Montgomery Cares Program

Student’s Name

Institution

Montgomery Cares Program

Enterprise Economic Model for Sustainability

Montgomery Cares program is one of the successful and leading programs in Montgomery County, Maryland. It was recognized as a center that offers, as well as provides basic health care to low-income, adult uninsured county tenants through monetary support to pubic-municipal clinics. Implementation and inception of the program began nine years ago in July 2005 with initial funding of 5 million US dollars. The funds accruing to the program, obtained from government grants and county allocations is scheduled for an annual increase to the operational cost of approximately 15 million dollars in FY 13. Interestingly, Health care services at the center are provided through Community Health Link, a system of not-for-profit community health care providers in Montgomery County, Maryland.

In the preceding years, the number of Patients being attended to at the Montgomery health care service has increased by 25.1 percent and total number of patient calls increased 12.0 Percent after the enactment of the health service program. Moreover, it is worth noting that growth in the total number of patients seen varied across Montgomery Cares clinics. For instance, in one of the clinics, there was a growth of more than 51 percent in the number of patients seen, while other two clinics had roughly uniform growth (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012). Nonetheless, there never misses an exception in the research, with merely one among seven to eight clinics, the number of ailing people visiting rose. Interestingly, this occurred at each of the Montgomery Cares clinics. On the other hand, enormous, factors other than Montgomery Cares contribute tremendously, to the growth in patients seen and in the number of patient visits. Consequently, it is evident that more work needs in order to straighten out the particular impact of Montgomery Cares.

Montgomery Cares Patients are largely minority women with substantial health care needs. The population distribution of the people around the vicinities of Montgomery Care is primarily a diverse one. That is, is mainly composed of the immigrant population; this is evident with about three quarter of patients, reporting that they are non-citizens of America, or were born outside the U.S. Hispanics represent the leading percentage of patients (59 percent), followed by blacks (9 percent) and Asians (7 percent). Nearly three-fourths of patients are women, and nearly half are parents of minor children (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012). Nearly half of patients are employed and work full-time. The majority of patients—nearly two-thirds—either have never had health cover or have been without cover for many years. Approximately half valued their health as either fair or poor and more than three-fourths showed signs of having lingering conditions (such as the different types diabetes or cardiac diseases), and more than a third reported two or more such illnesses. Hypertension and diabetes respectively affect at the very least one-quarter of the entire sample population of patients attending Montgomery Cares (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012).

On one hand, gaining access to Care is a task, but once there, satisfaction with care provided at Montgomery Cares Clinics is high. In one of the surveys conducted on appointment accessibility, it is evident that approximately, one in four potential patients is inept to get hold of reach a medical profession when doing all he or she can to call for an appointment (Business Group Health, 2012). Moreover, only 28.1 percent of potential patients whom their calls are received (and 21.1 percent of all callers) perhaps were able to obtain an appointment successfully. Among Montgomery cares patients, nearly 41 percent gave an account of poor service or encountered difficulty in contacting the clinic during business hours (Business Group Health, 2012).

Further, half of Montgomery Cares patients reported noteworthy difficulty gaining access to care and of those, one in four recounted that the inability to get finished on the phone was a significant obstacle to care (American Heart Association, 2013). In terms of gratification, respondents by large reported contentment with the care received at the clinic, with 75.1 percent reporting being satisfied or very satisfied with the care. In addition, satisfaction assessments were relatively high across an array of variables gauging diverse features of medical care and services, with semi- or more of patients answer back positively to the various categories (American Heart Association, 2013). Evidently, the more effectively care providers listened, the the most easy communication turned out to be for the provider. Moreover, the thoroughness of the exam highly depends on the established respect, patients are treated with and how much time the clinical care providers spent during a patient’s visit.

Case analysis: Diabetic Patients

Data collected and reported for diabetic Montgomery Cares patients is inadequate for measuring quality of care. Montgomery Cares clinics collect and record facts for diabetic patients in automated form (using a database system called “CVDEMS”). However, the data collected is incomplete. 30.1 percent of visits in patients’ hard copy medical records remain unrecorded in CVDEMS (American Heart Association, 2013). Almost half of patients had their medical record data linked to their smoking practices, but no such data existed in CVDEMS. Further, only one-quarter of patients who concluded the diabetes edification had that logged in both the electronic and hard copy medical record.

The assessment data provides a print of current Montgomery Cares clinics, the patients they attend to, as well as serve, and patients’ past ailments and experiences, and establish a reference point against which imminent changes can be paralleled (American Heart Association, 2013). The data also allude to steps clinics may need to emphasize and prioritize in order to help mold the efficacious advancement of Montgomery Cares, include the following:

One entails the improvement in patients’ access to a live vocal sound at the end of the receiver line. This is essential especially to psychiatric patients, who may need live conversations in order to improve on the cognitive abilities. Further, increasing the availability of appointment slots may have a multiplier effect to Montgomery economy. Employment induces personal development and this literally spiral down to the community.

On the other hand, working to minimize the time spent by patients waiting for medical attention is perhaps an essential consideration. Too many backlogs hinder efficiency and performance in an organization (American Heart Association, 2004). On another perspective, it is better off to identify patients’ needs such as language need in order to increase the accessibility of multilingual organizational staff and/or transcriber services. As such, this sharpens providers’ attention to potentially under-diagnosed conditions.

Finally, it would be prudent for medical providers to make whole and precise data collection a priority (American Heart Association, 2004). This perhaps may be expedited by the use of automated applications customized for medical settings, as well as the integration of medical experts proficient in information technology and its application. Coupled with this is the maintenance commitment to ensuring patients obtains guideline-appropriate defensive care and endorsed a care for chronic conditions (National Cervical Cancer Coalition, 2013).

References

American Heart Association. (2004). Why Blood Pressure Matters. Updated June 2012.

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/HighBloodPressure/WhyBloodPressureM

atters/Why-Blood-Pressure-Matters_UCM_002051_Article.jsp

American Heart Association. Understanding Blood Pressure Readings. Updated March 1, 2013.

www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/HighBloodPressure/AboutHighBloodPressure/

Business Group Health. Evidence Statement Cervical Cancer Screening.

http://www.businessgrouphealth.org/benefitstopics/topics/purchasers/condition_specific/e

videncestatements/cervical cancer_es.pdf (June 7, 2012)

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2012). National Diabetes Fact Sheet, 2011.

http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/pdf/ndfs_2011.pdf (June 15, 2012)

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2012). Diabetes Public Health Resource: Basics about Diabetes.

http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/consumer/learn.htm (June 15, 2012)

National Cervical Cancer Coalition. (2013). Prevention. www.nccconline.org/index.php/prevention (June 5, 2013)

Understanding-Blood-Pressure-Readings_UCM_301764_Article.jsp (April 4, 2012)

National Cervical Cancer Coalition. (2013). Prevention. www.nccconline.org/index.php/prevention (June 5, 2013)