Health is a complicated concept, and the needs and desires of patients are unique and individual. A national health system needs to meet these desires in the most specific way possible to ensure the best health outcomes for the most people. The goals of the New Zealand health system, as specified in the New Zealand Health Strategy by King in 2000, include providing service that will lead to improved health for all New Zealanders and identified coordination and collaboration between sectors as a major part of this goal. To do this, the New Zealand health system employs gatekeeping. As defined by Bodenheimer & Grumbach (2009), in the healthcare system, gatekeeping refers to the process of determining whether individuals require healthcare beyond the primary level and if so, referring individuals to the specific health services that they require. Primary care involves the basic treatment of common illnesses/medical issues, and is usually performed by an individual’s general practitioner (GP). Uncomplicated but less common illnesses or injuries are treated by specialists at the secondary level (usually in hospitals), and very rare, complicated diseases are treated by subspecialists at the tertiary level. Gatekeeping is done by the first point of contact within the health system and is used in many countries in an attempt to provide structure to the healthcare system and the flow of patients through it (Bodenheimer & Grumbach). As stated by Cumming (2014), the NZ healthcare
The National Health System began in 1948 with the aim to provide free health care for the English thus removing health access inequities. This essay considers two strengths of the NHS, being free health and locally responsive health care and two weaknesses being the financial burden and unprecedented pressure on health care resources.
The Australian healthcare system has been evolving since the beginning of the colonisation of Australia. Today, Australia has an extremely efficient healthcare system although it still has several issues. The influencing factors, structure, and current issues of the Australian healthcare system will be throughly discussed and explained in this essay.
The U.S. health care system is way more complex than what meets the eye. A major difference between the health care system in the U.S. and other nations, is that the U.S. does not have universal health care. Lack of a universal health care opens up the doors for competition amongst insurance, physicians, technology, hospitals and outpatient services.
The Australian health care system is a highly functioning and accessible system based on universal principles of access and equity. In this essay I will discuss the historical evolution and current structure of our health system, identifying current health service models of delivery and look at its strengths, weaknesses, policies and health priorities currently in Australia. I will discuss the roles of government and non-government health services in service provision and funding sources of Australian health. We will get a better insight of the role of standards for residential aged care and look into a broad range of professions that consumers may engage with in health service delivery, their roles and functions of each profession.
The National health services (NHS) provides a comprehensive healthcare services across the entire nation. It is considered to be UK’s proudest institution, and is envied by many other countries because of its free of cost health delivery to its population. Nevertheless, it is often seen as a ‘political football’ as it affects all of us in some way and hence everyone carry an opinion about it (Cass, 2006). Factors such as government policies, funding, number of service users, taxation etc all make up small parts of this large complex organisation. Therefore, any imbalances within one sector can pose a substantial risk on the overall NHS (Wheeler & Grice, 2000). This essay will discuss whether the NHS aim of reducing the nations need
Health care systems are highly complex and require vast resources. Moreover, providing healthcare coverage to all citizens can be challenging for many countries. Different models and theories abound all over the world about how best to provide care and only the most developed countries have adequate resources to truly provide universal coverage to their citizens.
The idea of what the Canadian Health Care system should be varies between the country's three political parties. According to the official website of the New Democratic Party of Canada, the NDP believes that every Canadian citizen should have quality, reliable health care. In fact, the NDP initially created Canada's public health care system. In addition to the current health care system, the NDP is trying to create legislation that would grant free dental and drug coverage for seniors over the age of 65. Lastly, recent debate in both Canada and the United States has been on the subject of whether or not health care should be privatized. It is the belief of the NDP that the privatization of health care would have a negative effect in
The Australian population currently exceeds 20 million, with most of the population located primarily in the cities and along the coast; it also spreads to rural and remote indigenous communities. The Australian Government spends in excess of 66 billion dollars per year on health care, averaging out to approx $3,300 per person. (Medicare Australia 2009)
While many may argue that the Canadian health care system provides equal treatment to every Canadian, evidence shows that this is not the case. There are major discrepancies within the system regarding Indigenous people that need to be addressed including several factors such as: housing issues, stereotypes Aboriginals face and the lack of Aboriginal doctors.
“The Australian health care system is a highly functioning and accessible system based on universal principles of access and equity”.
The NHQDR 2012 is a comprehensive report that implies there are changes that need to occur at multiple levels within the health care system and public policy. The report implies that the health care system needs to become more accessible
Canada’s health care system “can be described as a publicly-funded, privately-provided, universal, comprehensive, affordable, single-payer, provincially administered national health care system” (Bernard, 1992, p.103). Health care in Canada is provincial responsibility, with the Canada Health act being a federal legislation (Bernard, 1992, p. 102). Federal budget cuts, has caused various problems within Medicare such as increased waiting times and lack of new technology. Another problem with Medicare is that The Canada Heath Act does not cover expenditures for prescriptions drugs. All these issue has caused individuals to suggest making Medicare privatized. Although, Canada’s health care system consists of shortcomings, our universal
In line with the majority of other developed countries, the United Kingdom (UK) has offered its citizens a universal health care system that is free at the point of service. Funded primarily by taxation, the system is popular and efficient. However, along with most other health care systems around the world, it faces a series of challenges if it is to maintain viability, in the twenty-first century. These issues include; long waiting times, an aging population, funding challenges and the increasing cost of technology.
A gatekeeper is a primary care provider who acts as an agent for patients. They coordinate medical care so that patient receives appropriate services and also provide referrals to specialists. Typically, primary care physicians include family practitioner, generalist physician and pediatrician. Ideally, gatekeepers are much like family doctors, they focus on the health of the person as a whole instead of a single organ. They help emphasize prevention care and establish appropriate health screening based on the patient. On the hand, there are concerns that the system of gatekeeping makes urgent care inconvenient. The pros and cons surrounding the system of gatekeeping really question its effectiveness. On the other hand, no system is
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) stated that "The health of the individual is almost inseparable from the health of the larger community and that the health of every community in every state and territory determines the overall health status of the nation." It has now become clear that our economy in terms of healthcare insurance is not healthy; the healthcare system in the United States spends 1 cent of every healthcare dollar in the prevention of diseases and 99 cents on the cure. Our healthcare system is the most expensive and yet arguably among the least cost effective in the developed world. Despite the highest per person health care spending among the Organization for Economic Cooperation