Capital Expenditures

Arcathia Health Care Organization (HCO) is an organization whose current holdings include a 250-bed hospital, three walk-in clinics, a home health care agency, a rehab facility, and 10 satellite doctors’ offices with a total of 50 doctors working in the satellite offices. Arcathia HCO has a capital investment budget of $50 million for the next three years. They have a list of capital investment options that total $100 million that are possible for the organization to pursue. These options are as follows:
• $10 million to start 10 new walk-in clinics across the community, to include facility build out, three years of salaries for staffing, and marketing the expansion of services. Locations for the new clinics will be in low-income, median-income, and upper-income areas of the community. There will be two clinics in the low-income areas, four clinics in the median-income area, and four in the upper income areas.
• $5 million for a new electronic health record system that will serve all providers across the organization.
• $5 million for cybersecurity automation.
• $15 million for a new robotic surgical system plus the cost of 5 years of salary for two physicians trained to operate the system. Additionally, the costs include an update to the operating room to accommodate the new system.
• $30 million to purchase and renovate a 100-bed hospital building that was closed 6 months previously due to the current owners losing its Medicare and Medicaid funding. The hospital is located in a suburban community approximately 20 miles away from the Avalon Health Care Organization hospital.
• $5 million to purchase and renovate a hospice facility.
• $5 million to build a clinical laboratory that will run disease-specific tests for cancer patients.
• $25 million to purchase private properties surrounding the existing hospital, raze the existing homes, and build a new structure to house a state-of-the-art birthing center.
Address the following in your initial discussion post:
Select the capital investment projects you would recommend to the hospital leadership. Provide your rationale for the choices made.
Discuss any ethical considerations related to your expenditure choices. Address a minimum of two ethical considerations in your post. They can be from the following list, or you may discuss other ethical issues not identified here:
o Use of data (e.g., quantitative and qualitative information) and analytics (e.g., statistical analysis of the data to reveal patterns, correlations, and cause-and-effect relationships) and the affect it has on patients
o Safeguarding patient privacy
o Equal access to treatments
o Reconciling patient care decisions with fiscal responsibility
o Implementing artificial intelligence and robotics
o Devising ethical responses to pandemics and other widespread medical emergencies (AdventHealth University, 2020)
o Equitable patient care
o Impact of expansion, both advantageous and detrimental (e.g., increase in jobs versus negative impact on marginalized populations), to the surrounding community