United Healthcare Case Study

United Healthcare is an organization based in Minnesota and its mission is to provide affordable healthcare to all individuals and help them to embrace healthy living. The organization was founded by Richard Burke in 1977 with the goal of incorporating business management and first-rate medical practices so as to offer exceptional patient care to all individuals (United Health Group, 2012). United Healthcare has progressed over the years to become United States’ largest healthcare provider (United Health Group, 2012). The organization aims at improving the health system performance and ensuring the enhancement of the well-being and health of the people that it serves.

The organization also works with key partners and competent healthcare professionals to ensure the expansion of access to care to communities at a fair price (United Health Group, 2012). Moreover, the organization promotes a quality relationship between patients and care providers and ensures that people have the necessary guidance, information, and tools to make proper health decisions. United Healthcare is founded on the principles of integrity, relationships, continuous innovation, excellent performance, and compassion (United Health Group, 2012). This paper explores the preparedness of United Healthcare to handle the citizens’ healthcare needs in the next decade as well as the organization’s strategic plans to deal with network growth, resource management, nurse staffing and patient satisfaction.

United Healthcare is sufficiently prepared to handle the citizens’ needs in the next decade because it leverages the core competencies of current technologies, optimization of care resources through clinical insight, and advanced information and data (United Health Group, 2012). The organization comprises of a network of highly competent healthcare providers who engage the consumers and ensure that they make useful connections. United Healthcare is also prepared to provide the best care to the patients in the next decade since it leads in healthcare technology. It has large clinical data collections which inform the organization’s healthcare providers to use the most current innovations to provide care to the patients. The organization has access to the most recent medical innovations and pharmaceutical products that enable patients to receive superior care (United Health Group, 2012). The organization continues to expand its network and constantly improve its healthcare services to suit the patients’ needs. The standards of healthcare are constantly improving and more and more people benefit from the healthcare services provided by United Healthcare each day. Therefore, the organization will be able to continue meeting the patients’ needs into the next decade and even beyond.

According to the United Health Center for Health Reform and Modernization (UHCHRM; 2012), the needs of patients in the coming decade will be met through payment reforms to reduce their spending on health by around $70 billion to $1.01 billion. Therefore, the costs of healthcare will be reduced in the US. Moreover, the affordability of healthcare can be achieved through the adoption of innovative payment models without affecting its quality, leading to more savings for the patients and improved healthcare in the coming decade. The UHCHRM (2012) observes that the current fee-for-service models of payment are ineffective and models that reward value instead of volume should be adopted.

In order to achieve network growth, United Healthcare works with key partners and healthcare professionals to enhance the consumers’ access to health care. The organization cultivates productive relationships and works in collaboration with healthcare professionals such as nurses and physicians, healthcare consumers, employers and government (United Health Group, 2012). Active collaboration with these groups increases the trust among them and supports the expansion of the organization’s network. The organization will continue to achieve growth by taking into account the diverse perspectives of the workforce and consumers of healthcare. The organization’s network comprises of over 780,000 care professionals and physicians (United Health Group, 2012). United Healthcare is evaluating contracting strategies that will improve patient outcomes, reduce medical costs, share risk and increase quality. The organization is considering value-based contracting as it will enhance the collaboration among the stakeholders and the sharing of risks will improve patient outcomes (United Health Group, 2012).

United Healthcare is also well prepared to handle the challenges of nurse staffing and ensure the provision of quality services to the patients in the next decade. There is a growing problem of nursing shortage in the U.S. today (Janiszewski Goodin, 2003). Moreover, there is an increasing need for care because of the growing aging population who are suffering from diverse chronic illnesses (Christensen, Doblhammer, Rau & Vaupel, 2009). In order to counter this problem, United Healthcare started the Center for Nursing Advancement to train, mentor and coach its nurse professionals (United Health Group, 2012). The continued training of nurses will prepare the organization to handle the growing demands of patients better. Nurses trained by the organization will also be among the team involved in the design of new models for delivering healthcare to solve the nursing profession’s challenges. As the demand for healthcare is expected to continue growing in the next decade, United Healthcare will be prepared to deal with the challenge through the development of highly trained professionals to cater for the healthcare consumers (Harrington & Estes, 2008).

It is important for United Healthcare to manage its resources effectively including human resources, networks, information, medical innovations and pharmaceutical products, among others, to ensure its continued success and achievement of its mission. The stakeholders are managed through continued collaboration, trust and cultivating relationships to ensure that they continue to support the goals of the organization. Continued innovation will ensure that the invention of new pharmaceutical products will continue to solve the patients’ needs. Moreover, by keeping its information securely and engaging in continuous research, United Healthcare will ensure that the healthcare providers inform their practice from the most current information. Information security is especially relevant in contemporary healthcare environment due to the increasing push to adopt electronic health care records. Having secured information systems will thus assist United Healthcare to benefit from such trends without subjecting their patients’ records to unauthorized access.

United Healthcare is also concerned about the continued satisfaction of healthcare consumers in the next decade. United Healthcare has initiated health plans that are consumer-driven as well as cost estimator tools in healthcare to promote transparency and increase the access to affordable and quality care by the patients. In order to continue enhancing patient satisfaction, the organization is launching new programs and products. The use of games is being introduced to enhance the engagement of all members who play video games (United Health Group, 2012). Moreover, the organization is introducing mobile applications aimed at reaching many individuals in the society as well as video-on-demand applications for the delivery of wellness programs to people. The introduction of these tools will encourage people to be actively engaged in prevention, chronic care and wellness programs that will improve their health (United Health Group, 2012).

It is evident that the United Healthcare organization is focused on ensuring that patients access affordable and quality healthcare not only at the present but also in the coming decade. The organization has plans in place to ensure the achievement of network growth, resource management, nurse staffing and patient satisfaction. Such plans include establishment of a training center to address nurse-staffing challenges and technologies that can help deliver care more efficiently without lowering security of patient information.

References

Christensen, K., Doblhammer, G., Rau, R., & Vaupel, J. W. (2009). Ageing populations: the challenges ahead. The Lancet, 374(9696), 1196-1208.

Harrington, C., & Estes, C. (Eds.). (2008). Health policy: crisis and reform in the US health care delivery system. Jones & Bartlett Publishers. http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=h2EfJxYGVNoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Health+Policy:+Crisis+and+Reform+in+the+U.S.+Health+Care+Delivery+System:+Crisis+and+Reform+in+the+U.S.+Health+Care+Delivery+System:&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uJmsUvGpHKSv7QbpooHoDw&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Health%20Policy%3A%20Crisis%20and%20Reform%20in%20the%20U.S.%20Health%20Care%20Delivery%20System%3A%20Crisis%20and%20Reform%20in%20the%20U.S.%20Health%20Care%20Delivery%20System%3A&f=false

Janiszewski Goodin, H. (2003). The nursing shortage in the United States of America: an integrative review of the literature. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 43(4), 335-343.

United Health Center for Health Reform and Modernization. (2012). Farewell to Fee-for-service? A “Real World” Strategy for Health Care Payment Reform. Retrieved December 14, 2013 from http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/~/media/UHG/PDF/2012/UNH-Working-Paper-8.ashx

United Health Group. (2012). United Health Group Annual Report. Retrieved December 14, 2013 from http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/2012-annual-report/default.aspx