discussion 7

Metropolitan Hospital Center is a healthcare facility that is situated in New York City. The organization offers palliative care, which is an approach that improves the quality of care of patients that are suffering from life-threatening diseases through the treatment of pain and other physical problems. Palliative care entails psychological, physical and spiritual support from caregivers, family members and friends. The SWOT analysis provides the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats associated with the palliative care service.

SWOT analysis

Strengths

The first strength is that the organization has different sites/branches thus it is able to share resources, staff and equipment. As a result, the resources and staff that are required to offer palliative care are hardly lacked in the organization. In case of a deficiency, healthcare professionals from one of the branches can easily be sourced. The other strength is that the organization has a dedicated spiritual room therefore providing patients with a much comfortable environment. Spirituality is a major component in palliative care due to the fact that it promotes comfort and relief for patients suffering from life threatening ailments that have no therapeutic possibilities of cure. The other strength is that the service is highly supported by the dedicated group volunteer that has raised a lot of money to ensure the service is greatly improved.

Weakness

The organization begins palliative care near the very end of life instead of beginning it along treatment when a patient is diagnosed with a life threatening disease. As a result, patients are not able to lead high quality lives and adequately manage their symptoms until their final days. Beginning palliative care with treatment may be considered expensive but it is accompanied by longer high quality life for patients. The other weakness is that the religious beliefs of patients are not routinely screened. As a result, there is inadequate information in regards to the religious needs of patients, which therefore affect the quality of palliative care. The organization does not also provide routine bereavement counseling to the patient and his/her family. Emotional support and compassion are entirely necessary for a patient and his/her family. Losing a loved one is a tragic experience and through bereavement counseling, the family is able to get emotional support and comfort (Watson, 2019). Routine bereavement counseling for patients is important in order to ensure they are in a great state of mind.

Opportunities

With increased government financing, the organization has an opportunity to improve its palliative care service by offering routine bereavement counseling, routinely assessing the religious beliefs of patients and adding more palliative beds to ensure that the organization is able to meet the demand for palliative care. The organization is currently designing a platform for staff to share their experiences. This platform can be utilized by medical providers to share their experiences in regards to palliative care. As a result, knowledge and skills on how to improve the service will be shared. For palliative care to be efficient, it is important that the cultural and religious beliefs of patients are taken into account and embraced. The organization should ensure it embraces the diversity of the patients by routinely evaluating the cultural and religious beliefs of patients. As a result, patients will be more comfortable and they will have a great relationship with the medical staff thus leading to a greater quality life.

Threats

The organization has limited long-term care beds therefore not all individuals that require palliative care are offered it. There also limited community resources that support the service. Another threat is the patient and family reluctance to accept a referral for specialist palliative care due to cultural and religious beliefs. Palliative care is associated with dying therefore patients and families think that in case they do not talk about death, they will avoid it (Kelley, 2015).

Additional service

The additional service that I would propose to market this organization is ultra sound. In the region, the minimal healthcare facilities offer the ultra sound service that has many functions. The organization utilizes the service as the primary diagnostic tool for cancer because it is cost effective. This is the first test that is utilized for cancer diagnosis before other powerful imaging tests such as the Positron Emission Tomography scan. The organization utilizes the service to evaluate major body organ is such as the bladder, kidneys, spleen, uterus, heart, blood vessels and pancreas. The number of patients that require this service is very high thus the organization should effectively market it to ensure that individuals do not have to travel to other regions to seek the service.

Competing service

Bellevue Hospital Center offers an ultrasound service that is superior to others in the entire New York. The organization constantly improves its ultrasound service as technology advances. The organization acquires the most recent, high technological ultrasound equipment that is smaller, generates less heat and is more power efficient (Stock, 2017). The organization also ensures that there are continuous imaging quality improvements to ensure that the service can efficiently be used in the place of other services such as CT and MRI. Generally, the service is very effective because the organization ensures it is technologically updated.

References

Kelley, A. S., & Morrison, R. S. (2015). Palliative care for the seriously ill. New England Journal of Medicine, 373(8), 747-755.

Stock, K., Kübler, H., Maurer, T., Weiss, D., Weskott, H. P., & Heemann, U. (2017). Innovative ultrasound: contrast-enhanced ultrasound of the kidneys. Aktuelle Urologie, 48(2), 120-126.

Watson, M., Ward, S., Vallath, N., & Campbell, R. (Eds.). (2019). Oxford handbook of palliative care. Oxford University Press, USA.