Healthcare Consumerism Of The 21st Century

Many selections of healthcare plans are available for consumers to choose from to match their own personal needs, preferences and budget. The health care system is most often complex, inconsistent and costly. To maintain and improve the business, healthcare organizations are continuously innovative and evolving to meet the demands of consumers. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a case study of UnitedHealthcare Group, what they are about, their network and resource management, their view on nursing and how they satisfy their patients.

"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system are not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in

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.

Partners HealthCare is a non-profit, health system located in Boston that created a data based transformation (Davenport, 2013). It integrated a new system that aligned the participating organizations to cohesively run as one and to help shape the future of the organization. The system didn’t stop there as it was responsible for bettering the patient financing experience and the delivery of healthcare information to other organizations (Davenport, 2013). The initial goal of the organization was making patient care more affordable and accountable by providing integrated, evidence based, patient-oriented care.

There have been many studies performed focusing on the rising costs of health care and some of the findings state that the rising cost of healthcare premiums is a worldwide problem. However, I believe they are higher in the U.S. In 2015, U.S. health care costs were $3.2 trillion. That makes healthcare one of the largest U.S. industries, equaling 17.8 % of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in comparison to the late 1960s; where healthcare costs were only $27 billion, or 5% of the GDP, which averaged $9,990 per person each year. The main reason for the rising cost of healthcare is a combination of government policies and lifestyles changes. Examples included lack of coverage or costly coverage, lack of available coverage for

The United States health care system is lacking the needs to create a reliable system to achieve quality, access, cost, and educate for the consumers. Despite the efforts of the government to find a common ground to meet the standard for the societies, the system has yet to have a major improvement. These issues must be reexamined to fix the broken system. The United States health care expenditure is another issue that needs to be addressed to achieve the future goals of the healthcare system in the United States. Healthcare societies will need to interact differently by incorporating consumer’s empowerment, technology, and education to meet the future goals of the health care system. Also, the consumer must be highly educated on the purpose of preventive care to lower the risk of chronic diseases which account for a lot health care spending. The process of correcting the United States health care system will take time and effort from all individual to achieve greatness.

A powerful force for change can be created by embracing transparency. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, “transparency is a broad-scale initiative enabling consumers to compare quality and the price of health care services so they can make their own informative choices among doctors and hospitals. This initiative is laying the foundation for pooling and analyzing information about procedures, hospitals and physicians services. In order to create value driven health care, there are four steps to turn raw data into

The high cost of healthcare continues to rise and many in the United States are optimistic for health information technology to reduce and improve our current situation. Health IT encompasses a broad array of new technologies designed to manage and share health-related information. When properly implemented, these systems can help coordinate patient care, reduce medical errors, and improve administrative efficiency. Therefore, implementing a Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) will help the National Health Information Network (NHIN) achieve their goals in improving quality of care for the citizens of the United States. Thus, in order for the health IT to deliver on its promise, several obstacles must be overcome.

The digital platform is structured around two pillars: firstly, Healthify must ensure the highest standard of privacy and security in handling sensitive health information. Secondly, since the aim of doc.com is to unify all of Canada’s health care providers under one platform, Healthify must ensure redundancy, data safety, and extremely minimal down time. Should a problem similar to that affecting the Phoenix payroll software occur, the healthcare system would be crippled. In order for it to be effective, stakeholders must be confident in doc.com’s performance. Given that doc.com will handle vast amounts of personal information, the platform will be closed. Open sourcing can be beneficial for certain pieces of software,

“The amount people pay for health insurance increased 30 percent from 2001 to 2005, while income for the same period of time only increased 3 percent.” (Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). The rising cost of healthcare is a huge problem in America today. In this paper I will analyze the different issues and causes for the increase in cost.

The thought process behind consumer-driven health plans is that consumer activities can be improved in ways that will lessen the cost and

The definition of consumerism is the promotion of the consumer’s interest (Merriam-Webster, 2016) . With the adoption of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Consumerism has started to enter a whole new realm. When talking about consumerism, most individuals will bring forth the thought of buying materialistic items. Cars, Shoes, and clothing are all examples that most think of when they hear the word consumerism. The ACA has brought forth a new insight into the meaning of consumerism. The shopping of and for insurance as well as bargain hunting for health care providers. This does not mean that there are flyers arriving in the mail to pick a particular provider. However, that is an option that some could see in the future.

As you requested at our September 25 meeting, I have research numerous techniques of keeping health care information organized. The program that has been used for years to keep the patient’s health record protected, seems to have numerous of glitches. As many of you know we are known for keeping our customers at our best interest, I would appreciate your input on which programs would you feel comfortable working with.

Indeed, there are a plethora of acronyms to encode, store, and recall. The acronyms are so close in alphabetical sequence; a consumer could easily get healthcare plans confused. Dr. David Grazier author of “How Capitalism Can Save American Healthcare” interviewed a colleague named Bob, who agreed that healthcare is too complicated, he shares “the confusion--the prices are inscrutable, the ever-rising costs, the questionable quality, the chaotic lack of information. That is the micro-level of healthcare” (Grazier).

The concept of health services marketing is centered on “the analysis, planning, implementation, and control of carefully formulated programs designed to promote voluntary exchanges of values with target markets with the purpose of achieving organizational objectives (Longest et al. 2000, p 358). The marketing department of any health care organization requires knowledge of the current and future needs and desires of the target market, which will allow strategic planners to determine services and products that can be offered. An assessment of the target markets