Developing Value in Healthcare

Developing value in Healthcare
Executive Summary:
i) Evaluating the healthcare model of Cleveland Clinic Hospital and understanding their
approach for creating high-value health services.
ii) Developing a healthcare model like Cleveland Clinic which will result in better medical
service in the New South Wales (NSW) hospitals.
iii) Properly pointing out the potential factors which may hinder the implementation process.
iv) Providing suggestions through which those obstacles can be realistically addressed.
Introduction:
Background:
Founded by four distinguished physicians in 1921, the Cleveland Clinic is a multi-speciality
healthcare system located in Ohio. It is well-known for its remarkable patient care and
innovation in medical sciences. It is a highly ranked clinic among U.S hospitals. The heart
and vascular institute of this clinic has been ranked in the 1st position for consecutive 21
years. The clinic has seen a better improvement after Delos M. Cosgrove become the CEO in
2004. Being a notable doctor and a medical scientist, Doctor Cosgrove implemented a set of
moral beliefs and practices in the habits of the employees of the clinic. In 2010, the medical
institute of Cleveland Clinic had been acknowledged as a patient-centred medical home
(Encyclopedia of Cleveland History | Case Western Reserve University, 2019).
Objective:
The main objective of Cleveland Clinic is to-

i) Outshine in medical specialized care backed by extensive studies and education.
ii) Being updated with technological development through a proper application, evaluation
and sharing.
iii) Provide the best patient-oriented healthcare service (Cleveland Clinic, 2019).
Methods:
Case study:
Not only providing medical Healthcare to patients, but Cleveland clinic also had the largest
medical education program of the U.S.A. They also opened a new medical school named as
Cleveland clinic Learner College of medicine in 2004. Every student graduating from the
school, get an offer to work with Cleveland clinic by Dr Cosgrove. This increased the
bonding of the physicians with their organization, which resulted positively in terms of
patient care. It also partnered with Ohio University's Heritage College of Osteopathic
Medicine in 2015 to train primary care physicians (PORTER and TEISBERG, 2018).
Optional Analysis:
Implementing information technology in healthcare can result in better healthcare services
and speeds up patient-centric treatment (Goh, Gao and Agarwal, 2011). Cleveland Clinic
applied EPIC systems for health IT in 2001. Unified integrated electronic medical record
system was introduced in 2015. They used a single data warehouse to keep track of their
clinical, financial or administrative records. It also became very convenient for patients. They
can request or cancel an appointment, see their records, ask for a prescription renewal, and
alert doctors about any change via e-mail.

For physicians, Cleveland Clinic hosted Dr. connect in 2005. It was a secured and real-time
software through which doctors could see all the medical records of their patients, and review
whether proper care is delivering or not. Doctors were also able to provide electronic
prescriptions to their patients.
Evidence-Based design:
Starting in 2005, the clinic has focused more on wellness, including its own employees.
Medical insurance of annual coverage of $250 million was provided to the employees. In
order to cease smoking, Cleveland clinic announced that they would not hire any smoker.
They also supported ballot initiatives to ban smoking in public areas and conducted free
smoking cessation classes. As a result, by 2007, it became a smoke-free environment. They
also introduced health awareness programs to help people to lose weight, better manage
anxiety and depression, quit smoking, etc. Thus by taking several positive steps to promote
wellness, they become an example in the healthcare industry.
Results:
Cleveland Clinic approach to creating high-value services:
Reshaping Care Delivery:
To get better medical services and to improve the quality of treatment, healthcare delivery
system should be restructured and reshaped by adapting new implementations. After taking
charge of the clinic, Dr. Cosgrove adopted the 'Patients first' policy as the unambiguous goal
for the whole clinic. He changed the old management process and reshaped it while
establishing new units nationwide. In 2007, a new neuroscience institute was established
which brought all neurological departments under one roof. Not only this, under the
reshaping program, special expertise institutes were built including laboratory and pathology,

nursing, imaging, quality and patient safety. In order to unite finance, legal, marketing,
human resource departments, support institutes also created. These, by altogether definitely
challenged the traditional organizational hierarchy while upgrading the patient-oriented
treatment.
Patient first:
The philosophy of Cleveland Clinic states that patient outcomes are 'the ultimate measure of
quality '. In order to provide more patient-centric treatment, they adopted ‘patients first’
policy. To fulfil it, the hospital authority instructed all departments to keep track of their
health outcomes and prepare a report on that, which will be published digitally and in print.
The whole purpose of it is to maintain all records and enable learning and quality
improvement by analysing those reports. The primary objective of patient-centred
healthcare is to accelerate the health outcomes of individual patients in daily clinical practice
while considering the preferences, values and economic resources available to the patient
(Sacristán, 2013).
Health System Rationalization:
Quality improvement is very important in every aspect of life, including healthcare. To make
the Cleveland clinic more structured and well-maintained, Dr Cosgrove divided
responsibilities into various community facilities. Some facilities were asked to concentrate
on urgent care and outpatient services; some were told to focus on inpatient psychiatry
services. Services like neurosurgery, emergency medication, orthopaedics, trauma care also
reshaped and relocated from the main campus to various locations. With that, they made it
sure to build strong coordination among different locations. The main goal of the health
system rationalization was to provide the right treatment for the right person at the right place
at the right time and at the right price (Cosgrove, 2014).