Continuum and coordination of healthcare

An excellent healthcare delivery system is one where all the patients tend to have access to high-quality, affordable and well-coordinated health services so that to ensure the continuity of care. In many cases, patients normally have a different experience based on the health problem of the patient and also the nearest organization that is offering the services. While seeking health care services, the patients normally consider an institution where they can afford to pay for the services. Moreover, the experience of the patient is normally based on how the health services they need are financed and also the quality of the services that they receive.

Patient description

The hypothetical adult is a 65-year-old woman, living in Texas and she has been diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal cancer. A patient with stage 4 esophageal cancer tends to have metastatic cancer that has spread to other areas. Esophageal cancer tends to occur in a patients esophagus that is the tube which is responsible for running liquids and solids from a person’s through to their stomach. Cancer does start within cells located inside the lining of the esophagus of the patient, but it may happen anywhere with the esophagus. In this case, the patient has cancer in the lower part of her esophagus and has the most serious form of cancer as it is considered to be stage 4.

Continuum of care

With the onset of the illness, the patient started complaining of pain when eating as it was difficult to swallow. The patient also complained of chest pain and felt like burning in the chest. With regards to the diagnosis of stage 4 esophageal cancer, the patient will need several specific services. After diagnosis, the next step is treatment. Since stage 4 esophageal cancer of the patient has spread to other organs, it is hard to get rid of it completely, and surgery is not a good option in this case. The treatment that the patient needs, in this case, is to help to keep cancer under control and relieve the symptoms that it is causing. The specific service the patient need will include chemotherapy so that to try and help the patient to feel better and also live longer. The patient will receive the chemotherapy from Texas oncology. Another service that the patient can get is a thermal laser. Thermal laser coagulation done by endoscopy may offer temporary relief of dysphagia for the patient. At Texas oncology setting, the patient may also receive proton therapy from Texas center for proton therapy, which tends to be an advanced type of radiation therapy that is aimed at destroying the cancerous cells using protons. The treatment does offer pinpoint precision that delivers high-energy proton beams directly to the tumor and minimizes damage to the surrounding healthy tissues. In the end, the point is, the service that should be offered is supportive care, which involves offering treatment designed to control and prevent the side effects of cancer treatments. Offering supportive care is vital for the patient to help relieve pain for the patient as they are at getting close to the end of life.

Payment challenges

The cancer costs tend to impact the patient's focus on recovery negatively. The cost related to cancer treatment is very high, and it has a negative impact on the caregivers, family, and the patient. Managing the cost of cancer treatment tend to be very hard for many patients and families coping with cancer, and it can even cause distress and worry and make it very challenging for the patient to for the prescribed treatment course from the doctor. To receive the identified treatment services, it will cost the patient a lot of money, which can be very challenging irrespective of having healthcare insurance. The main challenge in paying for the services that the patient can encounter is the inability to afford her treatment. When the patient is not able to pay for her treatment, it will force her to stop going for treatment, which will even make her illness worse and endure more pain. With the high amount of money needed to pay for the treatment, the patient is more likely not to focus on her recovery and keep thinking about how she is going to pay for everything.

Institute of Medicine

The Institute of Medicine identified six aims of the healthcare system as being safe, effective, timely, efficient, patient-centered, and equitable. With regards to the example, it does illustrate a positive attribute related to the timely and patient-centered aspect of the six IOM aims. Timely involve reducing waits and also harmful delays for those who receive and those who provide care (Lluria-Prevatt, 2016). As the patient seeks care at Texas Oncology, the institution has worked to ensure that it has the necessary equipment and enough resources to offer timely care to patients. A long wait can negatively impact the overall patient experience. The hospital considered the timely aim by making sure that they eliminated long waits and the hospital and that made the hospital run more efficiently. With regards to the aim of patient-centered, it involves to offering care that is respectful or and also responsive to the individual patient preference, values, and needs and making sure that the patient values guide all the clinical decisions (Lluria-Prevatt, 2016). The example does illustrate a positive attribute related to patient-centered aim by offering the patient treatment that will help reduce pain and not perform surgery as it is considered as not being very effective in the case of stage 4 esophageal cancer.

Part 2

The hypothetical patient live in Texas; thus, it will be appropriate and beneficial if the patient receives care from an institution that is close to her location so that to help reduce costs involved with transportation. The organization that will be involved in care delivery for the patient is Texas Oncology. Texas Oncology is an organization founded in 1986 by several oncologists, and it has grown to include a network of more than 300 physicians at more than 100 offices in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico (Texas Oncology, 2017). The institution normally focuses on a community-based approach aimed at attending to cancer patients in underserved urban and rural areas and provide access to care and treatment in the local communities.

The diagnosis for my hypothetical patient is stage 4 esophageal cancers, which is a type of cancer that is treated at Texas Oncology. Texas Oncology normally treats cancer patients. The founders of the institution did pioneer community-based care so that to enable more cancer patients to have an opportunity of receiving high-quality care while they are staying close to their critical support of friends and family.

Texas oncology does provide leading-edge cancer treatment with personalized care at the cancer center. There are several departments at the center include a center for proton therapy, interventional radiology center, oncology surgical specialists, clinical trials and cancer research, urology specialists, supportive services, generic risk evaluation and testing, and complementary and alternative medicine. The different departments tend to provide different services to the cancer patients.

The focus of Texas Oncology is helping the patient manage their resources and also understand the financial aspect of their care. The institution does participate in many health insurance plans including Medicaid, Medicare, and selected health insurance marketplace plans (Texas Oncology, 2017). There are various payment options accepted at Texas oncology including credit cards, cash, and checks. The payment can be made by either the patient’s center or through the online bill payment system. For those patients who are paying for their care, a patient can be eligible for a discount, where one qualifies by making payment in advance or any billed amounts being paid on time. The performance improvement efforts by the organization are made through holding the physicians accountable for their performance improvement. The organization has focused on improving accountability through introducing pay incentive that tends to put about 2-3% of the physician’s pay at risk (Hagen, 2017). Failure to achieving the benchmark will result in a certain amount being deducted, and the program has been effective in achieving its objective.

So that to offer optimal care, Texas Oncology is affiliated with other organizations such as Blood and Marrow Transplant Services, Oncology Pharmacy Services, Inc, Mary Crowley Cancer Research Centers, and the US Oncology Network among others.

Reference

Texas Oncology (2017) Who we are.

Hagen, T (2017). Texas Oncology Holds Physicians Accountable for the Performance Improvement.

Alberts, D Kha, S & Lluria-Prevatt, M (2016). Supportive cancer care. Springer Shop

Carolyn Morgan is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in