World Health Case Study

Defensive medicine has also contributed to the over-utilization of healthcare services. Providers tend to order unnecessary tests, medications, and procedures in order to evade malpractice

Rising medical costs are a worldwide problem, but nowhere are they higher than in the U.S. Although Americans with good health insurance coverage may get the best medical treatment in the world, the health of the average American, as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality, is below the average of other major industrial countries. Inefficiency, fraud and the expense of malpractice suits are often blamed for high U.S. costs, but the major reason is overinvestment in technology and personnel.Health care costs are far higher in the United States than in any other advanced nation, whether measured in total dollars spent, as a percentage of the economy, or on a per capita basis. And health costs here have been rising significantly faster

Rising health care costs have caused a national crisis, and all agree we must embrace reform. President Obama has initiated his national health care plan in the hopes of decreasing some of the inflated costs. When attempting to resolve this issue, one must always address the root of the problem. A large portion of these inflationary costs stem from malpractice lawsuits, and so begins the debate for tort reform: legislation which would cut the costs of health care by reducing the risk of civil litigation and exposure to fraudulent claims (“What”). However, the real factor at hand and the real cause of the industry’s high costs does not come solely from the cost incurred from these lawsuits, but from over-expenditures on the part of

(Weinstein, 2008)” The fear of being sued that is driving physicians to defensive medicine is dramatically increasing healthcare cost and threatens the success of health reform efforts,” says Dr. Manish Sethi, a researcher with the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. (Goodnough, 2009)

Why is the United States spending $3.2 trillion on health care while most of us aren’t really healthy? The healthcare system in the United States is currently insufficient in supplying care to all United States citizens fundamentally as a result of the enormous costs. We currently have a health care system primarily made up and controlled by a private sector, government owned, for-profit, and non-profit organizations that all partake to keep our population healthy and well. This is not actually what is happening in our society as we see more and more of our people getting sick and more of our people not being able to utilize the care they need. Although our life expectancy has increased significantly overtime, our healthcare prices have also shot up drastically and a main reason is because of an improvement of technologies and drugs in the medical field. Pharmaceutical companies are a huge powerhouse in the control of patents on novel drug labels and can often have significant monopolies. When new drugs come out that cure a certain disease these companies pay a large sum of money to produce and sell this medicine to the public. The demand for medicine in patients with an illness is inelastic and so these companies can increase prices extensively and still make great profit. The fundamental problem is that there is a large amount of people in the United States that are getting chronic diseases and ailments that require reactive treatment to cure them. Reactive treatment is

American’s have an inherent distrust of the service industry, healthcare included. Out of fear of malpractice lawsuits, many physicians and healthcare providers to practice often unnecessary and expensive defensive medicine. This drives up costs without the supporting quality outcomes.

Medical malpractice claims have risen dramatically over the past 40 years alongside the financial claim awards (Kessler, 2011). Currently, America’s medical tort system is regulated and enforced primarily by the states (“Medical Tort System,” 2016). The main focus of tort law is to preserve the peace between two parties, to determine fault and discourage wrong doing (Pozgar, 2016). Most physicians today carry medical malpractice insurance to protect themselves from the high defense costs of claims and potential financial awards (Kessler, 2011). As the number of medical claims increase and jury awarded punitive damage skyrocket, medical malpractice insurance premiums have also risen dramatically (Kessler, 2011). Malpractice insurance

In early 2013, an employee of UnityPoint Health-Trinity Wellness departmnet developed a program titled HEART- Helping Everyone Access heaRt Treatment in an effort to combat the above average mortality rates from cardiovascular disease in Rock Island County in Illinois. Deaths from cardiovascular disease were 21% higher in this county compared to the national average at that point in time. After the Trinity employee developed the program, Trinity applied for funding from the AstraZeneca Healthcare Foundation (AZHF) to support the implementation of this program. In October of 2013, AZHF announced that they were awarding Trinity a one year grant for $187,270 to support the implementation of HEART. After Trinity received the grant, the

Diabetes in the Native communities is on a raise, their children are obese because the fast foods are readily available and this is cause them to develop Type II diabetes around or after the age of 35.

Removes restrictions on originating sites and geographic limitations for end stage renal dialysis and telestroke services by 2020

In modern practices, doctors are turning more and more towards defensive medicine. Defensive medicine is defined as the act of referring patients to other doctors or running more tests than medically necessary in order to avoid malpractice lawsuits. Defensive medicine leads to increases in patient health care costs, a decrease in patient wellbeing, an inefficient use of doctors and patients time, and may impact physicians’ well-being. This practice may also not be the best solution to protect both the physicians’ reputation and the patients’ health.

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 reasonable question posed is if the movement of people, food and manufactured goods has such a bad impact on our health, should we take steps to reduce that movement? I don’t believe that is a realistic answer. With international travel on a far greater scale than imaginable a hundred years ago, reducing that flow now would be near impossible.

Currently, there is lack of transparency or lack of legislation surround vector-control and vector-borne illness. Brazil’s government is based on a top-down approach (Associated Press, 2016). The top of the government is occupied by the Legislative Brand which controls the Executive Branch, directly below it. The Executive Branch contains the twenty-seven ministries, one being the Ministry of Health, which is comparable to the Department of Human and Health Services. The Legislative Branch decides the budgets for all ministries along with what operations they are allowed to carry out, that is the Ministry of Health is responsible for developing and organizing plans and policies that will promote, prevent, and facilitate the

In case 4, eliminating polio in Latin America and the Caribbean, polio, one of the most infectious diseases, paralyzed thousands of children every year worldwide before the oral polio vaccine was introduce in 1977. As polio intestinal virus paralysis by invading the central nervous system, the virus exponentially widespread with a series of polio outbreaks up to 15,000 cases and 1750 deaths each year in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1985, Pan American Health organization (PAHO) began a polio eradication campaign in the region for routine immunization by Expanded Programme on Immunization. The program had two crucial objectives: mobilizing financial and social commitments in the region and organizing managerial surveillance to carry out immunization in each country. In a vertical way to set immunization strategies, diverse international organizations such as UNICEF and USAID coordinated Inter-Agency Committee (ICC) for a five-year National Plan of Action. To increase immunization coverage in areas with weak routine health services, all endemic countries in the region performed national vaccine days twice a year to immunize every child under 5. The campaign tackled the disease with house-to-house vaccination in communities reporting polio cases and with low coverage. An extensive surveillance system also helped to track the polio outbreaks with investigating each suspected case within 48 hours. Today polio has been eliminated with continuous monitoring and regional