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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Health Serv.
Sec. Health Policy and Management
Volume 4 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frhs.2024.1487914
This article is part of the Research Topic Perspectives and Opinions in Health Services, Volume II View all articles

Access Improvement in Healthcare: A 12-Step Framework for Operational Practice

Provisionally accepted
Allen Chen Allen Chen *
  • UCI Health, Irvine, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Access improvement is a fundamental component of value-based healthcare as it inherently promotes quality by eliminating chokepoints, redundancies, and ine>iciencies which could hinder the provisioning of timely care. The purpose of this review is to present a12-step framework which o>ers healthcare organizations a practical, thematic-based foundation for thinking about access improvement.Methods: This study was designed based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) statement. A literature search of prospective peer-reviewed publications was undertaken to identify studies pertaining to healthcare access. Articles published from January 2014 to January 2024 were included.An interpretive synthesis was then presented.Results: A total of 469 peer-reviewed studies were identified. The most common diseases analyzed were related to general medicine/family practice (N=75), surgical care (N=51), health screening (N=30), mental health (N=27), cardiovascular disease (N=17), emergency room/critical care (N=15), and cancer (N=7). The remaining 247 studies (53%) did not specifically report on any specialization. The core themes could be broadly categorized into the following: workforce adequacy, patient experience, physical space utilization, template optimization, scheduling e>iciency, process standardization, cost transparency, physician engagement, and data analytics. Sixty publications (13%) focused at least in part on equity issues, structural racism, and/or implicit bias; and 25 publications (5%) addressed disparities in education, training, and/or technical literacy. Seventy-three publications (16%) focused either completely or in part on digital health as a means of access improvement.Conclusion: Based on this systematic review, a 12-step thematically based framework for approaching access improvement in healthcare was developed.

    Keywords: access, quality, Delays, Health Policy, Equity

    Received: 29 Aug 2024; Accepted: 19 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Allen Chen, UCI Health, Irvine, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.