication safety. The patient’s demand for better healthcare has made it difficult for organizations to provide them with what they need. The problem is even worse when government policies are imposed on the organizations. Private healthcare services need to be more patient-oriented and demand is driven to satisfy the needs of both government and patients.

When asked about the political impact on her organization, Mohdi replied that it is a big issue for them. With the political pressure that continuously forces them to provide more and more quality healthcare, the healthcare providers are in constant distress as they have to keep improving their services to meet the requirements of political influencers. The political parties demand more cost-effective and timely solutions for healthcare delivery at home. They demand that agencies provide non-life threatening solutions to patients at home and use the latest equipment to minimize the risks.

This political pressure is empowered by the competition in which multiple agencies agree to improve their services according to political demands, to compete with the competitor’s agency has to improve their services.

The government encourages hospitals in improving their treatment and provides funding to them to improve their service. This makes the hospital treatments less costly. That also provides the latest equipment to hospitals and this increases their patient satisfaction rate drastically. The private healthcare agencies, however, do not get any support from the government rather they face the burden of increased legislations against them. This increases the burden on private healthcare agencies like IQHC and they have to compete against government-funded hospitals by expanding their services and improving quality.

Another negative impact that the agency faced was the poor organizational culture. According to Dr. Mohdi nurses give a hard time adapting to a new culture. Nurses oppose innovation in healthcare, are autonomous and self-reliant in their job, and give hard time working on flexible schedules. Encouraging nurses and other home healthcare delivery professionals to provide service by working on these factors is a difficult task. Most nurses demand time schedule of their choice and refuse to work in night shifts. They refuse to adapt to new innovative methods and stick to their old methods no matter how much the agency pushes them. Most of the old employees have strong opposition to adopting new technology. They are reluctant to work with advanced devices and it is very hard to motivate them in changing their methods. Most of the time the senior physicians have to train them for longer periods so that they apply this technology in their service.

The impact of social awareness about healthcare services is improving patient knowledge about their diseases. This factor is providing a positive impact on the healthcare delivery system of IQHC. Now patients are more aware of their medical condition, and they know how they can prevent complications if they can’t go to the hospital. It is helping the healthcare providers as patients now already know what procedures are to be practiced to minimize the risks and what factors they should be concerned about their health that is important for their treatment. The disease information has also increased with the advent of social media, and patients are now more aware of their potential problems and can keep track of their healthcare delivery.

The organization’s service delivery is changing with the inclusion of the new EMR system. Now the record-keeping of the patient is improved, and patient records are updated by the organization in real-time during their service. The healthcare providers are now up to date on patient conditions, their major diseases, deficiencies, medical history, cure history, and current progress of home-based medical care is kept in these EMR records. This improvement has made healthcare delivery more efficient and patient-oriented. The nurses now easily perform necessary actions with patients, and their services are more effective and patient targeting.

References

Bloom, N., Propper, C., Seiler, S., & Van Reenen, J. (2015). The impact of competition on management quality: evidence from public hospitals. The Review of Economic Studies, 82(2), 457-489.

Carayon, P., Wetterneck, T. B., Rivera-Rodriguez, A. J., Hundt, A. S., Hoonakker, P., Holden, R., & Gurses, A. P. (2014). Human factors systems approach to healthcare quality and patient safety. Applied Ergonomics, 45(1), 14-25.

International Quality Homecare. (2018). Internationalquality.com. Retrieved 4 April 2018, from http://www.internationalquality.com/

Interview: Dr. Andronke Mohdi (2018)

Paré, G., Raymond, L., de Guinea, A. O., Poba-Nzaou, P., Trudel, M. C., Marsan, J., & Micheneau, T. (2014). Barriers to organizational adoption of EMR systems in family physician practices: a mixed-methods study in Canada. International journal of medical informatics, 83(8), 548-558.

Rozenblum, R., Miller, P., Pearson, D., Marielli, A., Grando, M. A., Rozenblum, R., & Bates, D. W. (2015). Patient-centered healthcare, patient engagement, and health information technology: the perfect storm. Information technology for patient empowerment in healthcare, 3-22.

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