Operations Plan Towards The Betterment Of Mental Health Programs (Essay Sample)

Operations Plan Alyssa Joy Villarosa August 21, 2018 Where are we now? As of today, recent estimates state that about “22.1% of Americans ages 18 and older-about 1 in 5 adults-suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year” (medicinenet.com, n.d.). Roughly, this means that more than 18 million of the American population has experienced any of the mental illnesses that cause disability such as bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, and/major depression, among others. However, despite the severity of the situation, it is surprising that about 17% of this population (higher than 7.5 million) of all adult Americans are uninsured and underinsured when it comes to mental health services (mentalhealthamerica.net, 2017). However, these records also say that these numbers differ based on the state’s access to free insurance such as Medicare. In those states with Medicaid services, only 13% of all the adults with mental illnesses are uninsured as compared to 19% for those without. All in all, this provides an idea of where we are right now. Where do we want to be? In two years time, we are hoping that we could increase the number of patients who is insured or at least provide free services for them through free clinics and sessions. Nevertheless, with a budget of roughly 15 million, we are hoping that we could provide insurance and free consultation services and decrease this number by at least 8%. All in all, we are hoping that with our concerted efforts, resources, and time we could reduce the underserved population of American adults with mental health illnesses by more than seven-hundred twenty thousand individuals. How do we get there The number provided above refers to the population that would be treated and cured without any recurrence. This is particularly big, especially considering that one of the reasons for the increase through time is due to the repetition of the number of patients who could only afford one checkup and medication for one treatment without any follow-ups. Nonetheless, to get there, unified efforts with the government, hospitals, and the NGO’s would be needed. And because of the complexity and possible high-level of bureaucracy within these organizations, ‘coordination centers’ that would serve as the hub for information sharing, plan dissemination, and communication would be established. This includes sharing of patient records and statistics, coordination of any events that would need volunteers, and even analysis of data by the administrative body of this project. Also, these coordination centers would also be responsible for the unified advertising that would run throughout all of the facilities and stakeholders. By having this a much more significant impact could be made. How do we measure progress Lastly, to measure progress, an analysis of the number of previously underinsured patients who have been served would be measured on a quarterly basi...