Example Of Article Review On Medical Hotspots

What was the problem Dr. Brenner identified with medical care in Camden?

Dr. Brenner identified increased cost of medical care in Camden as the major problem affecting the society. The city is one of the most insecure and poorest cities in New Jersey. The high rate of corruption and mismanagement of public funds led to the increased cost of medical care. Single buildings acted as crime hot spots as most ambulances picked injured victims from such locations (Gawande, 2011). Dr. Brenner discovered that despite the high number of casualties visiting emergency rooms each day, the services at most local hospitals were destitute, and only the wealthy could afford quality care offered at Abigail House nursing home. The mean cost of medical care in a nursing home in New Jersey is $207 per visit. Statistics from Genworth show that on average a person spends $110,000 on healthcare annually in New Jersey (Genworth, 2013). Additionally, fall injuries account for the highest number of hospital visits but the cost of insuring individuals against the risk is very high. Patients are required to pay up to 3.5 million US dollars for insurance coverage.

What was his first idea for addressing the problem?

Brenner’s interest was not focused on the cost of medical care but how the population would receive quality health care. The case of a man shot on his way home revealed Brenner’s ability to help people who received bad health care at health care facilities in Camden. Brenner need to target the patients with high medical costs to address the problem. He realized that improving the quality of health care delivery would eventually lead to reduced cost of medical attention. Firstly, Dr. Brenner conducted a study on the main medical hotspots in the city in order to get the target group. He argued that emergency-room visits and frequent hospital admissions come as a result of the failure of the health care system. The city health care department fails to prevent accidents in time, leading to ineffective care. Additionally, Brenner looked for people whose use of medical care was high to help them through offering home-care services. By helping such people, Brenner lowered the cost of health care because they would make less or no visits to hospitals.
Determining the number of people with higher medical insurance costs required development of a database with patients and locations to understand and get information for areas that experienced high emergency visits. On the other hand, the city was known for large number of crimes especially in single buildings (Gawande, January 24, 2011). Brenner aimed at getting statistics of people living in crime-prone areas in the order devise methods of reducing crimes. One of the approaches he took through advocating police reforms. Most crimes happened in the eyes of policemen, and they did nothing about it. Brenner was a citizen member in the community policing project that helped reduce crimes in the city. Brenner knew that getting solution to the crime would lessen the number of emergency-room visits and eventually reduce the city’s health care cost.

How and why was he forced to modify his original idea?

The president of city police superior’s union criticized Brenner’s ideas and disbanded the reform commission. Brenner realized the police service had no interest in fighting crime and voluntarily withdrew from the commission. He was later beaten. However he had acquired some information from the police database that would help him continue with his idea. However, Brenner was faced by a major challenge that made him modify his original idea. The city government took long to approve names in the database. Additionally, he would spend so much time traveling all over the city looking for particular households whose names are on the database. In 2007, Brenner came up with a new idea of involving social workers and emergency-room doctors to his plan. He briefed them on the cost statistics and other necessities and asked social workers to help him reach those people whose cost of health care was high. He also came up with software that would make the work of social workers easier while asking doctors for assistance (Gawande, January 24, 2011).

Describe the problem he ultimately attacked and the innovative approach he used to make a change.

Dr. Brenner dealt with the issue of access to health care services. The team of social workers and emergency-room doctors helped him save many lives in the city. He asked permission from hospital management to look for data on people who made most visits in emergency rooms. The innovating approach used by Brenner was development of software that was less complicated and easier to use. Social workers were served with gadgets that analyzed data from just a single question; “who are your most difficult patients?” (Gawande, January 24, 2011). Brenner through the help of the innovation and in collaboration with his team was able to identify many people with different medical problems who had spent enormous sums of money on medical care. For example, the program enabled the team identifies Frank Hendricks. The patient was suffering from chronic asthma, heart failure, uncontrolled diabetes, gout, hypothyroidism, and alcohol abuse. Frank had spent most of his old age admitted to the hospital. Brenner visited him for some days and within several months, Frank had recovered and was discharged to go home (Gawande, January 24, 2011).

Was his project successful and how do you know? Give specific data regarding his outcomes.

Dr. Brenner’s project was very successful from the information provided by Gawande in the case study. Firstly, he attended to many people hospitalized, and they would be discharged after few weeks or months. Most of these patients stayed for long at homes without visiting health care facilities, and this reduced the cost of medical attention solving the problem Dr. Brenner identified in Camden. Secondly, he collaborated with other health care providers and insurance companies to offer affordable care and health insurance to citizens making the cost of medical care affordable to everyone. Camden doctors congratulated Dr. Brenner because he played an important role in reforming the city health care and helped many people access quality care at an affordable cost. On the other hand, Brenner opened a clinic where he received most referrals. Brenner’s clinic was under financial strain, but he was willing to employ a whole staff of primary-care doctors and pay them well in order to rescue the city from the already diminishing health-care system.
Could an approach like his make a difference in health care generally? How could that work in Northwest Florida (Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and Walton Counties)?
Health care reforms play an essential role in uplifting the quality of attention and economy of a region. Implementation of a similar approach to other cities in North West Florida like Santa Rosa, Walton Counties and many more would help resolve health care crisis experienced there. Most states in America suffer from inadequate health care delivery despite the effort by the government to spend billions of dollars reforming the sector. Approaches to self-confident people like Brenner would help putting government resources into use and making nursing the most demanded career in America.
Did Dr. Brenner use the IMAGINE model of planning for change? Be specific about what steps he followed and what steps he left out.
Dr. Brenner utilized the IMAGINE model of planning for change in planning and executing his ideas. He made use of assumptions and imaginations in developing his ideas. He imagined how the city would be if all policemen behaved like the police who failed to assist a twenty-two-year-old black man shot while driving. Presence of such crimes increased the number of visits in hospitals leading to increased cost of medical care. Brenner imagined how he would come up with a plan to end crime and assist patients spending much of their income on medicine by offering voluntary health care services. Additionally, he imagined how his nursing home would be the best in the city with the presence of all funds needed.

References

Genworth. (2013). New Jersey State-Specific Data from the Genworth 2013 Cost of Care
Survey. (10th ed). Cost of care Survey. Retrieved from https://www.genworth.com/dam/Americas/US/PDFs/Consumer/corporate/New%20Jersey_gnw.pdf
Gawande, A. (January 24, 2011). The Hot Spotters: Can we lower medical costs by giving the
neediest patients better care? The New Yorker