NHS FPX 6008 Assessment 3 Developing an Implementation Plan

Sample Answer

Health care organizations need progressive development to meet service delivery and sustainability goals. Accordingly, it is advisable to exploit economic opportunities at the micro and macro levels to increase revenue as situations necessitate. The economic opportunity proposed to the senior management is a partnership with the local association of greengrocers. The association is routinely involved in community-based health programs, including awareness on healthy living and eating and home visitations to identify at-risk populations.

Partnering with the association will expand the program’s scope since, through the partnership, a larger population will be reached, screened for health problems, and referred to the health care facility for advanced health care. This paper presents the implementation plan. Focus areas include the budget, the plan, impacts of the initiative, strategies to respond to environmental forces, and significance of evidence.

Budget for the Proposed Initiative

A cost-benefit analysis of the initiative was conducted to determine its feasibility. During the analysis, a key focus area was the costs involved and returns over five years (2022-2026). Through the project, the organization is expected to generate additional revenue to run its current programs and support its expansion efforts as situations obligate. The budget for the proposed partnership includes the costs from March 2022, when all the foundation plans are expected to be complete. It further projects the revenue expected to be earned over the five years (until March 2026).
The revenue earned through the partnership will be generated from three primary sources. The first main source is patient services’ revenue that will increase progressively over the five years.

According to Mannion and Davies (2018), patients’ visits in a health care organization depend on trust and the quality of care received along with the health care culture. Excellent quality leads to satisfaction hence more patient referrals. The same concept is expected to apply to this initiative. Awareness and screening programs will encourage patients to seek health care services from the organization leading to more patient visits. The annual revenue over the five years has been calculated by multiplying the number of expected patients (200 monthly) with consultation charges and average medication costs. Estimations give $20,000 in the first year. Like many other revenue-generating activities, more revenue is expected over the years as the patients’ volume increases. As a result, revenue from the second to the fifth year will rise gradually from $30,000 to $70,000 (Appendix 1).

The other major revenue source is staff salaries. The staff to be involved includes nurse practitioners, medical assistants, nursing assistants, and support staff. The nursing staff will collaborate with a full-time physician at the organization to evaluate health care status in the community and the responses required. The staff involved will be remunerated depending on the engagement level since they will also be involved in regular organization activities. The salary earned is expected to increase gradually as more health care staff joins the initial team. The projected first-year earning is $5,000, which will gradually increase to $25,000 by the fifth year (2026).

The organization is also expected to earn substantially from saved costs. From a financial perspective, the initiative will enable the organization to save some of the current health care delivery costs. A suitable example is advertisement (media coverage) costs that will be replaced with awareness and education options of the initiative. The other cost is the community health education that the organization conducts every six months. Saved costs are expected to be constant over the five years at $3,500 annually.

The initiative will also incur some costs to establish and run over the years. One of the key cost areas is education and awareness materials. A significant part of the initiative involves educating the target population on the importance of healthy eating and living and adopting appropriate healthy behaviors. The resources involved will cost approximately $3,600 and are expected to remain the same over the years. Other costs involve technologies and screening that will consume up to $8,000 and $3,500, respectively. Telehealth will be a major part of the technologies involved. The team will also require orientation and training, a one-off expense at $1,500 (Appendix 1).

Overall, the total costs involved will be $33,100 in the first year, gradually reducing to $28,621.09 in the fifth year. Total costs to run the program over the five years will be $182,045.32. The gross revenue expected is $353,660.86, giving a total benefit of $171,615.54 (Appendix 1). The net benefit implies that the organization will make substantial revenue by engaging in the initiative. The revenue will be instrumental in its capacity building and expansion efforts and other initiatives to improve care, such as adopting technologies and recruiting more nursing staff.

Implementation Plan- Rolling Out the Initiative

Table 1: Timeline

Implementation implies taking the necessary actions to achieve a project’s goals. The first step, vital in goal achievement, is setting a timeline. The initiative does not involve building new facilities and should not take long before rolling out to the public. Since the association of greengrocers is open to partnerships and the organization has engaged in similar partnerships before, management approval is expected to take a maximum of three weeks.

Stakeholder engagement will follow the management’s approval to give the initiative a better chance to succeed. Stakeholders, internal and external, affect the outcomes of health projects depending on their support and resistance. Engaging stakeholders reduces resistance and increases buy-in (Quanbeck, 2019). The organization’s management, nurses, and support staff are key internal stakeholders whose support is needed for the initiative to succeed. To earn their support, an organizational presentation will be held detailing the project’s benefits and its impacts. Regular meetings will also be held to update stakeholders on the progress.

After the management approval and stakeholder engagement, it is crucial to ensure that the team is ready to implement community-based health care activities and handle patients and communities ethically and in a culturally-sensitive manner. As a result, the team will undergo orientation training to ensure that everyone understands the initiative’s focus areas and the ethical, legal, and professional principles to apply throughout the initiative. For instance, the staff will be educated on treating people without discrimination, particularly cultural, ethnic, and gender-based discrimination.

The team’s composition will also be diverse in all major aspects to ensure that it is ready to interact with people in a culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate manner (Jongen et al., 2018). With the team ready and focused on achieving the set goals, the initiative’s rollout will be in March 2022. The organization’s team will join the association of greengrocer’s team and commence the initiative through joint leadership from leaders representing each side. Rolling out the plan is expected to commence the organization’s growth and sustainability efforts.

Impacts of the Initiative and Mitigating Negative Impacts

The initiative is expected to achieve three primary goals. The first goal is expanding the organization’s revenue base through earnings from more patient services. The organization will serve more patients due to increased referrals. The nursing staff will be remunerated through the same program to supplement its current income. Secondly, the organization will save the organization some current costs. Thirdly, it will commence the organization’s journey towards sustainability through partnerships in community health development.

Despite these efforts and well-outlined plans, some areas of uncertainty can adversely affect the implementation and cause some delays. For instance, it is uncertain whether the team will require further training once it joins the association of greengrocer’s team. Also, it cannot be accurately established whether the current financial reserve will sustain the efforts for one year before the organization starts earning any substantial revenue. The number of nursing staff to be involved in the initiative can only be estimated too.

Hence, it is unknown whether more staff will be required, which can adversely affect operations in the organization before more staff is recruited. The organization should set a higher proportion of the current financial reserve towards the program to address these uncertainties. It should also be open to including more volunteers in the program as support staff. The search for donor support should be intensified to increase financial security since financial problems are the most significant risk.

Strategies to Maintain Viability amid Dynamic Environmental Forces

The initiative is not immune to environmental forces that could adversely affect the project’s viability. For instance, other organizations in the area could engage in similar programs and give the target population more options for health care services within its locality. Also, new health care organizations are likely to emerge and reduce the relevance of the partnership. Avoiding the adverse outcomes associated with these forces requires a multifaceted approach. The organization must intensify awareness about the partnership to ensure that the community is aware of it as long as it exists. Secondly, the partnership should be unique in its response to population health needs.

For instance, the use of telehealth should be intensified since the technology reduces the need for physical visits to health care organizations (Haleem et al., 2021). Some health care staff should be permanently based in the community to ensure that the target population can get home-based care timely and conveniently. The organization’s healthcare staff should be continuously trained about the program essentials to ensure that there is ready staff to deploy in the field if a need arises.

Relevance of the Evidence

The implementation plan uses quantitative and qualitative economic, financial, and scholarly evidence to support recommendations. Regarding economic and financial evidence, the five-year projections exemplify an initiative whose revenues exceed costs by a significant margin. From a financial perspective, an organization is justified to engage in an initiative if it helps it make profits. The scholarly evidence used throughout the implementation plan illustrates the outcomes of key decisions and interventions that the organization could adopt in various phases of the initiative. Overall, the evidence defends the proposal as a viable economic opportunity if executed appropriately.

Conclusion

The proposed budget shows that the initiative will be economically viable for the organization. With maximum stakeholder support and the right leadership, the initiative will benefit the organization in the short term and long term. However, innovative strategies must be developed to overcome emerging environmental forces and eventualities. Generally, it is an excellent opportunity to enable the organization to serve a large patient base and expand its potential to offer community-based and home-based health care services when critically needed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

References

• Haleem, A., Javaid, M., Singh, R. P., & Suman, R. (2021). Telemedicine for healthcare Capabilities, features, barriers, and applications. Sensors International, 2, 100117. https //doi.org/10.1016/j.sintl.2021.100117
• Jongen, C., McCalman, J., & Bainbridge, R. (2018). Health workforce cultural competency interventions A systematic scoping review. BMC Health Services Research, 18(1), 232. https //doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-3001-5
• Mannion, R., & Davies, H. (2018). Understanding organisational culture for healthcare quality improvement. Bmj, 363. https //doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k4907
• Quanbeck, A. (2019). Using stakeholder values to promote implementation of an evidence-based mobile health intervention for addiction treatment in primary care settings. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 7(6), e13301. https //doi.org/10.2196/13301