Final Project Milestone Three: Evaluation Plan

Luz Rodriguez

Southern New Hampshire University

Final Project Milestone Three: Evaluation Plan

Proposed Program: “To establish a department in IGM to facilitate holistic care of pediatric patients. This holistic care will require patients to be monitored before, during, and after a clinical procedure (Ventegodt et al., 2016). The program will be flexible to ensure that each patient receives customized care at a subsidized fee.”

Financial Aspects

There are certain resources, which should be used in the program. First, there is staffing. The program requires a collaborative effort of healthcare practitioners from various departments to properly monitor and evaluate the patients’ needs. This will be vital in offering customized care based on individual needs. The program will utilize the current staff for data collection purposes. However, additional staff members will be required for the therapeutic sessions since this program will be facilitated by a new department. Second, there is equipment. Relevant equipment related to the individualized therapy sessions will be required. Examples include bikes, treadmills, massage tools, ultrasound, electric stimulation, and other pertinent equipment. The therapeutic needs of a specific patient will determine the equipment used.

The impact of the program on the organization’s current budget will be minimal. The majority of resources are already present. Data collection to gauge patient needs will be done using the current staff and equipment. Even though the program does not necessarily fit into the existing budget, the concessions that will have to be made will be minimal. These concessions will be in terms of remuneration for the current staff for the extra job they will be doing as pertains to this new program. Also, the department will require new resources to get it running. Nevertheless, considering the program will be supplemented by donor/sponsor funds, it is expected that IGM will undergo minimal changes in terms of its expenditure.

There are certain recommendations that can be considered to ensure the program is financially sustainable. For starters, IGM should aggressively search for as many sponsors/donors as possible to ensure the bulk of operational costs are offset by these parties. Second, charities can be held annually to get the community to contribute towards the department’s activities. Finally, government aid can be sourced to further strengthen the program’s financial capacity. These measures are crucial considering the patients will be paying a subsidized fee for the program’s services. There will be no measurable expense reductions for the organization to cover the costs of the program. It is expected that the money from the patients and the sponsor/donors/government will adequately cover these costs. The program does not create new revenue sources for the organization to offset the program’s costs. Rather, it will rely on donors/sponsors to achieve this purpose.

Evaluation

There are certain factors, which will be measured to evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation of the program. In the context of administrative measures, an appraisal will be conducted to see if the program leads to patient satisfaction in terms of the services offered. Also, the benchmarks set by the administration will be evaluated to see if the program meets them or not. The measurement will also check for the number of patients served and the diversity of the clients compared to the previous case where the program was not used. In the context of clinical measures, an appraisal will be conducted to see if the program results in faster and more effective recovery of the patients in comparison to cases where the program is not used.

There are two tools, which will be utilized in measuring the impact of the program on lowering the incidence of healthcare disparities. The first one is process evaluation, which refers to a technique that evaluates the degree to which a program is operating as designed (CDC, n.d.). The second one is cost-benefit evaluation, which refers to a method that facilitates the comparison between the costs required to operate the program and the benefits generated (CDC, n.d.). Each of these evaluation tools will inform the practice on whether the program is successful. The process evaluation tool will check to see if patients recover more effectively compared to the previous mode of operation where therapy was not used. The cost-benefit evaluation will check to see if the benefits of the program are completely covered by the cost of operating the new department (Brent, 2004). Finally, the program will facilitate healthcare equity across diverse populations by being relatively cost-effective. Since the patients will pay a subsidized fee, it will be accessible by people from all socioeconomic demographics.

References

Brent, R. J. (Ed.). (2004). Cost-benefit analysis and health care evaluations. Edward Elgar Publishing.

CDC. (n.d.). Types of evaluation. CDC. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwio9Z7vgofuAhXExYUKHU1gCrYQFjACegQIBxAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fstd%2FProgram%2Fpupestd%2FTypes%2520of%2520Evaluation.pdf&usg=AOvVaw00OGxQwLjEqL_gkDiyqx61

Ventegodt, S., Kandel, I., Ervin, D. A., & Merrick, J. (2016). Concepts of holistic care. In Health Care for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities across the Lifespan. Springer, Cham.