As many people said, addressing the quality of care in today’s era of health reform is neither a top-down nor bottom-up method. This is because successful implementation of any health care reform law will be contingent on the ability of all partaking parties ( ie. federal government, the states, health care payers, hospitals, industry, medical societies, physicians, and patients) to work efficiently and collaboratively and tackle the issues from all isles of the wall. Finding common ground may seem idealistic and perhaps unachievable, but is actually required given the indeterminate future ahead.
United States total health care spending per capita (GDP) is the highest of all industrialized countries but is not the best of life expectancy rate among some nations including developed countries. According to the Gapminder (2013), when selecting United States as the country of interest and plotted Y-axis-Total Health Spending (% of GDP) and X-axis- Life Expectancy (years); we can see that Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Spain, Austria, etc. scored better with better life expectancy rate than United States scoring 78 years.
Secondly, according Gapminder (2013), United States spends more per capita (GDP) in relation to its mental health of suicide per (100,000 people) which proved to be more than other industrialized countries like Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and majority of the European countries, and including Brazil, Jordan, etc.
When I plotted many of the health-related issues on Gapminder Chart, concerning United States spending either per person or per capita or per GDP, I see some problems facing the quality of care for the majority of healthcare industry. The approach to quality of healthcare in United States should be organizational, focus on community health improvements, individualistic and scientific/problem solving approach to the clients or citizens. According to the Measure of America (n.d), U.S. States that ranked best in life expectancy rate include Hawaii, Minnesota, Connecticut, California, and Massachusetts. The worse States according to the same source proved to have listed Mississippi, West Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Chan A. (2011) identified detailed state by state percentage of population who has suffered mental illnesses. The detailed lists showed Rhode Island, Utah, Idaho, West Virginia and Indiana with the most percentage for exhibiting mental health issues; while Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Florida, and Illinois experienced lesser forms of mental health. Likewise, the report defined mental health issues as any social, mental and expressive syndrome that is identifiable from the DSM-IV.
In other instances and when comparing infant mortality with life expectancy in the United States; according to the Harvard Science, Science and Engineering at Harvard University, made a news report on the Infant Mortality down, ailments persist and stated, “the United States made dramatic health gains during the 20th century, as shown by average life expectancy rocketing from age 48 in 1900 to 77.7 in 2006. Similarly, infant mortality dropped from 47 per 1,000 births in 1940 to 6.7 deaths in 2006. But as those health gains have shifted the health care landscape, a host of new — or newly revealed — issues have emerged concerning the health of the nation’s children. Addressing those issues will require a systematic, system-wide approach” (Powell, 2010). If healthcare providers want services demand, we will need to make them affordable. Rapid changes in healthcare systems require new professionals with a deep understanding of health and healthcare issues and a wide spectrum of skills to promote and manage changes at the organizational and policy level. One of the major concerns is that the uninsured will put off medical treatment until it becomes more urgent, which results in more and more expensive medical procedures.
References:
Chan, A. (2011). America’s Mental Health, State by State. HuffPost Healthy Living. Retrieved June 14, 2015 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/mental-health-states-america_n_1007844.html
Gapminder. (2013). Gapminder world offline. Retrieved June 12, 2015 from http://www.gapminder.org/world-offline/
Measure of America (n.d.) Mapping the Major of America. Retrieved June 12, 2015 from http://www.measureofamerica.org/maps/
Powell, A. (2010). Infant Mortality Down, ailments persist. Harvard Science. Retrieved June 14, 2015 from http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/03/infant-mortality-plummets-but-health-ailments-persist/
