UnitedHealth Group
UnitedHealth group is one of the largest healthcare organizations in the United States serving over 70 million citizens (United Healthcare, 2013). Founded in the 1970s as UnitedHeathcare Corporation, the organization has grown over the years to deliver healthcare services to a lot of citizens in the country. Based on their mission statement, “We work with healthcare professionals and other key partners to expand access to quality health care, so people get the care they need at an affordable price” (United Healthcare, 2013). UnitedHeathcare has become Awards winners health care services provisions. The following case study is the operations of the UnitedHealth Care in readiness to meeting the needs of the citizens in the next decade, including the plans that are underway in achieving its goals to serving the citizens.
UnitedHealthcare Services and Programs
The organization offers health benefits commercially under comprehensive schemes to individuals, small and medium enterprises and multinational companies such as Singapore airlines. The health schemes are tailored to fit the different needs of the society. For instance, the UnitedHealth Care community and State is a program that is offered to offer health solutions to Medicaid program for the state to communities with poor economic backgrounds and those who do not have a healthcare cover funded by an employer.
Besides, UnitedHeathcare has many other areas it engages the community and the healthcare field. Diabetes Prevention and Control Alliance (DPCA) is a health plan offered by the organization to diabetic patients offering relief from expenditure the families of the patients (Vojta et al., 2013) The organization had also engaged in a community-based program, Diabetes Control Program to provide education to the public how to stay free from diabetes by the right nutritional and exercises programs besides guiding the patients how to stabilize their sugar levels (Vojta et al., 2013). UnitedHealth care has also implemented the Electronic Medical Records (EMR). The system facilitates delivery of appropriate medical information of a patient to a physician promptly therefore enabling first-rate care provision. The EMR provide a lot of convenience to physicians compared to paper records. It is possible for several physicians’ to use a patient’s chart simultaneously, facilitate information storage and retrieval and eliminates the inconveniences caused by illegible handwritings (United Healthcare, 2013). The EMR has been praised for managing chronic illness, improving patients and practice efficiency improvement.
UnitedHealth care has made sufficient preparations to meet the needs of the citizens in the coming decade through leveraging the competencies of the technologies that are current, optimizing care resources by clinical insights, as well as advanced data and information systems.. The organization has also made adequate preparations to offer the best solution to the patients needs through its huge investment in the healthcare technology. The organization holds large collections of the clinical data which helps to inform the physicians the current innovations that are available in the provision of quality health care to patients. The organization also has the access to the most modern innovation in the medical and pharmaceutical fields such as Electronic Medical Records and Optum Remote Participant Monitoring among others, to make sure the patients receive high-quality care.
STRATEGIC PLAN OF UNITEDHEALTH CARE IN THE NEXT DECADE
Network Growth Strategic Plan
UnitedHealth care has partnered with key players in the health care sector to be able to enhance access to quality healthcare by the consumers. The organization service delivery is facilitated by the collaborative efforts of healthcare professionals (physicians and nurses), employers, healthcare consumers and the government. Collaborating actively with these groups has built trust among them which has facilitated the expansion of the network of the organization. In 2013, the network of the organization comprised of over 720, 301 health care professionals and physicians, and a total of 80,000 dentists and a national wide network of 5,622 healthcare facilities (United Healthcare, 2013).. This extensive network is sufficient to meet the demands of the citizens in the coming decade. The program and service network comprise of: “Surgery Centers, Centers for Rehabilitation and Long Term Acute Care, Family Planning Facilities, Diagnostic and Hospital Centered Radiology, Nursing Homes, Home Health Services, Cancer Resource Services, Home Infusion and Hospice Care”(United Healthcare, 2013). Besides that, UnitedHeathcare is performing an evaluation of the contract strategies that will help to improve the outcomes of the patients, reduce the medical costs incurred, and facilitate risk sharing and quality improvement. A value-based contracting that is being considered by the organization will enhance stakeholders’ collaboration while risk sharing will improve the outcomes.
Nurse Staffing Strategic Plan
The organization is also well positioned to meet the challenges of the nurse staffing in the next decade, to ensure continuous improvement in the provision of competent services to patients. In U.S. today, there is a growing challenge of shortage in nursing while there is demand for care due to the rising number of the aging population suffering from various chronic ailments. In response to this, the UnitedHeathcare established an innovative center, Center for Nursing Advancement (CNA) with an aim to support nurses, train, teach and mentor them to overcome the various challenges found in the nursing career and equip them to provide high standards of care demanded today and the next decade (United Healthcare, 2013).. Consequently, the UnitedHeathcare nurses will position better to deliver the quality care that is being demanded as well as the rising number of the consumers. Besides, these nurses will comprise of the team that will take part in designing models of modern care delivery that will be necessary to provide solutions to the challenges in the nursing field. To increase retention and decrease turnarounds in the nursing profession, the organization has continued advocating motivation of nurses as well as other employees through bonuses, private lodgings to cut their expenditure and travel disbursements. Nurse fatigues should also be eliminated through timetable elasticity.
Resource Management Strategic Plan
The foundation of any enterprise requires a competent supervision and fiscal backing that is vigorous. This is what has been embarked by UnitedHeathcare to be able to meet its goal in the next decade of managing resources. The organization focuses on elimination of doubts that arise about the management of resources by establishing a management team that is efficient to ensure the economic stability of the organization to be able to provide quality medical care. Resources such as human resources, information, networks, pharmaceutical products and medical innovations should also be managed properly to ensure the mission of the organization is delivered.
Patient satisfaction strategic plan
Medical field requires one to know how to measure patients’ satisfaction as it ensures the growth of a hospital or an organization. The results are used to determine the areas to improve and the ones that need consistent implementation. According to Better Business Bureau (BBB) report, the organized scored high on customer satisfaction from the patients that were assessed (Fisher et al., 2009). Also, to continue enhancing the satisfaction, of the patients, new products and programs have been launched by the organization such as video-on-demand and mobile applications, and use of games.
The various strategies that have been taken by UnitedHealthcare organization show that it is ready to meet competent medical care in the next decade. The organization has shown concrete plans to ensure network growth, nurse staffing, resource management and consumer satisfaction.
References
Fisher, J. E., Garrett, D. E., Arnold, M. J., & Ferris, M. E. (2009). Dissatisfied consumers who complain to the Better Business Bureau. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 16(6), 576-589.
Vojta, D., Koehler, T. B., Longjohn, M., Lever, J. A., & Caputo, N. F. (2013). A coordinated national model for diabetes prevention: linking health systems to an evidence-based community program. American journal of preventive medicine, 44(4), S301-S306.
UnitedHealth Group,. (2014). UnitedHealth Group 2013 Annual Report. Minnesota: UnitedHealth Group Center.
