Academic and Community Medica Centers
Explain the difference and similarities between the missions of an academic medical center versus the mission of an acute community hospital.
Discuss the similarities and differences in staffing and management structure of and academic medical center versus and acute community hospital. Not you want determine what type of staff the academic medical center will that the acute community hospital wont.
Explain the difference and similarities that the reimbursement model that is used in academic medical center
Versus a acute community hospital.
Sample Paper
Missions of an Academic Medical Center versus the Mission of an Acute Community Hospital
Academic medical centers are unique healthcare resources that do not only provide basic and specialized healthcare services to the communities surrounding them but also function as the primary sites for medical education and medical research. These institutions are affiliated with medical schools and are utilized to prepare medical graduates for their practice in the health industry. The mission for academic medical centers involves advancing healthcare education, research, and patient care. Education and research are the main focus of these institutions, and they usually partner with academic institutions to advance their mission. Due to the continuous research and advanced technology in some academic medical centers, they can provide specialized, high-quality care services than other community hospitals (Burke et al., 2018).
Acute community hospitals focus on providing healthcare services rather than education and research. Its mission is to improve the quality of life and health of the surrounding communities. Unlike academic medical centers, acute community hospitals are not involved in educating graduates or conducting research that can improve healthcare delivery in the community; they mainly focus on providing healthcare services to the patients until they can be safely discharged to lower healthcare facilities. They are also not affiliated with any educational institutions; rather, they are mostly run by the government or private owners (Young et al., 2020).
Staffing and Management Structure of Academic Medical vs Acute Community Hospital
Academic medical centers are managed by either single leadership or multiple leadership. Single leadership models are most common in smaller centers where the affiliated educational institution regulates every activity, including education research and patient care. Multiple leadership is common where the center is larger and is affiliated with larger educational institutions making it impossible for the learning institutions to govern everything. In this case, the university/academic institution is responsible for regulating education and research while a board of governors/executive committee oversees the patient care and other operations. Acute community hospitals are mainly governed by a board of governors and executives who oversee the daily operations (Young et al., 2020).
Staff members in academic medical centers and acute community hospitals are almost similar; they include care providers such as physicians and nurses responsible for patient treatments, technicians who run the technologies, and other important workers for running a healthcare facility. The main difference is that academic medical centers, comprises of researchers, student educators, including faculty leaders and lecturers, but they are not found in an acute community hospital. Academic physicians are also found in academic medical centers and not in acute community hospitals; their roles mainly involve advancing research to improve healthcare delivery. Due to their advanced nature, AMC has specialized physicians and other practitioners who are not commonly available in acute community hospitals (Girod et al., 2017).
Reimbursement Model in Academic Medical Center Versus an Acute Community Hospital
In both academic medical centers and acute community hospitals, the value-based care model is the common reimbursement model. The value-based care model reimburses the facilities and physicians based on the outcomes rather than the traditional fee for service, where care providers were reimbursed based on the quantity of the services provided. Academic medical centers receive a significant share of their income from Medicare and Medicaid and publicly funded programs, while acute community hospitals mostly attend to privately insured individuals, and therefore their income is mostly from private insurance providers (Burke et al., 2018).
References
Burke, L., Khullar, D., Orav, E. J., Zheng, J., Frakt, A., & Jha, A. K. (2018). Do academic medical centers disproportionately benefit the sickest patients?. Health Affairs, 37(6), 864-872. https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2017.1250
Girod, S. C., Fassiotto, M., Menorca, R., Etzkowitz, H., & Wren, S. M. (2017). Reasons for faculty departures from an academic medical center: a survey and comparison across faculty lines. BMC medical education, 17(1), 1-10. https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-016-0830-y
Young, J., Hulme, C., Smith, A., Buckell, J., Godfrey, M., Holditch, C., … & Thiebaud, J. C. (2020). Comparative case study of community hospitals (study 3). In Measuring and optimising the efficiency of community hospital inpatient care for older people: the MoCHA mixed-methods study. NIHR Journals Library. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK552329/
