The current state of UPMC, regarding its alignment with the historical trends in the healthcare industry, concerns its potential to improve poor customer satisfaction ratings and its currently outdated equipment. Patients are continually expecting more out of their hospital visits. Therefore, health institutions must pay attention to every detail that influences customer satisfaction, from how they are greeted at the main entrance to the length of waiting time at the emergency room and how the service providers interact with them (Gooch, 2019).
According to O’Neill & Cosentino (2020), reduced satisfaction ratings can contribute to reduced insurance reimbursement claims from health insurance schemes, leading to poor hospital reputations and reduced revenue. Consequently, health organizations need to update their services and align themselves with the current trends in the healthcare industry. As per Rapport et al. (2019), this adaptability should be in all the critical areas of healthcare services, including reimbursement regulations, workflow adjustments, tele-pharmacy, telemedicine, and any other areas that can improve patient satisfaction and organizational profitability.
In this regard, Vogenberg and Santilli (2018) argued that healthcare leaders must always be prepared for change and have the skills to implement beneficial changes that come with either advancement in healthcare technology or general industry development. By being on the lookout for change, healthcare leaders secure patients’ health and well-being and employees’ general welfare.
Health organizations must, therefore, be ready for any change that comes by. The other recommendation given by O’Neill and Cosentino (2020) is that healthcare leaders must pay attention to changes in patient behavior and respond to them accordingly. Healthcare leaders must timely, transparently communicate with patients and employees to ensure efficient delivery of satisfactory services. Lastly, the leaders must be engaged, proactive, and committed to future healthcare industry changes.
UPMC department of dialysis center contributes a large percentage of minority communities in Pittsburgh, who can hardly afford good healthcare. The community members experience various health problems, including chronic diseases such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes. UPMC formed the Diabetes Prevention Support Center at the University of Pittsburgh, whose main objective is to develop strategies for reducing and managing diabetes within the community. Apart from diagnosing and educating community members, the program provides dialysis treatment to both insured and non-insured members of the community.
For the program to effectively operate, some of the inputs required include nurses, physicians, funding to purchase dialysis equipment. Utilizing these outputs will yield various outputs including improved community awareness about diabetes, including the importance of physical exercise and healthy eating. The Diabetes Prevention Support Center University of Pittsburgh has currently impacted hundreds of residences in Pittsburgh.
The second program run by UPMC is UPMC Men’s Healthcare, which is dedicated to diagnosing and treating conditions affecting men’s reproductive health. The program specializes in absent or delayed ejaculation, lower testosterone, male infertility, premature ejaculation, and pyronine’s disease. The program encourages men to live a healthy sexual life through regular sexual health check-ups, a healthy diet, and physical activity. For the program to be successful, the facility requires various inputs, such as funding for equipment, educational resources, and staffing. Many men have benefited from the program (Trent, 2021).
I would propose an increase in funding for the Diabetes Prevention Support Centre based on Pittsburgh’s projected prevalence rate of diabetes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (2019), there was a slight decrease in diabetes prevalence rate from 10.9% in 2018 to 10.2% in 2019. However, as per the same reports, this decrease is still relatively higher than the benchmark average of 10.1%, meaning that more effort is still needed to fight against diabetes within Pittsburgh.
Furthermore, as per the CDC (2020), diabetes is currently ranked the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, contributing to an average of 225 deaths yearly. As such, there must be a concerted effort by healthcare institutions towards reducing the prevalence of diabetes, especially among low-incom
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