Care Quality and Implementation of the Chronic Care Model Essay

Care Quality and Implementation of the Chronic Care Model - Essay Example Because of the finding that acute-care model was ineffective, numerous legislators and healthcare practitioners suggested other or additional models to deal with its weaknesses, like broadening managed care and setting up case- and disease-management initiatives, yet they by no means basically resolved the issue of healthcare provision. Wagner and associates recommended a different method of enhancing chronic illness care that included delivery of healthcare, founded on the paradigm they referred to as ‘Chronic Care Model (CCM).’ CCM was a wide-ranging reform to the quality of healthcare delivery to people with chronic illnesses. This paper chooses the topic of CCM because of its great relevance to contemporary nursing practice. It primarily puts emphasis on quite a few features of healthcare management. The provision of healthcare would shift from a traditional patient-physician relationship, where the latter entirely determines what needs to be done, to a more concerted effort between an equipped, enthusiastic healthcare group and an involved patient. The healthcare group operates within a planned environment, where care- and disease-management is evidence-based, processes are primed to monitor and assess progress, and information is communicated to doctors and patients. In this process clients/patients are actively involved, motivated to independently manage their illness and the healthcare organisation collaborates with its immediate community. The key terms used in this paper are Chronic Care Model (CCM) and the Assessment of Chronic Illness Care (ACIC). CCM states that a significant percentage of chron ic care does not occur within an organised health delivery contexts. CCM has been applied productively in some healthcare settings (Bernstein 2008). Nevertheless, according to Larsen and Lubkin (2008), there are hardly any healthcare settings that are completely equipped to implement CCM. This is the primary issue that the study of Solberg and colleagues (2006) tries to resolve. The Assessment of Chronic Illness Care (ACIC), the primary instrument used by Solberg and colleagues, was formulated to support organisational groups in determining weaknesses in their chronic illness care approach, and to assess the nature and extent of developments within their structure. The six important components of ACIC are (1) delivery system, (2) clinical information system, (3) decision support, (4) self-management support, (5) health care organisation, and (6) community linkages (Solberg et al. 2006). Even though the ACIC was designed as a handy instrument to aid healthcare organisations in upgrad ing the quality of chronic illness care, it has been applied to empirical studies as well. Method of Selecting the Article The article chosen by the author for the analysis is Solberg and colleague’s (2006) Care Quality and Implementation of the Chronic Care Model: a Quantitative Study. In finding the most appropriate article for this analysis the author used the following keywords: quantitative methodology, nursing research, and chronic illness care. The author used the databases JSTOR, Questia, ProQuest, Sage Journal, and EBSCOhost. In order to narrow the search the author tried looking for the concepts chronic care model, quality of care, enhanced care continuity, clinical outcomes, and for issues like curtailed healthcare costs and the growing financial trouble of healthcare. Numerous earlier solutions have been suggested to mitigate the healthcare challenge but they have not endured rigid assessment (Richardson 2008). The study of Solberg and colleagues (2006) shows us t hat we should be capable of presenting substantiation of the efficacy and value of these interventions instead of simply putting them into practice on the basis of assumptions. The author chose the abovementioned article due to the obvious nature of the