P4P In Healthcare

Healthcare has become a competitive environment where each member of the team must take an active role for the quality care and the cost. Studies have shown that if we are able to improve the patient experience by incorporating patients and families in their care, we are able to better manage their chronic diseases, lesson anxiety levels and shorten hospital stays. Therefore, by improving our quality of care we improve our clinical practice, safety and finance. The Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) (Balik, 2011) provides support of these measures by posting patient experience ratings on of the Hospital Compare website. Hospitals rankings when compared with other hospitals will affect hospitals reimbursements; patient and family experiences are weighted as heavily as quality care, safety and finance p6. This is a perfect example of a pay for performance (P4P) model. P4P is an incentive for healthcare facilities to improve, in a positive manner, their healthcare outcomes (Baker, 2003). This form of payment model rewards healthcare providers, hospitals, clinics and other healthcare systems, for meeting certain performance measures and outcomes, which are measured for quality and efficiency p3. Providers and Healthcare facilities are then

Goals which include improving staff communication, patient identifiers, and medication safety helps to improve quality care; by improving quality measures we can also reduce costs p4. For example Medicare has stopped payments for hospital based medication errors, measure have been implemented and pressure has been placed of providers to prevent costly errors. As a preventative measure hospitals have placed into effect a computerized physician order entry (CPOE), electronic medication administration record (eMAR), smart pumps and designated areas where nurses can prepare medication