Addressing the quality of care in today’s era of health care reform is neither a top-down nor bottom-up approach alone. This is because successful implementation of any health care reform law will be contingent on the ability of all participating parties ( ie. federal government, the states, health care payers, hospitals, industry, medical societies, physicians, and patients) to work efficiently and collaboratively to tackle the quality issues from all isles of the wall. Finding common ground may seem idealistic and perhaps unachievable, but it required given the undefined future ahead.
The United States (US) total health care spending per capita, Growth Domestic Product (GDP) is the highest of all industrialized countries but are not the best in life expectancy rate among all nations, including developed countries. According to the Gapminder (2013) when selecting US, as the country of interest and plotted y-axis-Total Health Spending (% of GDP) and x-axis- Life Expectancy (years); we could see that Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Spain, Austria, etc scored better with better expectancy rate than US, scoring 78 years.
Secondly, according Gapminder (2013), US spends more per capita (GDP) in relation to the mental health of suicide per (100,000 people), which proved to be more than other industrialized countries like the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and majority of the European countries, and including Brazil, Jordan, etc. When I plotted many of the health-related variables on the Gapminder Chart, concerning US spending either per capita or per GDP, I see some problems facing the quality of care in the entire healthcare industry. The approach to quality of healthcare in US should be organizational in nature, and should focus on community health improvement. It should also focus on individualistic and scientific/problem solving approach to the patients of entities or citizens of the states. According to the Measure of America (n.d), the U.S. States that ranked best in life expectancy rate, include Hawaii, Minnesota, Connecticut, California, and Massachusetts. The worse ranking for life expectancy, include Mississippi, West Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Chan A. (2011) identified detailed state by state percentage of population who are more vulnerable to mental illness. The detailed lists showed Rhode Island, Utah, Idaho, West Virginia and Indiana with the most percentage for exhibiting mental health. Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Florida, and Illinios experienced lesser forms of mental health. The report defined mental health issue as any social, mental and expressive syndrome that is identifiable from the DSM-IV. In other instances and when comparing infant mortality rate with life expectancy in the US, Harvard University, made a research report on the infant mortality rates and stated, how 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).
The US spend more than in any other advanced nation, whether measured in total dollars spent, as a percentage of the economy, or on a per capita basis. If healthcare providers want services demand, we will need to make them affordable. Rapid changes in healthcare systems require new professionals with 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 treatments, until it becomes more urgent, which may result in more and more expensive medical procedures.
Work Cited:
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/
