Reasons That Caused an Increase in the Number of Emergency Care Facilities

This paper will carefully examine some of the most important political, social, and economic circumstances that is responsible for the increase in urgent care facilities and primary care practices for over the last twenty to thirty years. I will explain the organizations long term goals of quality service to the patients and how it plans on doing it. I will discuss strategies or ways that could be used to improve healthcare to increase profitability. The collection of data and reports will show if clinics are meeting their performance goals. I will discuss the different avenues facilities can take to improve growth internal and in outside facilities.

Urgent health care facilities are flourishing because physicians are looking for a better work-life balance, and because of patient demand, cost, and convenience. The cost of visiting an urgent health care facility is normally covered by the insurance company at an average cost of a hundred and fifty dollars per patient. Urgent care facilities are open seven days a week, normally until 9:00 p.m. with no appointment required. Non-emergency room care cost Americans three trillion in 2014. Urgent health care facilities are a part of the new healthcare reform.

The official name for the healthcare reform is called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Health care reform is a complete reconstruction of a healthcare system calling for a developmental approach to guarantee success. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the PPACA will drive approximately thirty-two million more members into the healthcare system. (1) The reform will increase the competition for insurance companies. Insurance companies will have to develop new products and provider networks that will align with each individual customer needs.

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Our facilities provide convenient, affordable, and high-quality health care to patients with immediate evaluation and treatment. There are several ways the Urgent care facility can increase growth within the clinic. The clinic can extend hours to open early and stay open late seven days a week and on holidays. Offer online appointments which allows patients to save time and have flexibility. Engage with the patients by doing a follow-up call, e-mail or text two days after service rendered to let the patient know you care and if any further care is needed. There should always have a full-time physician on staff specializing in family practice.

If the patient needs a specialty physician, have a list of providers that may be in their health care plan. The urgent care facility helps the community by providing sports and school physicals. The clinic can provide drug testing for employers. The urgent care facilities can provide virtual visits through webcam chat or Face Time without leaving home. The patient can talk with doctor or nurse practitioner twenty-four hours a day within thirty minutes.

Goals and Performance Measures:

1. Goal: Building strong doctor patient relationships by improving the patient experience. Measurement: Ninety percent of all patients experienced excellent quality care by providers whose degree of expertise was displayed during appointments.
2. Goal: Provide the best treatment possible to improve the well being of the patient on a continuous basis. Measurement: Less than twenty percent of patients returned to the urgent care facility because of misdiagnosis. Generally, for more severe conditions.
3. Goal: Provide patient care in a timely and efficient manner.

Measurement: The average wait time is twenty minutes in sixty-nine percent of urgent care facilities. The clinic is meeting the goals of a better doctor client relationship and diagnosing patients with less urgent treatments. The clinic needs to improve the percentage of how long patients are waiting to be examined.

There are several opportunities for improvement of each goal. The patient experience can be improved by providing easy online scheduling, accurate wait time, text reminders and alerts, walk-ins utilizing a single-system check-in method, and displaying an in-lobby queue view. Most misdiagnosis begin with patient information. Make the patient feel comfortable to ask questions if they don’t understand a healthcare questionnaire. Make sure any equipment is up to standards. Selecting the optimal treatment plan. Make sure the patient understands the treatment plan, that the instructions are transparent to the patient and they feel comfortable asking questions. The wait time at urgent care facilities are far less than the emergency room wait time. Waiting thirty minutes or less is practical especially for walk-ins compared to someone with an appointment.

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