DNP 840 Provide an example of a change in a health delivery model or process that has occurred in the past 3 years at the micro, meso, and macro system levels Re: Topic 3 DQ 1 Change in Health care Delivery Model

Health care outcomes vary greatly with delivery models. As these models continue to evolve, health care practitioners should adapt accordingly and integrate innovations appropriately into patient care to improve outcomes. Governments, communities, and health care practitioners should also collaborate to evolve delivery models to address access, cost, and other critical health care elements.

A noticeable change in a health care delivery model that has occurred recently is the increased adoption of remote care through telehealth. In the evolving practice, telehealth is pivotal for remote care monitoring and enhancing health care access to rural populations (Shaver, 2022). However, policy regulations hampered telehealth use in care organizations before the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the pandemic and to reduce COVID-19 transmission, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) authorized waivers in 2020 to expand telehealth services for Medicare beneficiaries (Suran, 2022). The waivers were instrumental in ensuring more populations received timely care, and access challenges were minimized. By easing delivery through waivers, telehealth services such as in-home visits, audio interactions, and remote services increased (Suran, 2022). The innovation helped health care facilities and the government to respond to the challenges that COVID-19 posed, particularly increased transmissions due to physical visits to care providers.

An expanded view of telehealth impacts can help to demonstrate its impacts at the micro, meso, and macro system levels. At the micro level, expanded telehealth services have prompted health care organizations to adopt diverse clinical programs to optimize patient care. For instance, technology adoption and educational programs to ensure clinicians understand telehealth ethics have dominated health practice (Keenan et al., 2022). At the meso level, telehealth has changed how health care is offered in communities and the statistics of infections. Community and regional stakeholders also help health care organizations adopt the appropriate IT infrastructure for telehealth. Macro-system changes include waivers and regulation changes to expand telehealth services.

References

Keenan, A. J., Tsourtos, G., & Tieman, J. (2022). Promise and peril-defining ethical telehealth practice from the clinician and patient perspective: a qualitative study. Digital Health, 8, 20552076211070394. https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076211070394

Shaver, J. (2022). The state of telehealth before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Primary care, 49(4), 517–530. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pop.2022.04.002

Suran, M. (2022). Increased use of Medicare telehealth during the pandemic. JAMA, 327(4), 313-313. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.23332