Terms Comparison Paper
HCS/552
February 4, 2013
John J. Schibler
Terms Comparison Paper
Health care economics involves making plenty of choices. Individuals, groups, businesses, and organizations choose how to use resources . Economics and health care are linked, because health care professionals apply economics in their everyday professional activities. They are able to do this through resource allocation. Any health care organization has to plan out how they will use their resources to their advantage. Health care economics are able to incorporate terms like cost, quality, and resources. In this paper, I will compare these terms as they relate to health care economics. In this paper, I will also explain how they
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Quality may also have many different meanings. Quality in health care economics means the superiority of something. This can also mean the best of something. Quality in health care can be determined by determining if the health care is a great fit for the person. Quality of health care can be considered as the right treatment for the right illness, and also delivering health care at the right time. Quality in health care economics means to give the best health care possible. Getzen (2007), states that medicine often involves life and death situations (p.12). In these situations, quality is crucial and quantity is irrelevant (Getzen, 2007). Quality cannot simply be added up or multiplied to arrive at a total spending limit. In medical care, getting more ounces or pounds or boxes or whatever is usually not very important, but getting higher quality is.
When referring to health care economics, “cost” refers to the funds that are used to deliver health care to patients. Cost can also mean the amount of funds used to access health care or to deliver health care (Getzen, 2007). It is applied in many different ways such as, health care professionals applying economic principles like cost benefit analysis, or cost effect analysis to determine if the choice is good or bad. The principles help the government to provide the best intervention in health care (Getzen, 2007). In conclusion, all the terms are interlinked when discussing health care
When contemplating health care policy changes, several economic issues in health care must be considered. These include the financial issues affecting the health sector and have an impact on health policies. Policy makers face unending challenges due to the health sector revenues that are always rising. Another challenge is decreased funding and failure of the health insurance services.
There is a growing trend in the United States called pay-for-performance. Pay-for-performance is a system that is used where providers are compensated by payers for meeting certain pre-established measures for quality and efficiency (What is Pay-for-Performance, n.a.). We are going to be discussing what pay-for-performance is. There are different aspects of pay-for-performance which include; the effects of reimbursement by this approach, the impact cost reductions has on quality and efficiency of health care, the affects to the providers and patients, and the effects on the future of health care.
The debate of cost verse care in the United States (U.S.) health care system is a conversation that has to continue. The stakeholders and policy makers should continuoulsy work to adjust cost based on a compassionate care model to bring the highest quality of care to U.S. patients. Continual adjustments are needed at all levels of our health care system to sustain care coordination. The practical health care model can guide the cost side while a compassionate care model has to be used to counter. Both sides can join to structure a functional cost effective healthcare system. The three most important aspects to understand when making healthcare decisions in the U.S. are economics, research, and ethics.
The cost analysis is used for side effects, illnesses, and interventions/programs. The cost analysis includes the monetary analysis of communicable diseases, outbreaks, cancers, and interventions/programs.
(2014, March 28). The Economics of Health Care Quality and Medical Errors. Retrieved May 25, 2017, from http://www.wolterskluwerlb.com/health/resource-center/articles/2012/10/economics-health-care-quality-and-medical-errors
Stanik-Hutt, Newhouse, White, Johantgen, Bass, Wilson, Fountain, Steinwachs, Heindel, & Weiner. (2013). Documented that “quality is the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of attaining desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge” (pg. 492). However, the patient outcomes become the final measure of quality as they imitate the influence of both structures and process of care (Stanik-Hutt, et al. 2013).
There is not “should” here with regards to the deliverance of quality of and value. Provides “doing” this will see defined framework not only for the performance within their practice, but for how much it is driving progress as well. Value is not a word coined to drive patients into practices, but one defined to show them proven results through measured outcomes. While this is still a misunderstood concept within many practices, that doesn’t mean it isn’t something that can’t easily be translated into quality of care and its relation to cost measurement.
the resources in health care are very limited. Cost is a barrier that can cause difficulties in the access of
Against a background of increasing demands on limited resources, health economics is exerting an influence on decision making at all levels of health care. Health economics seeks to facilitate decision making by offering an explicit decision making framework based on the principle of efficiency. It is not the only consideration but it is an important one and practitioners will need to have an understanding of its basic principles and how it can impact on clinical decision making.
Our lesson and textbook readings this week list quality, efficiency, and cost as three of the drivers of high performance healthcare systems (CCN, 2017; Mason, Gardner, Outlaw, & O’Grady, 2016). Do quality improvements projects equate to higher healthcare costs, or do they decrease costs by reducing adverse outcomes and readmission rates and increase efficiency? Do reductions in cost translate to a reduction in the quality of care? It is with good reason that Hussey, Wertheimer, and Mehrotra (2013) state that the connection between the quality and cost of healthcare is one of the most debated subjects in healthcare today. In their systematic review of 61 studies, the authors found only a small to moderate relationship between quality and
It is pertinent to understand why the word “quality” important and what makes it relevant to patient care and service. One can imagine that the innovation in technology is expanding faster than the
The payments are compared with the national average for each of these conditions. Furthermore, the payment measures along with the patient outcomes are used to assess the hospital’s value of care.
Healthcare can be complex and have many parts with ensuring the most quality and efficient care that are being recommended to all care providers. The economics in healthcare is a study of what goes on behind decision making and what people value and how they make their decisions based on the things they value. The goal of an economic study in that regard is to find out how to make health more valuable than other things people could be spending their time, money and energy on when looking at the access economic policy recommendations for healthcare stakeholders.
Cost-benefit, cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analyses are forms of economic evaluation which are useful in health economics for comparing costs and allocating resources. Health economics is widely relevant to governments and the health sector in implementation of new policy, as it concerns the allocation of resources in the context of a limited budget, or 'scarcity'. Economic evaluation is a potential tool for setting priorities in health, though it is only one of many potential criteria, including overall budget and public attitudes and wants. Economic evaluation is already in use in some settings, such as in pharmaceutical company proposals for government subsidisation, but there is room for expansion across the field of
With planning and cost projections, a cost analysis can help determine the level of funding necessary to achieve a desired change. When assessing efficiency, cost analysis makes it possible to assess the efficiency of programs by comparing cost profiles from equally effective programs and identifying cost categories for further efficiency studies (“Cost analysis: introduction,”). With assessing priorities, cost analysis is helpful in that it provides information on the health resource allocation. When looking at accountability through a cost analysis, it allows one to know how the funds are spent and whether they are spent as intended (“Cost analysis: introduction,”). Finally, with assessing equity, cost analysis can help one assess how health resources are distributed among various population groups (“Cost analysis: introduction,”).