HLT-205Health Care Essay PDF

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1|HealthCare Essay

Health Care Essay: Cost, Access, Quality and the Role Technology Plays Desiree Neeley Grand Canyon University HLT-205 May 10, 2020

2|HealthCare Essay Health Care cost, access, quality, and the role that technology plays is a huge topic in our society today. Whether it was 30 years ago or present day these main topics have always played a role in our health care system. This essay will cover some contributing factors about why costs have gone up and how technology has helped us (especially in this current pandemic) from then until now, as well as, hopefully providing a look into the future as to what healthcare could be like one day. Health Care Costs A new study finds that the cost of health care in the United States increased nearly $1 trillion from 1996 to 2013 and measures the causes behind this immense growth. The study published today in JAMA, reveals that price and “intensity” (variety and complexity) of services accounted for 50% of the increase. “Part of the reason we spend more on health care each year is the nation’s growing and aging population,” “But factors relating to the health system, such as increased price, intensity, and utilization, are driving most of the spending increase.” (Dieleman 2017) There are five different topics that contribute to the rise in health care costs in the United States. First one being, simply there are more people, population increase. Moving on the second factor would be the aging population or the “baby boomers”. The third factor would be changes in disease prevalence or incidence i.e. Covid-19; the fourth factor would be is increase or decreases in how often people use health care services; and finally we have our fifth contributing factor which would be increases in the price and intensity of services. This research measures the impact of these different drivers on the total increase in health care spending and for the increases caused by specific health conditions and types of care. (IHME 2017)

3|HealthCare Essay Things that can be done to address this issue are; giving patients and healthcare consumers more information, lowering the number of medical tests that are not necessary for patients, increasing competition between healthcare providers and letting Medicare negotiate prescription drug costs for consumers. Technology: Cost and Access to Care The feature of cost escalation that should catch our eye most is the role that medical technology plays. Health care economists estimate that 40–50% of annual cost increases can be traced to new technologies or the intensified use of old ones. That makes the control of technology the most important factor in bringing costs down. Patients expect it, doctors are primarily trained to use it, the medical industries make billions of dollars selling it, and the media loves to write about it. (Callahan 2008) Healthcare technology has evolved drastically, but it’s easy to forget just how far the industry has come recently. Enterprise and consumer technologies especially have changed a lot over the decade, getting faster and more complicated with each passing year.(Callahan 2008) Think back to the early 2000’s we just started to text, barely had full keyboards from our phones and now we can literally do just about anything from the devices we carry around with us every day. Everything is at our fingertips and we are able to access information from some of the craziest places ever. I still can’t get over how far the flying experience has come. In the healthcare world, industry professionals had just been introduced to some new advances in medicine and currently with have some technology advances and software that provide test result in the matter of minutes instead of days, weeks and even months.

4|HealthCare Essay Technology has played a huge role in how we do all types of healthcare. The biggest test has been the current Pandemic we are all facing today. With so many different devices and programs out there we have, as a society have been able to streamline patient visits through the virtual world. Patients of all ages are now able to confidentially meet with their provider either through their phones, tablets and computers and if everything is routine, the provider is still able to conduct the examination from a safe distance. The provider can even fax, email or call in any prescriptions the patient may need as well. This is not the only technology advancement though. There are even special “robots” computers that can connect to larger facilities or hospitals so emergency room physicians can connect to specialists and those specialists can give insight into if a patient is having a stroke, what to do, or if they need to be transferred. This is a huge advancement to getting patient access to care quicker.

Quality of Care

Providing quality of care in a health care setting can be very challenging. We as a society, or nation have come a long way from the historical time where you were sick and maybe you will see a doctor in a few days, weeks or even months. Everyone had to become knowledgeable of “home remedies” Cutting across these concepts are the definitional constructs of technical or scientific aspects of care and interpersonal or humanistic elements of care. The epigram that medicine is as much art as science captures the point. Both the “science-” and the “art-of-care” constructs are difficult to define in objective terms and thus are often hard to measure. (Lohr 1998) Yes, we want our nurses and doctors knowing the science of everything and being as competent as possible but the art-of-care is a big deal no matter how far we have come. As far as how things look going forward, I just see more and more advancements with technology maybe

5|HealthCare Essay even to the point that we don’t venture out to doctor offices anymore. With quality care, I see things getting better but the one thing we must not forget and that is the “human” factor. All care could be superb in all areas but if the one providing the actual patient care isn’t providing that empathy, or nurturing care it will never matter how good everything else was.

6|HealthCare Essay

References Daniel Callahan, “Health Care Costs and Medical Technology,” in From Birth to Death and Bench to Clinic: The Hastings Center Bioethics Briefing Book for Journalists, Policymakers, and Campaigns, ed. Mary Crowley (Garrison, NY: The Hastings Center, 2008), 79-8 https://www.thehastingscenter.org/briefingbook/health-care-costs-and-medical-technology/ Dieleman, Joseph M.D. -New Study Explains Why U.S. Health Care Spending Increased $1 Trillion November 7, 2017 Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington http://www.healthdata.org/news-release/new-study-explains-why-us-health-carespending-increased-1-trillion Lohr, Kathleen, Yordy, Karl, and Their, Samuel Spring 1998 Current Issues in Quality of Care https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.7.1.5...