As cited by Schnell, Crocker & Weng (2017), conducting HgbA1C examination for diabetes patients is imperative as it leads to screening for pre-diabetic conditions. The advantages of this screening leads to determination of the blood sugar levels which are an indicator of diabetes exposure. Studies have shown that elevated levels of HgbA1C can imply that there is unmanaged blood glucose which is lethal for the overall health of an individual. Gardiner et al., (2018) argues that this condition can also be implicated for causing kidney complications, heart diseases, optical dysfunctions and certain types of cancers. Therefore, it’s fundamental for our health care facility to address the poor performance of this benchmark to increase individual and community health.
One of the fundamental aspects in dashboard metrics analysis is to understand their association with the government benchmarks. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) indicates that better performance of a healthcare entity concerning diabetes benchmarks implies higher values measured. The national benchmark cites that the benchmark for patients who are 40 years and above who get more than 2 HgbA1C annually should be 79.5. This implies that our facility made significant steps in reaching this benchmark in the Q4 of 2019 with 174 exams.
Every healthcare entity faces challenges of resources in facilitating sustainable operations (Oueida, Aloqaily & Ionescu, 2019). This is the same case for our healthcare entity as limited resources could pose a threat to attaining the government benchmarks. Lack of adequate resources imply that the entity will attain limited community outreach. As noted by Esteva et al., (2019), the nature of relationships between a health care entity and the community is critical in delivering quality care. This implies that the ability of a healthcare entity to engage with the community will lead to reduced readmission rates, lowered hospitalization and compliance to treatment modalities. However, an assumption is made that a healthcare entity fails to build personalized relationships with the community. This implies that there can be lack of trust and success may not be attained concerning the hemoglobin diabetes metric.
The underperformance of the HgbA1C in the healthcare organization has the potential of reducing the overall quality of care for the patients and the community. The improvement in this benchmark will lead to improvement in positive health outcomes in the community. According to Lim et al., (2018), screening for diabetes and elevated blood sugar is an invaluable undertaking in facilitating early interventions. Besides, the assessment of diabetes among the community members is crucial in improving the overall quality of care for the patients. This implies that underperformance of this benchmark implies a deterioration in the overall health outcomes.
From the analysis of the presented data, there is an overarching need to create a plan that will increase screening compliance as recommended by the state, federal and local regulations. One of the imperative undertakings in improving the underperformed metric is to conduct continuous training on the healthcare staff to enable attainment of positive outcomes. The greatest opportunity for improving the overall quality of care therefore lies in improving the practical skills of nurses and care takers. Poor performance in the dashboard metric will therefore, require advanced knowhow in HgbA1C assessment. Bissett et al., (2010) argue that updating the inter-professional team on current practices in diabetes management is a crucial aspect in improving patient’s overall outcomes. These will improve the poor benchmark performance and lead to increase in overall quality of care.
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