Nursing Essay: Population Panel Management

Population Panel Management
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Population Panel Management Assignment
A desirable physician-patient ratio, according to World Health Organization, is 1:1000 (Kumar & Pal, 2018). However, according to Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality (AHRQ), a recommended panel size should have one physician taking care of between 1500 to 2000 patients (AHRQ, 2018). Therefore, going by the AHRQ recommendation, it is convincible to assume that the 100 physicians can take care of the 14,500 diabetic patients plus the 160,000 obese or overweight people. When this number is divided into 100 physicians, it is evident that each physician will have to take care of 174,500 patients. However, this might not be the case in the context as several variables might affect the number of patients assigned to different physicians. Also, considering that the care provided is done through Accountable Care Organization (ACO) design, most physicians might be doing this as a part-time task as they are likely to be held up in other tasks.
Assigning Patients to Panels
The first element that needs to be considered when assigning patients to different care teams is the patients' condition (AHRQ, 2018). It is important to note that patients with acute and obstetric conditions might be prioritized first during the care provision. For instance, going by the population of patients in this scenario, it is clear that there are patients who have already been diagnosed with diabetes and will require to be considered first. Equally, the extremely obese patients might also require quick attention before considering the obese and overweight portion of the population. The diabetic patients having been diagnosed implies that they must have visited a health facility recently. Therefore, it will be proper to assign them to care teams with their regular physicians when they have only visited a single physician.
For diabetic patients who have visited multiple clinicians, it is advisable to assign the clinicians to them the most. In case the frequent clinician for the patients are missing from the 100, the last clinicians to have attended to the patients should then be assigned to them. In extreme cases where clinicians stand out for patients, it is advisable to incorporate the voice of the patients in determining which practitioners out of the 100 they would prefer to attend to them (AHRQ, 2018). As much as this process appears as a simple one, it might be hectic if no proper arrangement is made prior to the patient's visits. Therefore, it is vital to facilitate front desk staff to assist with compiling such information from the biomedical literature at their disposal. Assigning patients to their preferred medical practitioners is critical as it helps promote continuity in patients' treatment.
At this juncture, almost all the patients with acute or obstetric conditions will have been taken care of in panel placements. It is also possible that at this point, some clinicians might find themselves assigned to several patients. In contrast, others, especially new clinicians in a health facility, might find themselves to none of the patients (AHRQ, 2018). Therefore, to ensure that the panels are adjusted to manageable sizes, clinicians with no pati...