Cost Savings Analysis  

Assessment 4- Instructions

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Cost Savings Analysis

Prepare a spreadsheet of cost savings data showing efficiency gains attributable to care coordination over the course of one fiscal year, and report your key findings in an executive summary, 4–5 pages in length.

Information plays a fundamental role in health care. Providers such as physicians and hospitals create and process information as they deliver care to patients. However, managing that information and using it productively poses an ongoing challenge, particularly in light of the complexity of the U.S. health care sector, with its many diverse settings for care and types of providers and services. Health information technology (HIT) has the potential to considerably increase the productivity of the health sector by assisting providers in managing information. Furthermore, HIT can improve the quality of health care and, ultimately, the outcomes of that care for patients.

The use of HIT has been upheld as having remarkable promise in improving the efficiency, quality, cost-effectiveness, and safety of medical care delivery in our nation’s health care system. This assessment provides an opportunity for you to examine how utilizing HIT can positively affect the financial health of an organization, improve patient health, and create better health outcomes.

Preparation

As the senior care coordinator in your organization, your manager has asked you to examine and report on how care coordination can generate cost savings, improve outcomes, enhance the collection of evidence-based data, and improve health care quality for the community. She would like you to compile cost savings data in a well-organized spreadsheet and present your key findings in an executive summary.

Requirements

Determine how care coordination can reduce costs. Compile your cost savings data in a spreadsheet, using Microsoft Excel or a suitable application of your choice. (If you elect to use an application other than Excel, check with faculty to avoid potential file compatibility issues.) Your spreadsheet should contain at least four cost-saving elements. Identify the cost-saving element, current costs, and anticipated savings.

Analyzing Cost Savings

The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Be sure that your analysis addresses each point, at a minimum. You may also want to read the Cost Savings Analysis Scoring Guide to better understand how each criterion will be assessed.

• Describe ways in which care coordination can generate cost savings.
• What are your primary evidence-based sources of information?
• Are your conclusions substantiated by the data?
• What assumptions, if any, underlie your analysis?
• Explain how care coordination can promote improved health consumerism and effect positive health outcomes.
• What evidence do you have to substantiate your claims?
• Describe at least five ways in which care coordination efforts can enhance the collection of evidence-based data and improve quality through the application of an emerging health care model.
• Choose any emerging health care model.
• Present cost savings data and information clearly and accurately.
• Support main points, claims, and conclusions with relevant and credible evidence, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.
• Your summary should be 4–5 pages in length, not includingthe title page and references page.

Supporting Evidence

• Cite 4–5 sources of relevant and credible scholarly or professional evidence to support your cost savings analysis.
• Apply APA formatting to all in-text citations and references.

Submit both your spreadsheet and your executive summary.