Transforming the COPD Patient into Technology

Transforming the COPD Patient into Technology

Abstract

The challenge of re-hospitalization in the United States and, most specifically, in the hospice care for patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) has had a lot of negative implications on the quality of healthcare outcomes on such patients. This project aims at preventing hospital readmissions in the United States hospice system of healthcare by the introduction of such technology as phone apps and healthcare websites (Erdal, 2018). Using such technology, patients in this category can access quality healthcare services from the comfort of their homes, thus reducing a myriad of associated implications such as increased cost of healthcare and contracting various germs ailments. For this project to be successful, it requires the collaboration of various interdisciplinary team members and other stakeholders in the hospice system of healthcare. The planning, design, and strategy of this individual project are also crucial to its implementation and successful completion. There exist a lot of lessons that the system of hospice care in the United States stands to learn from the successful enforcement of this project. Such lessons are pivotal for the increased quality of patient healthcare outcomes in the far and near future.

Introduction

In the United States, patient readmission or rather re-hospitalization is a common phenomenon. There exist several disadvantages for both patients and clinicians that come with the re-hospitalization of medical patients. As such, preventing re-hospitalization in the American system of healthcare is a significant goal for healthcare providers. Most substantially, reducing the rates of re-hospitalization of patients in hospice care that have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is of major importance. This paper shall analyze how clinicians and the American healthcare system can prevent re-hospitalization of the hospice patients and, more so, those with COPD by the introduction of technology.

The technology expected to prevent the rates of re-hospitalization includes phone apps and websites that have the capability of teaching the patient when to consult or call a doctor, where to look up symptoms online, or when to dial 911 for help. This individual project aims at improving the quality of care accorded to hospice patients with COPD and ensuring that the system of care also benefits substantially. This particular project shall significantly advance the profession of nursing by granting nurses more time to deal with individual patients and offer them the best care possible.

Background

In the United States, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, best known as COPD, is amongst the leading causes of high readmission rates in the system of healthcare (Al-Amin, 2016). What is most intriguing when COPD is concerned is the fact that the standards of care delivery to patients with this distinct ailment lack all across the continuum of care. As such, the lack of quality care delivery to patients with COPD might significantly lead to increased re-hospitalization rates in different healthcare centers. This individual observation led to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid to institute a penalty for any 30-day re-hospitalization as a significant part of the center’s re-hospitalization reduction program in the year 2014 (Erdal, 2018). By the time that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid was setting up this penalty, there existed little known evidence on the effectiveness of various hospital-based programs in decreasing re-hospitalization following acute exacerbation of COPD.

Studies conducted in the U.S. by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid indicates that Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease is the third cause of hospital readmissions in the American system of care. Additionally, the same institute discovered that the standards of care for patients hospitalized with COPD do not adhere to the recommended guidelines, and thus there exists a need to address the existing demand for improved quality of care and readmission rates for patients hospitalized with COPD. Research indicates that the high number of readmissions rates in the U.S. most often occur in hospitals that are within economically challenged communities. Consequently, penalties imposed by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid are huge in such hospitals. As such, coming up with a project that would involve the use of technology in terms of the use of mobile phone apps and websites would be an ideal implementation to substantially reduce the re-hospitalization rates for hospice patients with COPD in the American system of healthcare.

Project Planning and Implementation

For this individual project to be successful, it requires following a careful and detailed planning process and implementation. The major phases of this unique project are the initiation phase and the planning phase. First and foremost, the project requires creating and analyzing a specific business case that shall assist in convincing concerned stakeholders about the feasibility and significance of the project. The business case, in this case, shall highlight and expound on the issue of re-hospitalization amongst the healthcare system and more so for patients with COPD in hospice care. The second most vital step of the planning of this project is to identify and meet with the relevant stakeholders in the healthcare industry that shall approve of the entire project. The significant stakeholders to this process are all parties in the healthcare system that shall, in one way or the other, be affected by the implementation of this project. Most importantly, the relevant stakeholders in this project are the various regulatory agencies and other public agencies.

The other significant project planning step of this individual project is defining its unique goals and objectives. The purpose and objectives set at this particular stage shall set the momentum for the entire project and ensure that the chief aims of this process are followed effectively. Like any other health care project, the next significant strategy for this project is to determine its deliverables. The deliverables of this project are the results that the project intends to produce once it is fully implemented. For this individual project, the deliverables are to prevent the re-hospitalization of hospice patients that have COPD by way of introducing technology via phone applications and websites. This particular stage of the implementation process shall considerably define which stakeholder is responsible for the production and receiving of the project’s deliverables. The last project planning step will be to conduct the risk assessment of this given project to identify any underlying potential risk that might exist at the planning stage of the project.

The project on preventing re-hospitalization of the hospice patients with COPD through introducing technology via phone apps and websites shall have a significant impact on a given population and healthcare setting. First and foremost, the population that this project is bound to affect substantially includes all the patients in hospice care that have been diagnosed with Chronic Pulmonary Disease (Curran et al., 2015). This is the most significant population of healthcare that this project is intended to affect, given that studies show that Chronic Pulmonary Disease is the third leading factor or readmissions in the United States system of healthcare and hospice centers in this case. The project shall aim to observe how the introduction of technology in mobile applications and websites shall assist in the reduction of hospital readmission rates amongst this population in the hospice system of care. The hospice system of care shall substantially be impacted by the implementation of this project, given that a majority of the healthcare population targeted fall under this system of care.

In the healthcare setting, the chief relationship-care setting is primarily the nurse and patient or family relationship. The prevention of re-hospitalization by the use of technology as a care model has a significant relationship with the professional nurse, the patient, and their families as well as the healthcare teams and their families. The professional nurse is directly related to this model of care given that they are directly involved in offering the best care available to patients in hospice care and can, therefore, significantly influence the implementation of this individual project. On the other hand, the patient and their family members are directly linked to the care model as they are the principal recipients of the effects of the implementation of this model of care. The other chief parties to this model of care in the healthcare setting are members of the community and healthcare teams that are directly affiliated to patients with Chronic Obstructive Disease in the different hospice centers.

For this specific model of healthcare to be effective and to materialize as it is intended to, there ought to exist effective and efficient interdisciplinary collaboration activities that are directly related to the implementation and development of this particular project. Various team members all across the hospice system of healthcare need to come together and share relevant ideas on the best way possible of implementing the use of technology to prevent the readmission of patients in hospice care substantially and most so for patients with COPD. These team members are responsible for overseeing the effective use of the existing technology, i.e., mobile apps and websites by the patients. This includes finding the most effective methods possible of teaching patients how to use healthcare-related mobile applications and different websites as well as educating such patients on the most suitable moments to call a doctor all in the case of a medical emergency.

This project advocates for the use of technology in advancing the concept of caring. By introducing healthcare-related technology via mobile phone applications and websites, patients in the system of hospice care that have Obstructive Pulmonary Disease can perform most of the functions that nurses and other clinicians would have performed for them. Teaching such patients to carry out tasks such as looking up symptoms online and dialing a doctor whenever necessary, the need for admission amongst such patients is significantly reduced. With the reduction in the need for hospitalization comes the elimination of any need for re-hospitalization amongst such a category of patients.

Conclusion and Lessons Learned

The outcomes of any individual project are what justify the implementation of the given project (Kheirbek et al., 2016). Re-hospitalization and healthcare readmission rates in the United States is a factor that substantially contributes to the increased cost of healthcare and the unfavorable quantity of patient outcomes witnessed in the country’s system of healthcare. Most significantly, the United States government seeks to reduce the reimbursement of different hospitals that have a high rate of readmissions. This goes to show that overall, hospital readmissions in the United States have a negative impact on the overall system of healthcare. As such, finding a suitable method or criteria for preventing readmissions rates in America and its system of healthcare is of vital importance to the healthcare system. This individual project seeks to accomplish the goals of avoiding hospital readmission in the hospice system of healthcare and, most so, for patients that have Chronic Pulmonary Disease through technology use.

The implementation and completion of this project shall have a myriad of advantages to patients and other seniors in the hospice system of healthcare. First and foremost, the successful completion of this project is expected to substantially reduce the associated cost of healthcare amongst seniors in hospice. The related cost of senior care is much fueled by the rate of hospital readmission of the same patients. As such, the completion of this project shall see a significant reduction in the associated cost of healthcare amongst elderly patients. With the termination of this individual project, the rate of hospital-contracted infections shall significantly reduce. With every readmission in a healthcare facility, seniors, and most specifically those with COPD, are significantly exposed to germs that could substantially lead to infections amongst this population of the healthcare environment. Successful completion and implementation of this project shall see cases of hospital-acquired infections amongst this category of the patient’s considerably decline. Completion of this project shall ensure the provision of more social support to the patient’s in hospice care as their family members shall have adequate time to spend with such patients, time that is mostly spent in hospital (Jourdan, 2016).

The success of any project is measured by how effective the plan is (Ruiz Morilla et al., 2019). For this particular healthcare project, there exist several measures that one can use in determining the effectiveness of the project and its implementations. First and foremost, the schedule or timeline that it took to implement this project considerably successfully determines its effectiveness. The ability to maintain the initially planned timeline for the project schedule is most often a challenging task for most project managers. If all the proposed strategies were implemented within the given deadline, then the stakeholders can consider the project to be effective and successful. The cost of the project is the other significant aspect of the project that determines its effectiveness. A successful and productive project ought to run smoothly with no variances in the budgeting cost, and the actual costs spent in the implementation of the project. If the actual cost spent exceeds the budgeted value, the individual project can be considered not effective

The other key factor that determines the effectiveness of this particular healthcare project is the satisfaction of its stakeholders (Al-Amin, 2016). When the stakeholders into any project are contented with the progress of the project and positively rate it, this is a clear indication that the individual project has effectively passed the effectiveness test.

Last but not least, quality reveals that the project gets significant in determining its effectiveness. Any individual project is meant to substantially increase the quality of the issue that it is intended to solve. In this case, the healthcare project seeks to improve the quality of healthcare outcomes by preventing re-hospitalization of patients in hospice care. The effectiveness of the project, in this case, is judged by the increase or reduction in the quality of healthcare outcomes witnessed in hospice care.

This individual project had a myriad of lessons to be learned. In addition to the lessons that were learned in this particular project, numerous successes were achieved and a plethora of challenges encountered along the way. One of the significant experiences that stakeholders learned in this project is that change is not gradual and that it takes a considerable amount of time to implement any necessary changes (Wilson, 2015). Introducing the concept of using technological applications such as mobile apps and websites to reduce hospital readmissions is a daunting task given that one has to go through a wide variety of relevant authorities and stakeholders for such a project to be successfully implemented. As a project manager, one has to be patient with the process and go through each process at a time. Implementing such a project requires collaborating with fellow interdisciplinary teams and other relevant stakeholders for the project to be effective.

By collaborating, team members can bring together ideas to better the expected outcomes of the project as well as face the challenges that come with the implementation of such a project. One of the most significant problems that were encountered in the planning and execution of this individual project is time constraints and the lack of collaboration by the patients in the hospice care and their families. Not all patients and their family members understood the significance of this project towards the betterment of the quality of healthcare outcomes of their family members. As such, it proved challenging to educate such family members, and a significant amount of the project’s time was consumed doing do. This challenge rings about the need to reduce the number of stakeholders that are involved in any individual project as with a considerable amount of stakeholders, the time it takes to implement any plan significantly increases, and so does the resistance to the project’s implementation.

Next Steps

With the issue of re-hospitalization being brought under control for hospice patients with COPD using technology such as phone apps and medical websites, what follows is to ensure that the implementation gets followed. Most related projects end up failing because the project managers do not follow up after the project has been successfully implemented. For this project to deliver the results that it is intended for an extended duration, it is important that follow up be done satisfactorily. Follow up involves liaising with the local authorities to punish healthcare centers that report an increased rate of hospice patient re-hospitalization. Health facilities ought to be at the forefront in advocating for the use of such technology to better the quality of healthcare outcomes for their patients. This is the only sure way that the project and its intended effects can remain relevant and practical for long.

Other than using technology to address the issue of re-hospitalization for hospice patients with COPD, hospitals and other relevant stakeholders can implement a rather strong human healthcare program that shall see such patients receive quality healthcare at the comfort of their homes. Various states in the United States have already adopted the use of this individual system that is known as post-discharge care (Shustack, 2019). Such a system of healthcare significantly reduces the contraction and spread of a wide variety of germ related illnesses and ensures that the involved patients receive plenty of moral support from their family and friends since they have ample time with such family members.

References

Al-Amin, M. (2016). Hospital characteristics and 30-day all-cause readmission rates. Journal of Hospital Medicine, 11(10), 682-687. https://doi.org/10.1002/jhm.2606

Curran, V., Reid, A., Reis, P., Doucet, S., Price, S., Alcock, L., & Fitzgerald, S. (2015). The use of information and communications technologies in the delivery of interprofessional education: A review of evaluation outcome levels. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 29(6), 541-550. https://doi.org/10.3109/13561820.2015.1021002

Erdal, E. (2018). The impact of technology trends on healthcare systems: A study on opportunities and threats. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development, Volume-2(Issue-6), 1574-1578. https://doi.org/10.31142/ijtsrd18901

Jourdan, C. (2016). Nurse: The Art of Caring. Athenaeus Media.

Kheirbek, R. E., Wojtusiak, J., Vlaicu, S. O., & Alemi, F. (2016). Lack of evidence for racial disparity in 30-day all-cause readmission rate for older U.S. veterans hospitalized with heart failure. Quality Management in Health Care, 25(4), 191-196. https://doi.org/10.1097/qmh.0000000000000108

Ruiz Morilla, M. D., Sans, M., Casasa, A., & Giménez, N. (2017). Implementing technology in healthcare: insights from physicians. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-017-0489-2

Shustack, L. (2019). Going digital with patient teaching. Nursing, 49(1), 65-66. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.nurse.0000549742.35131.e4

Wilson, A. E., Martins-Welch, D., Earle, B., Kozikowski, A., Attivissimo, L., Rosen, L. M., & Pekmezaris, R. (2015). Risk factor assessment of hospice patients who are readmitted within 7 days of acute care hospital discharge. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 33(29_suppl), 121-121. https://doi.org/10.1200/jco.2015.33.29_suppl.121