One change in healthcare that is likely to happen is the increasing transition to a more quality and value-based approach. This is in part due to reimbursement model changes regarding patient outcomes as well as ethical concerns about the large number of preventable errors that continue to occur in our current system (Sachs, 2015). Between 210,000 and 400,000 deaths happen yearly due to medical errors in addition to approximately 4,000,000 to 8,000,000 errors that cause serious harm. It is clear that high costs are not providing excelling results. As our current system continues to shift in this value-based direction, we will likely see even further changes in how and where care and treatments are provided (Phillips, 2015). For instance, home visits are beginning to be utilized to provide care for minor and chronic conditions. As in centuries past, basic health care is starting to be delivered in a patient’s home. Hospital care is expensive comparatively, and the risk for complications such as medical errors, infection, and other hospital acquired conditions increases. The use of urgent care centers is also growing rapidly as they can provide quicker, cheaper, and equally effective services to individuals than the emergency room which used to care for these patients very ineffectively. This trend towards more cost-effective, value oriented care can also be seen in the increasing use of lower cost outpatient surgery centers performing procedures that used to be performed in
In the United States alone there are 98,000 deaths per year caused by low quality health care (Ignatavicius & Workman, 2013, pg. 2). This statistic is disturbing because the errors that resulted in death were errors that were preventable. The intent of this chapter is to bring awareness to health care providers that are able to make a change in the quality of health care. In current practice patients are subjected to medication errors, preventable hospitalizations, premature death, and poor care provided due to racial, ethical, or low-income factors.
Having access to quality healthcare is major part of one’s life however the cost of care has been on the rise over the past decades and continue to rise every day due to many situation such
By 2001 it was brutally apparent that the U.S. Health Care system was in dire need of a reform in regards to quality and patient safety. Following two separate reports issued by The Institute of Medicine (IOM), To Err is Human (1999) and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health Care System for the 21st Century(2001) the U.S. Congress requested the IOM review quality processes across multiple government funded health care programs. And understandably, “these reports described America’s healthcare system as a tangled, highly fragmented web that often wastes resources by duplicating efforts, leaving unaccountable gaps in coverage, and failing to build on the strengths of all health professionals” (Brown J., p. I – 15, 2013). Thus, the Committee on the Quality of Health Care in America released 6 aims to address key dimensions that require improvement in our health care system. These aims propose that our system needs to strive to be more Safe, Effective, Patient-Centered, Timely, Efficient, and Equitable (STEEEP). All of which were created to help overhaul our current health care system and, more importantly, narrow the quality chasm.
The change to value based purchasing has bought many challenges to the healthcare industry. With the change to value-based purchasing for payments, it has changed how healthcare organization receive payment and delivery care. The advantage of have value based purchasing is that it improves the quality of care while reducing cost in an effort of aligning patient’s with the right provider and treatment plan (Minemyer, Jun 29, 2016). However, there are many disadvantages, such as it increases the patient volume as counteracting the reduction of procedure volume (Brown, B. & Crapo, 2016). Also it makes providers more responsible for care that is beyond the expected treatment of care needed (Minemyer, Jun 29, 2016). With quality measures tied
Our healthcare system is in a state of constant change. Just as the industry was adapting to the demands of countless healthcare reforms, the fate of regulations like the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and others like it, dangle in the wind. As the country transitions to a newly appointed administration, there is an increasing level of uncertainty among industry leaders. Federal, state, and local mandates continue to drive the need to improve the quality, costs, and outcomes of care which add to an already overburdened and burnout system. These coupled with our highly secular society who is primarily focused on the treating and curing illness through advanced technology, medications, and procedures has resulted in a
Better quality health care will affect the life expectancy rate and the expenses. Patients expect doctors and hospitals to deliver the best possible care. The major issue with the quality of health care is “medical errors result from faulty systems… not individuals” (Hughes). In order to ensure patient safety and positive outcomes, hospitals have to assess for themselves the various different aspects they need to improve on. For example, hospitals could have a shortage ranging from staff, medication, or equipment. Through universal health care, “doctors… can focus on patient care”, which will aid in improving treatments for each individual (White). Along with this, there will be more government funding to improve hospitals as a means to help patients. Countries under universal health care coverage have a better quality of care, while the “United States [is ranked] last overall” (“Right to Health Care”). These benefits of medical treatments of universal health care are vital to American
It is shocking to know that every year 98000 patients die from medical errors that can be prevented(Kohn, L. T., Corrigan, J. M., & Donaldson, M. S. (Eds.), 2000). Medical errors are not a new issue in our healthcare system; these have been around for a long time. Hospitals have been trying to improve quality care and patients safety by implementing different strategies to prevent and reduce medical errors for past thirty years. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer in America (Allen, 2013). In addition medical errors are costing our healthcare system an estimated $735 billion to $980 billion (Andel, Davidow, Hollander, & Moreno, 2012).
In healthcare system the highest quality medical care means” the greatest benefit to patients at the lowest possible cost” (Burke & Ryan, 2014, p. 3). “The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) defines quality health care as doing the right thing for the right patient, at the right time, in the right way to achieve the best possible results” (NCQA, p. 3) According to American college of physicians, the single most reason for the health care cost is higher healthcare spending. There are several factors involved in the high health care cost such as inappropriate use of technologies, lack of patient centered care, overuse of the reimbursement, excessive price for health care facilities, increased organizational cost, and health accountability are some of the reasons for increased health care cost. In order to decrease the cost, the available health resources be used judiciously and equitably. Understanding these factors and identifying the potential factors of health care costs assists in providing quality and effective services and thus improves the health outcomes (ACP, 2009).
Competition between providers has caused physicians and hospitals to offer the most current healthcare technologies and modern, eye-catching settings has contributed to increasing healthcare costs, as well as providing unwarranted highly technical services (Shi & Singh, 2015). Renovations of the physical settings and the acquisition of expensive technologies elevated healthcare services prices to cover the additional costs of providing high technical services and attracting clients.
Decreasing healthcare “cost” has been repeatedly debated for decades now. Despite tremendous efforts to reduce cost, the US Healthcare System is still struggling to deliver an effective and affordable level of care. Not only the cost of healthcare is higher in the U.S., there is also much waste due to unnecessary laboratory, radiology & other investigations, unwanted hospitalizations, procedures, longer hospital stay, preventable emergency room visits, and a lot of medications waste, that costs the U.S. $750 billion annually according to IOM in 2012 (Glicksman E. , 2015).
Quality health care is an issue in America for everyone, despite our numerous tests and advances in technology. In his article, “Overkill,” Atul Gawande argues against a common assumption that our healthcare system is the best because of these medical advances. In fact, Gawande claims that our health care provides much unnecessary care that often causes harm and that costs a lot . He follows that claim by redefining “low-value care” as “no-value care” and provides considerable scientific data along with his own experience with his own patients to support his claim. He also states logical reasons by referring to expert authorities who critique our health care by viewing it from an economic perspective: like talking about information asymmetry where a doctor is more informed than the patient, thus the doctor has more power over the patient. All of these emphases strongly defend his controversial claim. But what stands out most is how Gawande uses several stories showing vastly different outcomes, depending on how informed the patient and doctor are including offering non invasive treatments. We need to explore how his unusual storytelling strategy exposes how surgeons and patients should care more about quality than the mere quantity of tests and what alternatives are available to change the unnecessary over testing and over-diagnosis which prevent good health care.
An issue in the medical world today is that expensive tests and procedures are being done unnecessarily. In his article “Overkill” Atul Gawande, surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, and a professor in the department of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health argues that as someone in the medical profession he sees how unnecessary some medical procedures are. “The researchers called it “low-value care.” But, really, it was no-value care” (Gawande). Many people today are easily influenced by the power of the internet it’s as easy as googling a symptom and and coming up with a diagnosis and going into doctors offices and demanding a test or procedure, what these people don’t know is the cost of these tests
Second, under a free medical system, health care professionals will easily make medical errors during the treatment. Looking at the fact of Switzerland’s health care system, which is one of the models of “free medical care”, Alphonse Crespo, M.D, who is a Swiss orthopaedic surgeon and research director of the Institute Constant de Rebecque, Lausanne, Switzerland, states, “A 2007 survey revealed rates of “critical incidents” of up to 40% at the university hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne.”(11) One example of “critical incidents” is the death of a fourth-year-old girl in a public French hospital. She died of a fever because of incorrect medical treatment (11). Clearly, the quality of health care will decline if free medical care is approved.
The healthcare system plays a key role in the economic stability of our country, as every year trillions are spent in attempt to combat disease and health issues that plaque humanity. As it makes up a significant amount of the expenditures in the economy, so the costs associated with health care of those in pain from illness and injury, including lost productivity, increased need of assistance in living and also the cost of death in some cases, is important to the economic stability and over all standard of living in our country. The key to economic prosperity is balancing the need for care with the costs of illness to keep as many people healthy and well without breaking the bank of collective society. The costs of healthcare have been increasingly problematic in recent years with so many issues surrounding the current system. With the “total health care spending in the United States expected to reach $4.8 trillion in 2021, up from $2.6 trillion in 2010 and $75 billion in 1970, meaning that health care spending will account for nearly 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), or one-fifth of the U.S. economy, by 2021” (Aetna). With this in mind it is apparent that as we look at the trillion-dollar industry of the medical community it seems that it needs to be a major focus of our nation as a whole and with the many issues come many creative solutions. First let us analyze the reasons behind the current cost and the major problems facing this industry and than discus what
The healthcare system has seen significant change over the past decade. This is due to improved technology, healthcare reform, and the economic crisis (Hendren, 2010). With the changes that are occurring,