Effective Patient Education For Reducing Hospital Readmission Rates In Type 2 Diabetes Patients

Discharge Planning and Post-Discharge Plans

Discharge planning is considered as an important fact in the hospital procedure. On the contrary, it can be said that nowadays, all the health care organisations prefer to enable proper discharge regime in order to avoid complications and prevent the readmission chances. Actually, when a patient comes any health care organisation to get treatment then there are a lot of factors which need to get properly analyzed.  And the regime should ensure that the patient will receive quality care in the setting. In order to accelerate the regime and to reach it to discharge level, hundreds of interactions take place between the hospital staff, patient and family of the patient. It is an all agreed fact that after the discharge, a health care organisation is still responsible to ensure the wellbeing of the patient as he/she is in the right track of wellness or not.

In order to improve the setting, all the health care organisations all across the world, prefer to enable appropriate post-discharge plan. Appropriate discharge plan is both directly and indirectly connected with a lot of facts such as reputation, quality of the service and even the profitability of the health care organisation (Inzucchi et al. 2015). In order to align this fact, it can be said that if all the patients need to get readmitted in the care organisation, automatically a poor impression will take place such as people will start to think the health care organisation is not capable of make cure the patient at the first time. But it is not that a health care organisation will make a patient fit for entire life span, there should be an assurance that patient will get quality care and in case of readmission, the health care organisation will treat them with same care and attention.

According to the assignment criteria, the assignment is on behalf of a health manager who is there to design and develop a new model of patient education at the time of discharge with the aim of reducing the hospital readmission rate. No doubt that discharge planning is a serious matter and it should get designed and developed after properly evaluating all the related factors. In order to accelerate the discussion on a vast topic taking help of a specific disease’s name is important. This assignment has taken type 2 diabetes in order to illustrate the discussion. Actually, every year a lot of people get admitted into the health care organisations just to get proper care and treatment to cure the type 2 diabetes. The increased pollution, flamboyant lifestyle and unhealthy food regime has provoked a lot of diseases and type 2 diabetes is one of them.

Importance of Patient Education in Treating Type 2 Diabetes Patients

Patient education is really an important factor when it comes to treatment the patients with type 2 diabetes. All the modern health care organisations and the health care practitioners prefer to educate the patients in order to make them fit for a long time. Before planning the model in order to reduce the readmission rate having a clear idea on the patient education is necessary. The patient education is of two parts according to the author of “Basics of Patient Education”. The first part is of clinical patient education, on the other words, it can be said that clinical patient education can be accepted as a clinical, systematic and logical approach of teaching the patients (Powers et al. 2015). Generally, this type takes place into the regime when it comes to teaching the patients about the procedure (after and before) of their treatment. The second part is of health education and it pours concentration on the health wellness, diseases prevention and health promotion. (Wong et al. 2015)

Patient education and hospital readmission is closely connected. According to Medicare, near about 20% of the patients (who were admitted into the hospital) needs to get readmitted into the hospital within the thirty days. According to the experts, this readmission rate can get prevented up to 75% with better care and patient education. (Bowen et la. 2016)

Apparently, it can seem that readmission is a great thing as the hospital gets ways to make profit but the reality is far different. In the next lines, why should a health care organisation reduce the readmissions is explained-

• First of all, due to the readmission, the care organisations feel too much pressure and it should get prevented
• Patient dissatisfaction can reduce the impression of any health care organisation
• It often result in less profitability as the patient parties claim they did not get appropriate treatment and care

But readmission can get prevented in a great level just with the help of proper patient education. Through the proper patient education, the patents understand their after hospital care instruction and it makes them fit and they do not need to get readmitted in the hospital. It is noticed that more than 30% patients with the proper follow up of after hospital care instructions, have easily avoided the readmission chances.  (Saks, 2017)

But educating the patient is not so easy regime as it requires proper setting and support of the employees. A health care manager here needs to design and develop proper patient educating model in order to reduce readmission rates in his/her organisation. It can be said that if the model needs to engage doctors, nurses and other care staffs to make understand the patients about their proper after hospital care instruction (Graban, 2016). The patients with type 2 diabetes need adding care and follow the instruction properly. In order to make them properly aware of their health and necessity of following the instruction, the model should engage the doctors with specialization in treating the patients of type 2 diabetes, nurses with long working experiences and the midwives with proper sense of injections and rest care regimes. The model should not allow any non-medical staff to provide care instruction to the patients. (Alagaraja & Shuck, 2015)

Connection Between Patient Education and Hospital Readmission

A manager can engage the mentioned staffs through the meetings and interviews (personal). On the contrary, manager can maintain the contract with the staffs to ensure the care service properly. The manager will involve a particular staff member because it is important to have experience and efficiency in the team which would help the manager to achieve the goals and objectives of the project. The manager is interested to have experience staff in the team because an experienced healthcare staff is aware of different situations and hence it becomes highly effective for the team to achieve framed objectives. Having experienced staff helps to get effective insights that makes the work easier and makes the project successful. (Al Mehrzi & Singh, 2016)

All the health care organisations need to engage the employees according to the criteria of their setting. When it comes to educating the patient in the appropriate then the setting also requires engaging efficient employees in to perform the task successfully. But there are five potential barriers which all the organisations regardless of the industry type face during the employee engagement. In the next lines, five barriers are discussed in the appropriate manner-

Lack of clarity- it is considered as the first barrier which all the organisations face during the employee engagement. Employee engagement is directly associated with the job satisfaction and morale (Pelicand et al. 2015). Generally, it is noticed that the properly engaged employees are more satisfied, and motivated to perform their tasks. But due to the setting if the lack of clarity takes place in to the regime then automatically the service quality gets diminished.

Cynicism- Cynicism is another great barrier when it comes to employee engagement. On the other words, it can be said that the nature of finding negative in all the initiative is harmful for any organisation (Mann & Harter, 2016). The manager and the related people also face the problems due this type of nature. No doubt that setting a better model to educate the patients in order to reduce the readmission rates in the hospital is a great initiative. But if the rest faculties of the settings all the time figure out negative outcomes of the model then enabling the regime seems difficult and automatically create misunderstanding within the environment.

Bureaucracy- it is another barrier for implementation of any new model to any organisation. Actually, it is noticed that in the Bureaucracy enables a setting where the rules and procedures take place without any proper evaluation. And this can create problem when a manager tries to implement new model in order to educate the patients about in order to reduce the readmission rate. (Chathoth et al. 2014)

Potential Barriers to Employee Engagement

Poor work-life balance- this is another great barrier. Actually it is noticed that some leaders desire to engage the employees for all the time. All the people need some personal time for rest and their families. And avoiding this factor can create major problem. Most of the employees will not prefer with such manager who does not offer the minimum resting and family time.

Poor management decision- managers with capricious mentality generally make the decision based on the person who has asked for it rather than focusing on the importance of the fact to the organisation. And this can act as a great barrier when it comes to employee engagement. (Tucker, 2017)

When there is problem there is solution too. It is not that all the leading organisations are running with great strategies and never face any barrier during the employee engagement. But they have the ability to overcome the barriers within a short span of time. If these barriers take place within the health care organisation in order to enable proper patient education for the type 2 diabetes patients. Here a responsible manager can discuss with the entire employees and authority through meetings, can take everyone’s view and evaluate these and can ask the patients in order to know what more they desire from the hospital to get fit easily. Properly evaluating all of these matters, easily form a greater model for patient education in order to reduce the readmission rates. (Sanchez-Jerez et al. 2016)

Implementing any new model especially when it is about patient education is not so easy and it requires proper planning process. There are no specific planning procedures through which a business organisation regardless of the industry type can implement new model and enjoy its benefits (Nörenberg et al. 2017). Actually, all the business organisations are unique in their own ways as well as their problems too differ from the rest organisation and industry. When it comes to implementing a new patient education model in order to reduce the readmission rate in the health organisation then enabling the proper strategic planning procedure is the best option. Maybe there are other ways too, in order to implement the new patient education model but why this assignment has chosen strategic planning procedure is mentioned in the following lines.

• Strategic planning procedure gets the attention of the entire team at a time
• It is not money wasting as it does not hire anything from the outside
• Here the setting gets the chance to properly evaluate the proposed ways and alternative ways too

Generally the strategic planning procedure is of four steps and each step is important and truly relevant in context of implementation of new patient education model in the health care organisation (Owrangi, Greer & Glide-Hurst, 2018). The first step is about gathering data from the internal and external sources. The data can be gathered from the SWOT analysis, current trends of the market, success and results of previous strategic plans and staff surveys. Having proper data at the hand ensures that at the right moment it can help the responsible bodies to take right decision in order to solve the problem and to lead the business setting to a greater extend. The second step is about setting and following the vision. All the tasks have some specific vision in alignment with the vision and goals of the organisation. The third step is about following the mission. Having clear idea on the mission is truly important in order to accelerate the success and it is also applicable when it comes to implement any new patient education model in the health care setting. And the fourth and final step is about evaluating the values, after proper evaluation of the values if the model gets matched with the values of the organisation then implementing the new model can get accelerated (Ploussard, Olmos & Ramos, 2017). It is noticed that without proper evakluation, trying to implementing any new model can resuilt in negative and a lot of business organisations has suffered the problems due the lack of proper evaluation of the data, vision, mission and present condition of the business setting. Actually, these four steps are considered as the major steps of strategic planning procedure. There are other steps which a lot of business organisations follow to avail accurate business strategic planning procedure such as having idea of competition and risks, identification of the goal strategies and tactics and proper communication plan. (Kontogianni et al. 2014)

Overcoming Barriers through Evaluation and Collaboration

Decision making or implementing any new model to the genre in order to take care of the business organisation is not so easy task. Implantation of nay model or any decision requires proper evaluation of a lot of related factors. And after the proper evaluation, a manager can decide how the model should get formed and how should it get implemented into the regime. It is getting clear that evaluation procedure is completely dependent on the large number of data on various relate factors (King, 2015). And this is also applicable when it comes to implement any new patient education model in order to reduce readmission rates in a hospital setting. First of all, this regime requires the data on the present condition of the hospital and readmission rate of the patients. Type 2 diabetes has taken a common form as it is taking place randomly among a lot of people. Readmission is dependent on a lot of factors, it is not that only for the lack of proper after hospital care the readmission rate is getting increased. It can be said that due to lack of proper medicinal and clinical care the readmission is taking place. And that’s why having proper data on the medicinal facts and using procedure by the doctors and nurses is important (Maharaj & Brown, 2015). Most of all searching the core reason why it is taking place in so high level is the main concern. Along with these, the quality of the medicines, the time of the medicine usages, employees are working accordingly in the first admission regime or not- all these are very relevant to accelerate any strategic planning and implementing any new model.

Along with these, it can be said that involving stakeholders during the planning of proper discharge regime is important. In order to reduce the readmission chances in a care unit, a lot of care units prefer to involve the stakeholders. The cooperation of the stakeholders can help the organisation to design and develop proper discharge planning model or program and can enable long term support for the program. Engaging the key stakeholders can get accelerated through three strategies such as identifying the best one, maintaining proper communication with them and managing the expectation of the care organisation.

Taking a glance at the available financial resources is important and especially it leaves great impact when it comes to discharge planning. There can be various financial resources and informing them about the new model of discharge planning is important. Actually, readmission has a direct connection with the profitability and balancing the money flow with the financial resources is important.

 Lastly, it can be said that here collecting all the internal data is necessary for a health manager. And according to the situation criteria, often the manager needs to collect the external data too. (Charrow et al. 2015)

The discharge process plans should be standardized thoroughly in the whole hospital. The key process to make this is to effectively fit the plan to the existing systems and processes. It is beneficial to involve the friends and families of the patients in making the discharge planning of the patient. There are some stages which are to be followed for making the discharge planning. The steps are –

• Start the planning before or on the admission- In an elective care unit, the planning of discharge can be taken before the admission and can take the form of screening of tools, risk assessment and care pathway. The principle is to make the anticipation of the potential delays and in managing those in the proactive manner. Care pathways are present in order to facilitate the rapid discharge of patients at e end of their treatments.
• Indentify whether the patient has simple needs or the needs are complex – Identification of the patients should be made at the time of admission as this makes a staff or a health manager know whether the problems of the patient are simple or it have become complex during the course of time. A simple discharge means the one that can be executed with the help of multidisciplinary team at the ward level by only finding the issues. But change of the residence and increase in social and health care makes te discharge mush more complex (Chenoweth, Kable, & Pond 2015). 
• Within 24 hours of admission a clinical management plan should be developed – Most of the patients which are admitted by the junior level staff should have an outline of the management plan. The extent of the planning is dependent o the time of the admission. For example, a patient who is admitted after 5 p.m are not given proper planning the same day, they get the planning and care the next day.
• Coordinating the discharge or the process of transfer – Although a lot of plans are made regarding the discharge procedure but many disparities are found. Some use the clerical staffs in coordinating the simple staffs. The rotation of the nurses according to their duties is also not proper. The key roles of the discharge coordinators are communications. Assessments and MDT workings.
• Setting an expected date of discharge within the 48 hours of the admission of the patients – Implementation within an organization is incredibly tough. The discharge date of the patient should be set as early as possible for guiding the discharge planning process. The date later on can be changed according to the progress made by the patient. The estimation of the discharge date has three functions –

• Strategic – In order to predict the capacity of the overall hospital.
• Operational – In assessment of the projects and the outcomes of the plans.
• Individual- The patients should understand the expectations and limitations and the requirements from them in the process of discharge planning.
• Review of the clinical management daily – Though he clinical management plan was made during the admission, the review of the patient must be straightforward. National Leadeship and Innovation Agency for Healthcare suggested Review, action and progress (RAP) ( Carthon et al, 2015).

Type 2 diabetes has become common disease and much news can be found in hospitals about the readmission of patients suffering from this disease. So if the discharge planning can be followed according to the said method, the readmission can be reduced a lot.

Conclusion

After the long discussion, the assignment has reached its conclusion point. Through the entire assignment it is getting clear that the increased rate of readmission both directly and indirectly affect the business making regime of a health care organisation. And readmission is closely connected with patient education. In the discussion, it was mentioned that due to lack of proper after hospital care near about 20% patients need to get readmitted and this readmission directly affect the health care organisation. But this can easily get prevented with the proper patient education. A lot of modern health care organisations enable patient education model in order to make inform the patients about the proper after hospital health care regime and instructions. If somehow the organisation lacks the regime, then a health manager can conceal the matter with proper implementation of new patient education models according to the criteria of the situation.

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