Merging Pay-for-Performance and Technology to Impact Patient Outcomes

• Main Author: Akram, Daaiyah Nimat
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: ScholarWorks 2019
• Subjects: Public Health Education and Promotion
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/6504; https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7783&context=dissertations

Pay-for-performance (P4P) programs improve the effectiveness, quality, and overall value of healthcare. In today's world of advanced technology and changing trends, physician organizations hesitate to adopt P4P program methodology. A gap in the literature was identified, as there were no guides found that explained how to implement P4P initiatives that improved quality of care. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understand-ing of P4P, and the phenomenology of practice theory was applied to obtain different perspectives about P4P programs and how incorporating technology improved quality of health provisions. Basic qualitative methodology was used, and semistructured telephone interviews served as the instruments to collect valuable data. E-mail invitations were sent to participants identified by the P4P Team Director, with interview questions to use as talking points during the telephone interview sessions. Post interview summaries were sent to the participants to review, approve or edit prior to inclusion into the study. Pat-terns were identified and showcased in a qualitative data coding analysis spreadsheet and a semistructured interview coding graph revealed that technology stood out amongst all key words. The results of the study confirmed that merging technology with P4P pro-grams produced positive patient outcomes. The use of the phenomenology of practice theory was justified as different responses were provided by the participants. From a so-cial change perspective, when technology and preventive healthcare initiatives are merged, P4P programs improve the quality of care. Inpatient bed days are reduced, and public reporting of physician organizations and health plans performances encouraged the onboarding of new physician organizations using the study site's measure sets to improve their quality of care efforts, thus resulting in better patient outcomes.