Many healthcare organizations are aiming to create patient-centered environments, focusing on the patient while simultaneously providing improved health care. Federal regulations are also pushing for a value-based system, and new practitioners are needing to be educated on the importance of quality measurements, care coordination and population heath management to see success in their practices.
Industry-recognized credentials have also been a hot topic this month as government officials work to reauthorize the Perkins Act, a major revamp of the federal regulations and funding rules related to career and technical education, workforce entry, and the importance of credentials.
The credentialing marketplace is growing. By 2020, 65 percent of all jobs in the economy will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school, and the number of postsecondary programs has already more than quintupled since 1985. Learn more about each of these topics, below:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Monday announced a new initiative intended to streamline quality measures, reduce regulatory burden and promote innovation in the healthcare industry as it transitions from fee-for-service to value-based payment. The effort, called the Meaningful Measures initiative, is being described as a “new approach to quality measurement.”
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Polly Pittman, professor of health policy and management at George Washington University, said that at hospitals, from 2010 to 2014, providers increasingly substituted high- and middle-skilled clinical non-licensed personnel with lower-skilled staff. Supply-and-demand concerns set aside, a great focus of Pittman's opening remarks and a panel on delivery system reform and its effects on the healthcare workforce was placed on technology, team-based care and physician burnout.
Just under 70 percent of family medicine residents feel adequately prepared to handle the analytics and care coordination strategies involved in population health management, according to a new study published in Family Medicine. “The concept of population health management (PHM) is growing in importance, as it underlies many changes in U.S. health care such as accountable care organizations, clinical integration networks, and the patient-centered medical home (PCMH), and is central to meeting the triple aim for health care: better quality, lower costs, and healthier populations.”
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Lindsay Gainer, RN, MSN is an expert in lean management, care model redesign, and health policy. As the senior executive director of innovation for North Shore Medical Center and North Shore Physicians Group in Massachusetts, Lindsay leads the Kaizen Promotion Office and the Lean Management method in the inpatient and ambulatory setting at a large community hospital and multispecialty physicians group. She also oversees quality and safety, population health management, and staff development for the physicians group. Lindsay's passion for healthcare and commitment to Kaizen – the principle of continuous improvement – is echoed in the advice she shares, and the value she places on team support from allied health professionals.
One increasingly popular way of ensuring students is entering the workforce with appropriate skills is through industry-recognized credentials. Credentials can be used to signal that an individual has acquired the knowledge, skills and abilities required in a specific occupation or industry, giving employers confidence in their new hires.
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The demand for Bachelor’s degrees may be overinflated in the labor market, but the number of jobs requiring at least some postsecondary education or training is growing. According to the Georgetown Center for Education and the Workforce, nearly all of the jobs created since the recession have gone to workers with more than a high school education. As such, many states have adopted programs and policies since the recovery to help learners obtain the knowledge, skills and credentials necessary to succeed in today’s workforce.
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