Strategies to Reduce Healthcare Costs: A Practicum Project Reflection

This practicum project reflection paper discusses strategies to reduce healthcare costs by minimizing waste related to unnecessary tests. The student reflects on achieving project goals, including identifying stakeholder roles, developing action plans for clinician training, collecting data on patient duties and tests, and creating a cost-cutting algorithm. The paper also addresses the use of patient navigators, the challenges faced with stakeholder involvement, and the potential benefits of non-pharmacological interventions. The reflection highlights the importance of monitoring physician practices and the role of inter-professional nurse development in curtailing healthcare expenditures while maintaining service quality. The student notes the positive experience of brainstorming through journals and interacting with healthcare professionals to identify cost-saving opportunities.

Running head: PRACTICUM PROJECT REFLECTION PAPER
PRACTICUM PROJECT REFLECTION PAPER
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

1PRACTICUM PROJECT REFLECTION PAPER
Practicum Project Reflection Paper
Health care costs in UK is much higher than other industrial countries with better health system
performance and use of resources for unnecessary tests are surely accountable to the rising health
care costs. Hence the rationale for choosing this topic is quite valid. I believe that I have
definitely achieved the goals that I have planned for this project. I was well aware of determining
the role of the stakeholders in coming up with the ways for cutting down the health care costs. I
was successful in developing an action plan for the continuous training of the clinicians. I had
been successful in collecting the data from the clinicians to develop an idea about their daily
patient’s duties and the tests carries out. The algorithm developed for the cost cutting in health
care had been really useful. The process map was well developed and was successful in
providing an insight to the flow of information on a health care setting.
I have also collected a record of the unnecessary tests that doctor's compel the patents to
perform and which add up to unnecessary expenditure. I have detected CT scans or MRI scans of
head in simple fainting without having any history of cardiac strain. I could bring a comparison
between the generic and the formulary medicine in shooting up the health care expenditures.
During the time of my research I have found how non pharmacological interventions can be used
to treat chronic pains instead of consuming high priced medicines.
It was indeed a positive experience as I have brainstormed through several journals and
have also interacted with the health care professionals in identifying areas that accounts for the
health care costs. It was a knowledgeable experience for creating the action plan for developing
the nurse inter-professionally in order to reduce the health care costs, yet not compromising with
the service. I believe that the project objectives set by me is appropriate in curtailing the health
care costs, such as monitoring of the physician taking up the electronic system during prescribing

2PRACTICUM PROJECT REFLECTION PAPER
the tests. I believe that the project objectives set by me is appropriate in curtailing the health care
costs, such as monitoring of the physician taking up the electronic system during prescribing the
tests, training of the staffs regarding the monitoring of the application skills.
All the resources that have been used were useful for the project except the involvement
of the stakeholders. It is evident that many clinical staffs were hesitant about the survey and were
discontent to shift from the conventional methods. Hence more involvement of the stakeholders
could have brought about more efficiency in the project.
Yes, patient navigators have been used in my project as they are the one who are not only
responsible for facilitating improved health care accessibility to the population but are also
responsible for the improving the quality of the underserved population by advocacy and
coordination of care. Navigators are actually deployed to help out the individuals with health
facilities outreach and enrollment.