The American Health Care Utilization - Essay Example

Health Care Utilization Paper The American healthcare system is facing some significant challenges which indicate that there is an urgent need for reforming some obsolete strategies and infrastructure. The attention has now been focused on 46 million Americans who have not been insured and also on many insured Americans who face rapid increase in their healthcare premiums. Obama and the Congress administration are considering investing in order provide healthcare facilities or insurance to uninsured Americans. Beside this there is also the need of addressing the shortfall in the efficiency and quality of healthcare leading towards poor health outcomes and higher healthcare costs. There is broad evidence about the fact that most of the Americans do not get the healthcare they need, even though the American government spends more money per patient than any other country. The preventive care is being underutilized, resulting in much higher spending on advanced and complex diseases. It is certain that the patients suffering from diabetes, chronic disease, hypertension and heart disease do not receive effective and proven treatment such as self-management services and drug therapies. While many American patients do not receive the necessary care other may receive care that is unnecessary or may even be considered harmful. The patients’ stay in the hospital, visit to the specialists, costs, testing and procedures has been recorded from hospital to hospital and also by different geographical regions. This recorded variation did not show any impact on the health of the population under treatment. In order to reform the healthcare delivery for improving value and quality of care it is important to address the poor quality, escalating cost and the increasing number of Americans who are without any insurance coverage. The reforms must increase the access of the patients to the right care, at the right setting and on right time. The reforms should be based on keeping the patients healthy and preventing avoidable and common complications to a greater extent if possible. The reforms that are thoughtfully constructed would provide greater access to the patients for improving healthcare in comparison to the current system that encourages more procedures, tests and treatments which are unnecessary and harmful. The stakeholders of the American healthcare system involves patients, physicians, nurses and other healthcare staff, employers, hospitals, insurers and regulators. A significant healthcare change that impacts one of the healthcare stakeholders may reshape the whole system. Each of these stakeholders may play their own separate part in achieving the Universal Healthcare System. The healthcare reforms address the problems associated with effective utilization of healthcare services and financial barriers, however there is evidence supporting the fact that health insurance imposes some impact in the perceived barriers and delays to the healthcare services. However beside health insurance several socio-economic determinants such as education, religion, family income, education, etc. may also impose an impact on the willingness of a patient to achieve healthcare targets. One of the basic advantages of health insurance is that it helps patients to timely access the healthcare service (Liabsuetrakul & Oumudee, 2011). Universal health care which is also referred as universal care or universal coverage is a healthcare system that provides financial protection and healthcare to all its citizens without any discrimination. This healthcare system is organized around providing improved access of the patients to the healthcare services, protection from financial risks and improved health outcome. The Universal healthcare system may vary according to degree of the government involvement in providing health insurance and healthcare to its citizens. The current American healthcare system cannot be considered a Universal healthcare system, as the involvement of the government in providing healthcare to its citizens is much low. The rates of healthcare are quite high for the insured as well as the uninsured patients. The government is working to increase the access of the underprivileged citizens towards healthcare; however the efforts of t,he government are not visible enough in order to be classified as Universal healthcare (Barsukiewicz & Raffel, 2010). Few decades ago the role of healthcare professionals was limited to treating patients’ disease and maintaining their medical records. As the result of the establishment of new medical reforms the role of health care professionals is becoming more diverse. Now the healthcare professionals play the role of teachers, managers, leaders, etc. The teaching role of the healthcare professionals is to teach their clients how to detect a disease early by immunization and blood screening and preventing it. They should teach the patient how to develop health practices which include exercise, nutrition and hygiene teachings. The healthcare professional should also teach the patient about the value of health and work with the patient and their families to promote health and wellness and how to prevent illness. If the healthcare professionals want to be effective patients’ educators, they must be aware of the theoretical basis of the education of patients and their family. Theories provide frameworks which are a source of tools for them that can then be adapted to each patient. A combination of theories can be used by healthcare professionals for educating the patients and families for achieving the best results (Woods, 2010). Healthcare reforms provide a consistent approach to the development of management for all the healthcare professionals. The terms manager and leaders can be used interchangeably for the healthcare professional in the changing healthcare environment. Healthcare professionals working as leaders possess good interpersonal and communication skills. However as managers they must be good at coordinating resources, personnel as well as finances, following the rules and meeting the goals of objectives of their hospitals. Research suggests that healthcare institutes should consider progressive patient’s care as the best care model to be adopted by healthcare institutes. According to this care model patients are placed in the units on the basis of their specific needs for care that is determined by the degree of the illness, rather than medical specialty. The model can be simply defined as the organization of nursing and medical care on the basis of care requirement and degree of illness (Models of Nursing Care Delivery, 2013). References Models of Nursing Care Delivery. (2013). Retrieved October 10, 2014, from http://currentnursing.com/nursing_theory/models_of_nursing_care_delivery.html Barsukiewicz, C. K., & Raffel, M. W. (2010). The U.S. health system: Origins and functions. Mason: OH: Cengage Learning. Liabsuetrakul, T., & Oumudee, N. (2011). Effect of health insurance on delivery care utilization and perceived delays and barriers among southern Thai women. BMC Public Health. Woods, C. (2010). The US Healthcare Debate: A History and Implications. Retrieved October 24, 2014, from http://www.e-ir.info/2011/07/29/the-us-healthcare-debate-a-history-and-implications/ Read More