Question

Clinical integration advantages and disadvantages for the hospital and physicians

Answer 1

According to the American Medical Association, a clinical integration is "a mean to facilitate the coordination of patient care across conditions, providers, settings, and time in order to achieve care that is safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable, and patient-focused.” In simple terms, it is a way to coordinate with various settings to deliver a prompt, safe patient care while controlling cost.

Why is clinical integration?

The doctors who work alone or as a small group may not be having an access to the latest tool for the clinical purpose, for example, an accessibility of the electronic health record. Also, in certain scenarios such as a chronically ill patient may also feel difficult to receive an emergency care from another setting, due to lack of coordination and availability of his/ her medical records. this can be overcome by having an integrated setting.

Advantages of clinical integration.

Uniformity in performance- A set of standard is benchmarked to all the sets who participate in the Clinical Integration program. This increases the quality of care delivered to the patient by the physicians, hospital staffs, other partners in the settings such as labs, radiology, health integration system, Personal Health Record, telemedicine and claims etc with a combined effect.

Better coordination and fast delivery of care - as the departments are carefully connected with each other, there is no delay in initiating treatment. As well as, there is a null chance for missing a point as it is transparent to all the collaborated departments.

To detect any allergies - This is very helpful to find out if the patient is known to allergies or any recorded allergies to any specific medication given in the past.

Detect the blood type - Blood grouping is very crucial blood transition. In case of emergencies, the record is highly beneficial in knowing the blood group, which will help to save time and start immediate strategy.

Electronic health record - EHR helps to keep the practitioner ready for the patient prior to the visit. This helps the physician to know the patient better by reading his past medical or surgical history available also to identify any habits or disease that to be noted while consultation.

Reduce or control the cost of care - this helps to prevent repeat requesting of the diagnostic procedure thus reduce the unnessasery cost saving the time and effort of both the parties.

Measure for performance - an evidence-based approach is selected in Clinical integration which enables the patients or the set members to evaluate which doctor is best for the specific task.

Disadvantage.

Transparency of patient-doctor record - as the team collaborates with the various division in the health setting, the records are no more private and confidential. Which can be a major drawback of clinal integration.

Less financial benefit - the majority of the health care cases are covered by state and federal law. The Medicare is the primary insurance among them. As because the physicians have collaborated with the other department of the hospital including the IT department, there is less chance for the physician to overwrite diagnostic test to rule out a disease. this may backfire, as the doctors make more monetary benefits from writing diagnostic tests and procedures which a percentage of profit goes to the hospital as well.

Lack of knowledge regarding the software design- factors like overly crowded and complicated computer screen, inconsistency in the interface, a poor grouping of terms can lead to misread the content and thereby may slow down the process. The more time is spent on gathering the required data from the overcrowded information, thus delaying the treatment.

Misleading information - as the system is overloaded with information regarding the patient and his condition, the practitioners may get mislead from collecting the actual information and get carried out with other details which are not necessary at the moment.