15 Aug Discuss ‘several’ examples of quality of care measures, such as timeliness of care, mortality, or readmission rates, and explain how these might be impacted by budget cuts.? 2. Also, select a specif

August 8, 2022

Memorandum

To: The Board of Directors, Metropolitan Memorial

From: LaToya T. Benson

Date: 8/8/2022

Re: Budgetary Shortfalls`

Confidential

Metropolitan Memorial decided to expand its patient niche to rural populations to remain competitive in the increasingly competitive healthcare industry. This expansion is a proposed strategy to increase the organization's competitiveness and financial growth. However, the organization's current annual budget is inadequate and cannot fund the proposed expansion to rural communities. Additional funding is required for the organization's expansion to rural communities to supplement these budgetary shortfalls.

The organization must adequately allocate the available resources for the best outcome. The decisions to allocate resources will be based on economic principles. The most critical economic focus is the scarcity of resources. The available resources are scarce and can’t adequately meet all healthcare needs. Since the available resources are scarce, we must consider another economic principle (Brigham et al., 2015). Priority setting determines which project or service receives resources at the expense of other projects or services, resulting in another fundamental economic principle referred to as opportunity cost. These principles are essential guidelines for allocating and re-allocating resources in the expansion project.

There are considerable disparities in the distribution of resources between urban and rural communities. Rural populations are underserved, with few hospitals and healthcare personnel to cater to their needs. Investing healthcare resources within rural communities will address the public health issues and the overall health of the rural populations. Apart from that, a thriving healthcare system can enhance the rural community's economic development and increase Metropolitan Memorial's financial growth.

Reducing the healthcare operating budget can affect the quality of healthcare the Metropolitan Memorial provides. Budget cuts that translate to pay amounts can lead to poor service delivery and affect the quality of care the staff provides (Drummond & Danzon, 2018). Budgetary constraints will influence the type and quality of equipment and technology our organization can purchase. Using out-of-date equipment like scanners can lead to incorrect diagnoses and the quality of care.

Service line strategies are essential in generating sustainable profits for the organization. The service line strategy should be based on patients. Rural populations differ from urban populations in terms of age, income, and lifestyle (“Rural Health Information Hub”, n.d.) These factors will determine the type of services the organization will provide for the rural community. A potential service line for the organization is social care. This service line can maximize resource allocation by influencing personnel, efficient time-management of the social care workers, using technology to manage and evaluate the performance of social workers, implementing home-based care, and soliciting patient feedback to assess the success of the service line (Drummond & Danzon, 2018).

References

Brigham, P., Asthana, S., & Gibson, A. (2015). Allocating resources for health and social care: the significance of rurality. Health & Social Care in the Community, 11(6), 486-493.

Drummond, F., & Danzon, P. (2018). Objectives, budgets, thresholds, and opportunity costs: A health economics approach. Value in Health, 21(2), 140-145.

Rural Health Information Hub. Healthcare Access in Rural Communities Overview. (n.d.). Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/topics/healthcare-access

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