Acute Cost Of Care Essay

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are one of the major cause of death and is one among the 10 chronic diseases in the world2, 3. Center for Disease control and prevention (CDC) confirms the same for the United States (US). Recent figures (2014) showed that chronic diseases were the cause of 75% of deaths in the US, and approximately 25% of those deaths were due to CVDs4. Chronic diseases consume 86% of the total US health care expenditure whereas, CVDs occupy 17%5. Recent reports indicate that 1 out of every 3 individuals is dying due to a CVD and take up 1 out of every 6 dollars spent on healthcare in the United States. Scientists projected that cardiovascular healthcare expenditure is going to triple

Our Healthcare system is clearly business based according to the article “Cost Conundrum” and on the movie “Escape Fire”. In the movie it had an impacting story of an older lady who had heart problems where she went to a doctor and they were going to charge her thousands of dollars were later she went to a different doctor and they charged her a couple hundred dollars for t he same procedure. I couldn’t believe that in a different office she would get the same procedure done for a lot cheaper than in the other doctor’s office. Also, it surprised me how the medical staff are giving all these medications to our soldiers were they are clearly

It is mainly focused on the chronically ill and management of depression, diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. This depends heavily on the nurses as well and without the support staff the education, coaching and self management would slack in improvements that are needed. In this model, the nurses are becoming almost like the nurse practitioner assistants being that they now review charts to monitor for breaks in care that could be missed and take an active role in the treatment plans. By reducing the risk by adopting medical homes in health care, the costs and unnecessary utilization of hospital and emergency services, improvements in clinical measures a increased access to primary care, and an increased satisfaction among patients, staff and clinicians showed over multiple times in the research studies of improvement (Wando, Sheth, Mleczko, Choi, Sharma, March

With the aging population at an all time high and continuing to climb there had been a spike in patients with chronic illness. Due to this the way in which patients are cared for and educated must change, chronic illness follows the patient out of the healthcare setting and they must be aware of how to care for themselves and their illness at home. This is a drastic shift in what healthcare used to be about, treating the acute illness. The Center for Disease Control defines acute illnesses as, severe and sudden in onset, for example a broken bone or the common cold. A chronic condition by contrast is a long- developing syndrome like osteoporosis or diabetes (CDC.gov). Treatment and education of a patient with chronic illness is at high demand and nurses must now gear their care towards these needs.

My understanding of chronic care vs. acute care, is basically the time difference in each of them and the different process of treating them/dealing with them. With acute illnesses, these last no longer than 6 months. As with chronic illnesses, it can last a lifetime and usually continue to get worse as time goes on. For example, an acute illness would be a girl coming in who tested positive for a urinary tract infection, and a chronic illness would be diabetes mellitus. The difference between these two are that one is short term, while one is long term. Because acute and chronic illnesses have different time frames, these illnesses are treated differently. Usually with an acute illness, if it isn’t an exacerbation or a chronic infection, such

Chronic conditions are associated with aging as concluded by (Niccoli & Partridge, 2012). As growth occurs, the body cells tend to decrease in function and become susceptible to diseases. However, individual lifestyle and comorbidity, such as smoking and obesity could lead to early chronic diseases such as Hypertension, Diabetes Mellitus (DM), Respiratory failure, and bone diseases (Fabbri, Luppi, Beghe, & Rabe, 2008). Caring for patients with such complex conditions could be challenging for nurses as well as other healthcare professional and could lead to poor care coordination, having to prioritize the care and consider the consequences of their actions and inactions (Schoen, Osborn, Squires, Doty, Pierson, & Applebaum,

What makes an a acute problem different form a chronic problem? Simply put acute is all of a sudden and/or unexpected and chronic happens over a period of time.

Every year, the United States spends eight times as much money on unnecessary health-care costs as the Pentagon spent for each year of its operations in Iraq. About 30 cents of every dollar spent on healthcare in the United States is wasted in some fashion. The massive annual waste is the takeaway from a new report by the Institute of Medicine, which estimates that the country loses some $750 billion annually to medical fraud, inefficiencies, and other siphons in the health-care system.

Prior to the 1980s and the advent of managed care, all hospitals set uniform prices for their services. But negotiating prices separately for each payer has become standard practice and depends largely on the bargaining power of the payer or employer. Bargaining power, or clout, depends both on the size of patient population represented as well as the ability of the negotiating group to channel patients to that particular facility. Payers and employers negotiate rates with preferred facilities and then often restrict the benefits they will pay to non-network or non-preferred providers in an effort to encourage patient populations to seek care from facilities where the preferred rates have been negotiated. The

In the United States today, our healthcare system focuses largely on serving acute illnesses and managing acute needs. However, many times patient’s chronic illnesses go unnoticed. Acute illnesses are usually short lived and the goal for treatment is to fix what is causing the equilibrium in the patient’s body so they can return to a normal life. However, while the United States health care system focuses primarily on providing treatment for acute illnesses, chronic diseases account for 59 percent of deaths and 46 percent of diseases worldwide (Coleman et. al, 2009).

Acute is a disease that last for just a short time but can begin rapidly and have intense symptoms. Chronic disease produces symptoms that last only for three months or more. Acute disease can be mild,serve or even fatal. Acute ear infections, sinus affections, bronchitis, stomach flu, UTI. It indicates how long the disease is going to last and how quickly it can develop as well. It can include as colds, influenza or strep throat. Chronic disease it can last for a long period of time and it can be like acute disease mild, serve or fatal too but, it can include cancer, heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes, digestive problems, weight gain, and skin rashes. With Chronic disease it can be develop over time. Many of the illness can occur

In general, the terms disease and illness have the same meaning and can be used interchangeably; however, there is still a clear difference between them. Disease refers to the pathophysiology that leads to patient's body

A performance scorecard is constituted by an organization of patient outcomes into groups based on the various actions that predict the patient outcome. Acute care geriatric patients seeking attention from the facility were considered for this study. The study also targeted the caregivers attending to those geriatric patients with acute conditions. The greatest challenge of forming the scorecard is decision-making on the aspects of performance to be included in the performance scorecard. When identification and selections of objectives are done carefully, then the structure becomes useful in organizing the measures. On a routine perspective, the scorecard is expected to measure daily operational success, while in the long-run, evaluate the strategic success in preparation for the future. Below is an example of a performance scorecard for acute care patients.

Acute and chronic illness are different in many ways. Chronic illness comes on slow and lasts long, but with acute illness comes on fast and goes away fast. For example, chronic illness can increase your chances by your behavior and environment. Also with some chronic diseases, you can go symptom free but still live with the chronic illness the rest of your life. With acute, it starts suddenly and does not last that long. Some examples are the common flu and colds with the acute illness some treated with god home care or antibiotics.

The first reason for managing population health is to improve the health status of populations. This is accompanied by focusing on prevention through preventative care. Many diseases and chronic conditions are highly preventable with the understanding and action of utilizing preventative services (WRF, n.d.). As people are living longer and health services and research are improving, the chances of having an overall better general health throughout a lifetime are greater through preventive care. Not only do these diseases cause a diminished quality of life for many patients, they out a huge financial burden on the healthcare system. Health Care costs are rising due to more people needing treatment for chronic conditions as