In response to your peers, offer feedback on the soundness of their plans for success and data collection.

post #1

Maureen Calnan 

My program proposal is a substance use disorder support program in a skilled nursing facility.  This program will provide skilled nursing care along with substance use disorder support for patients after a hospitalization for an acute illness or injury.  There are two main ways that the success of the program can be evaluated by the organization and other key stakeholders.  Evaluation is an important aspect of program management. “Without the use of data to ensure that an intervention is having the desired effect, individuals may end up repeating tasks or practices that fail to result in meaningful improvements” (Peterson et al., 2020, p.71).  The first method of evaluation that should be used is a cost-benefit evaluation.  In this method, the costs associated with the implementation and operations of the program are compared to the benefits.  Measured benefits may be individual, or society based (Longest, 2015).  The costs of resources such as training, certification, technology purchases, internet service upgrades, and physical space modification will be compared to the financial and outcome-based benefits.  Costs of providing care will be decreased as fewer complications and hospital readmissions occur.  Patients will benefit from initiation or continuation of substance use disorder treatment, and continued support for the disease while receiving treatment for their acute condition.

The other evaluation method that could be used to evaluate the program’s success is the outcome or impact evaluation method.  Outcome data is collected and analyzed to determine whether a program has been successful (Longest, 2015).  The measures for this program would be hospital readmission rates and clinical complication rates with and without a skilled nursing facility stay.  The cost of these different outcomes to the organization would be compared.  These two methods of evaluation overlap in many areas, but both would help demonstrate the success of the program by the extent to which it met its objectives.

References

Peterson, C. H., Schmid, K., & Kososki, R. (2020). A national survey of counselors’ use of five types of program evaluation. Counseling Outcome Research & Evaluation, 11(2), 71–87. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1080/21501378.2019.1678017

Longest, B. B. (2015). Health Program Management: From Development through Evaluation (2nd ed.).San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Post #2

Mary Leslie 

My proposal will be directed toward a healthcare organization that has seen issues related to patient quality and safety. This proposal will be targeted to administrative staff, to help implement patient-centered policies to positively impact patient experience and benefit the organization’s financial stability. 

Since this program proposal was developed to address a specific concern uncovered in patient satisfaction surveys, the organization will rely on this same data to measure the success of the program. Through the surveys it was uncovered that providers, all patient care staff, did not communicate well with patients in regard to their care plan, follow-up procedures, and discharge information. This led to increased readmission, decreased reimbursement, and possibly negative patient outcomes. In order to allow the new communication techniques to fully be implemented, the organization will wait until all policies have been in place for one full quarter before analyzing the data from the patient satisfaction surveys. After the first quarter there should be an improvement in the scores, although these may be minimal initially. The expectation is that by the second quarter, survey results should show a marked improvement. If there are two consecutive quarters where score have improved, this would point to the new communication techniques being successful. Following the second quarter analysis, the billing and claims departments would meet with administration to give a status on any changes in reimbursement throughout the past two quarters. Again, the expectation would be an improvement. The organization should use the goal of a twenty-five percent increase as a target.