Denver's High-Performance Puclic Health Care System

Case Analysis 2- DENVER HEALTH: A HIGH-PERFORMANCE PUBLIC HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

The commonwealth Fund Commission visited Denver Health in March 2006 to analyze its operations in regards to access to care, quality of care, safety, value, efficiency and ability to improve. Denver Health is an integrated health system that serves about 25% of Denver residents. It is considered to be the largest Medicaid provider and safety net system in Colorado. The majority of patients cared for are minorities and the uninsured; 42% of care was uncompensated in 2005. Denver Health is on the list of the top 50 hospitals in the U.S and has objectives that include: providing access to care regardless of being able to pay, providing needs for public health, providing education to health professionals and patients, and providing emergency services. After visiting, The Commission concluded that Denver Health demonstrated to be a high performance health system and can be considered to be a future model for other heath systems.

The key issues that Denver Health has addressed in order to improve as a health system include: eliminating waste, implementing high performance by incorporating information technology, and reforming the workforce. The Denver Health system has eliminated waste by training staff members to better deal with the flow of inpatient, outpatient, and billing of health care. This was implemented in order to provide an abundance of high quality of care in a shorter amount of time. Information Technology at Denver Health has had a positive impact on providing high quality care. Electronic health records are used on all systems to have patients’ information, as well as guidelines available at any given point in time. Patients are also...

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...made them one of the top health systems that the Commission believes to be a great example to other health systems. I would incorporate the lessons learned in my professional life. I have hopes to become a healthcare administrator in the future and I believe that in order to be a leader you need to take risks and not self-doubt. This is important because innovative solutions can improve an organization in many ways. I know that when I do become a health administrator I would like to improve access to care to the underserved population as well as improve patient satisfaction. Denver Health has done a great job with improving patient satisfaction by decreasing the wait times in the waiting rooms as well as allowing patients to come in and see a health professional last minute by saving a certain amount of space so that there is enough time for patients to be seen.