...Health Care Issues in the United States Trumeka King Professor Gary Morris HSA 500 1/22/12 Health Care Issues in the United States The health care system of the United States has change in many different ways during the last century. It has evolved from a system which lacked technology and knowledge of medical science, to a nation full of the vast wealth of medical technology and how it applies to its community. Due to the rapid growth, health care has become a significant force “The nation’s health care system has increasingly moved to center stage, drawing the attention of many Americans and our nation’s politicians.” (Torrens & Williams, 2009) With all of this attention and government interaction, it is no wonder why our nation strives to improve and rationalize the health care system. While there are many aspects to discuss in terms of improvement, this paper will attempt to explain how health care is affected by behaviors, economics, and social structure. Also, it will discuss the three stages of medical technology, major trends in population demographics, as well as the most important trends in mortality over the past century. Behavior, Economics, and Social Structure The behavior or involvement of the public, economics and social structure are three aspects that greatly affect the health care system in the U.S. Behaviors or individual involvement of the nation has significantly impacted the health care system of the past as well as present day. Health...
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...Health Care Issues in the United States Dr. Williams HSA 500 Introduction to Health Services October 24, 2010 1. Explain how health is affected by behaviors, economics, and social structure. The level of health is affected by factors of finance, culture, geography and other influences. When on is trying to obtain medical services there are several factors that need to take place as far as having adequate health insurance coverage. If someone does not have access to a good specialist for medical care, and this is due to lack of medical insurance or dependence on the local government. Due to the geographical location if the hospital is further away for those who have lack of public transportation or lack of their own mode of vehicle it creates a problem. Also in the cultural aspects, depending on how some patients feel they may not be comfortable with the level of skills used and practiced. Some patients will and have traveled to other countries for medical care. 2. Describe the three stages of medical technology development. The three stages of medical technology are: scientific background and development of the idea for a product; product development, approval, and distribution; and, diffusion, adoption, and utilization of the product. With the first stage of the development it involves a lot of basic science discoveries that provides fertile scientific environment from which useful products may one day they will eventually emerge. Without having the first stage...
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...imperative that health care costs are managed and soon because the government is finding it quite difficult to sustain everyone’s needs. In addition, healthcare reforms must be made to lessen healthcare costs before the quality of healthcare reduce in a drastic way. Healthcare spending has been on a continuous incline in America throughout the years. According to Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services, in the year of 2008 health care cost rose to $2.3 trillion in the United States; this was 4.4% higher than 2007 costs. Healthcare costs are averaging a little over %16 of the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In 2008 Medicare spending increased 8.6% and Medicaid spending increased 4.7% in the same year. In addition, hospital stays physician rates, clinical visits, and prescription medications increased as well. 31% of a $1.6 trillion healthcare cost has been designated strictly for hospital stay care. Clinical and physician services are accountable for about 22% however, proposals from physicians account for a much vaster percentage of health care costs. Prescription medications make up about 11%; which has continuously increased over the past 10 years. The remaining health care costs branch out from administrative, long-term care, and other miscellaneous expenses. United States health care system is said to be the most expensive health care systems in the world. This accomplishment is not what the nation anticipated this is why it is imperative that health care...
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...Health Care Management Issues | March 29 2013 | Medical errors and the quality problems to which they lead harm millions of Americans each year. If the errors reduce and improve quality substantially professionals must create systems and care processes that anticipate inevitable human errors and either prevent them or compensate for them before they cause harm. National surveys of registered nurses, physicians, and hospital executives document considerable concern about the U.S. nurse shortage. There were also many areas of divergent opinion within and among these groups, including the impact of the shortage on safety and early detection of patient complications. Healthcare providers need quick access to patient medical information whenever and wherever patients present for care. A system to standardize electronic medical records, such as the National health Information Infrastructure, would provide quick access to patient information. | HEALTH CARE | Health Care Management Issues There is now a robust evidence base in the quality improvement literature on process and outcomes, but structure has received considerably less attention. The health care field would benefit from expanding the current interpretation of structure to include broader perspectives on organizational attributes as primary determinates of process change and quality improvement. Solutions to the health care management issues dealing with the quality of care should be discuss with the following key...
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...Ethical Issues in Health Care HCS 545 April 25, 2011 Mary Nell Cummings Ethical Issues in Health Care In the United States, government ran systems exist of social support. Such systems are Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. These systems seem to be widely accepted in other countries than in America. Individualism and justice has been included in the United States foundation of welfare. Citizens feel a level of appropriateness allowing the government to spend tax monies to help an unfortunate person who has exhausted all of his or her energy, strength, and abilities to help himself. Americans further feel the efforts to help are satisfactory if an unreasonable amount of money is not used. Bioethics is a prevelent and sensitive topic of debate in health care. A single mother with children who is particially dependent upon welfare takes it upon herself to pay privately for a single treatment of Invitro Fertilization (IVF). This mother is implanted with several embryos and chooses not to reduce the number of fetuses and successfully delivers multiple premature babies. We must take into account the cost of delivery, care in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), and future cost to the Welfare system for all of this mother’s children. Reviewing this issue from a health care professional’s point of view, the four basic principles of ethics, beneficence, autonomy, nonmaleficence, and social justice, are part of this issue. The Four Basic Principals Autonomy ...
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...Ethical Health Care Issues Kelly Jackson HCS/545 July 7, 2014 Linda Hagler-Reid Ethical Health Care Issues When working with patients and their families, the health care professionals occasionally will face unpopular and difficult decisions that relates to medical treatments which questions moral issues such as religious beliefs and even professional guidelines of ethical or not. Health care ethics is used as a parameter for staff to exemplify the standards of the proper ethics and provide the imaginary ethics road map to success when speaking to patients and families about choices based on beliefs, values, health, and possibly in the end death. When dealing with moral issues in this manner it becomes even more complex. Conflicts of Interest An example of a conflict of interest with a health care employee can exists when an employee is influenced, whether consciously or unconsciously by some form of financial or personal gain. This proves their self-interest and lack of morals when it comes to the good of the company. With a profit-driven organization the normal motive for the presence of an ethical struggle is generally linked to some practice of individual economic contemplations. A statement made by the American College of Physicians showed that “physicians meet industry representatives at the office and at professional meetings, collaborate in community-based research, and develop or invest in health-related industries. In all of these spheres, partnered activities...
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...Ethical Health Care Issues Natalie Morman HCS/545 June 1, 2015 Dr. Ruth Bundy Ethical Health Care Issues The health care industry has four major ethical principles which are autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. Autonomy has respect for individuals, beneficence helps others, nonmaleficence does not harm others, and justice has a way of helping with risk and cost. Every individual in the world have rights to life and liberty, which should be highly respected, nurtured, and facilitated. Health care providers should not want to refuse patients when it comes to their medical needs for any type of reasons. There are health care providers who refuse to see patients because of their religion, ethical or moral beliefs. There are patients who refuse medical attention, because they do not trust the health care provider. This paper will discuss the refusal of the health care provider, refusal of the patient, and give a thorough explanation of the four major ethical principles. Refusal of Health Care by Provider According to Sonfield (2005), “The professional standards typically endorse providers the right to step away from providing health care service that violates his or her moral or religious beliefs” (p. 1). Health care providers cannot override a patient’s autonomy if the patient wants an abortion, end-of-life care or other forms of reproductive health care. When health care providers refuse to care for patients they cannot deny patients...
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...Ethical Health Care Issues Robyn Moses HCS 545 / Health Law and Ethics Professor Laughon March 16, 2015 Health Care Issues One of the current health care issues that I chose to write about is euthanasia. I will examine and evaluate how the four principles of autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice apply to this issue. The most recent person that exercised her autonomy to choose how she died and the time of her death was Brittany Maynard. Brittany died in Oregon, a state which allows physicians to assist terminally ill persons by prescribing life-ending medications (Egan, 2014). Is the right-to-die with dignity by choice ever going to be acceptable in the health care community? Euthanasia is defined as the act of being put to death painlessly by refusing treatment or the withdrawing of life support to avoid suffering the effects of a debilitating illness or incurable disease. According to the legal system, euthanasia is considered murder when assisted and suicide when patients take their lives. In many countries, euthanasia is not allowed and is punishable by law. Oregon became the first state in the United States in 1997 to make physician-assisted suicide legal. Attempts to have the law in Oregon overturned have been unsuccessful (Britannica, 2015). As more consumers become educated on diseases and their debilitating effects, more consumers may choose euthanasia as an alternative to suffering. Autonomy is the act of making one's choices without...
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...Health Services Organization Assignment #1, Health Care issues in the United States Dr. Rashida Biggs Alexander Johnson October 20, 2011 Explain how health is affected by behaviors, economics, and social structure. Imagine a world where no one smokes cigarettes. This would be an amazing phenomenon due to not only a major economic factor but the health concerns that would not be an issue. Smoking is a behavior issue that has been argued since smoking ever was introduced. This behavior began more than 400 years ago (Schuman, MD) and has continued to be a huge health concern worldwide. There is historical data on tobacco use in the United States through the US Department of Agriculture with dates as early as the 1880’s to support the consumption by US citizens. With such a behavioral issue, the health care will always have a concern due to the effects of cigarette smoke and other tobacco related products. Health issues like cancer and cardiovascular diseases are directly related to this behavior. Although the rates of the diseases listed have shown somewhat of a decline, the health issues still remain and will for some time. Alcohol and illicit drug use are other behaviors that effect the health of Americans. When citizens use drugs, alcohol or tobacco, there are behaviors that are attributed to the use of such items that effect the health of individuals. These behaviors also play a role economically in the US. It has been studied that the behaviors discussed are addictive...
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...Legal Issues in Health Care This article is about the problems hospitals are facing due to antitrust law issued by the government and how it affects the hospital setting in providing healthcare service. It talks about the major laws that have problems in connection to the three different relations that exist in any hospital - Hospital Relations, Hospital-Physician Relations and Hospital-Payer Relations. This has both good and bad effects and depends on what the change is. It has been speculated that over 50 percent of these legislations end up in the court. During 1985 to 1999, it was reported that 61 percent of 394 reported cases all ended up in the court due to some incidents that happened in the hospitals. These incidents are not good in themselves as it has lots of negative impacts on people (service taker) in general along with hospitals themselves, and most of the times, it is with the things that were not intentional. There are times when things go wrong unintentionally and still people tend to lawsuit the medical staff or physician stating that they have done it purposefully. This often seemed to happen in every hospital now and then due to all sort of things that’s happening at their personal as well as in their professional life. The main issue discussed in this article is the problems associated with Hospital Relation that the hospitals most often go through. Hospital relation is really a big concern as it affects...
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...Issues for the Health Care Professionals I chose to use the medical specialty of medical surgeon for my paper; my reasoning behind this medical specialty is because surgeons account for nearly 50% of all medical malpractice law suits in the country. The bulk of these law suits occur in just 75 of the largest counties , which indicates that most medical malpractice law suits occur in the more densely populated areas which is where the most income is generated. Another 33% of nonsurgical law suits occur in the same 75 counties which when added together account for 83% of all law suits filed in the United States. To put these numbers in the proper context there are thousands of counties in the United States, so what you have is the people in areas like New York, Las Angeles, Atlanta and so on filing thousands of law suits each year. It is estimated that from 1990-2004 there were over 191,804 medical malpractice lawsuits reported to the National Practitioner Databank (NPD) regarding physicians in the United States. It is further estimated that of all the medical law suits filed only about 27% of them were won by the plaintiffs, which can lead a person to believe that there are a lot of frivolous suits being filed. It is estimated that 25% of all doctors in the United States are sued each year, which means that if you are a surgeon you have a better than 1 in 4 chance of getting sued each year that you practice medicine. It must be for love of the profession because with those...
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...it is imperative to have a variety of healthcare resources available to assist the DMEC in revitalizing back the City of Amsterdam to a state of optimal health. The APN, in collaboration with other members of the healthcare team will address the needs of the clients, whether it is obtaining a glucometer, offering nutritional support, or other treatments that might be relevant to their illness. This will increase the patients’ ability to reach their state of optimal health. Through collaboration,...
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...Ethical Health Care Issues In 1953, two scientists James Watson and Francis Click published the description of the double helix structure of the DNA. Little did they know that voyage from the double helix to The Human Genome Project (HGP) would become a reality. Fifty years later in 2003, National Institute Health accomplished mapping of 32,000 genes of the human genome. Gene mapping was a significant research that enabled researchers to focus on gene specific diseases and birth defects. More than 1000 research projects started inward voyage discovery of human kind rather outward exploration of the planets. Clinical research involving human beings have greater potential for risk of misusing the technology. Potential for misusing the genetic research and fear of unknown long term effects on the successive generations have sparked bioethics debates. Like abortion, gene mapping is a very controversial subject and both sides have strong views. For example, should a woman abort the pregnancy based on the abnormal genetic screening results? Genetic technology provides an enormous power within our grips and with this enormous power comes following the ethical standards. Ethical standards should be followed involving human subjects. Genetic screening standards should align with four ethical principles of: • Respect for the human autonomy, dignity, and obtaining informed consent • Genetic screening should cause the minimal amount of harm to the subject • Provides maximum benefit to...
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...Responsibility and Current Health Care Issues Renae Hoag HCS/545 April 21, 2014 Victor Gibb Organizational Responsibility and Current Health Care Issues Health care fraud is a current health care issue throughout the health care industry. Health care fraud is considered abuse to the public treasury. “The National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association (NHCAA) estimates that health care fraud accounts for at least three, but as much as ten percent of total health care expenditures”(Hubbell, 2006). “Because health care fraud costs taxpayers more than $13.3 billion a year, seven federal and state agencies have made health care fraud prosecution a primary focus” (Hubbell, 2006). “The federal government concentrates on detecting and prosecuting health care fraud in its health care insurance programs, Medicare and Medicaid” (Hubbell, 2006). Health care organizations that receive payment from the Social Security Act are more likely to become targets of health care fraud with Medicare and Medicaid. There are many organizations that have been accused of health care fraud with Medicare and/or Medicaid. Maxim Healthcare Services is one of the health care organizations that have been accused of health care fraud. The organizational structure and governance, culture and focus on social responsibility had an affect or influenced the situation of health care fraud and abuse. There are resources that can be allocated to prevent the situation in the future. Ethical issues were considered and...
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...Poverty and health care are considerable issues that are affecting us Canadians. Poverty is on the rise as our population continues to grow, more people have an effect on our health care now. The Canadian health care system is not up to date and Canadians are wanting change and a better health care place. Poverty has always been a problem anywhere and now with the increase population the demand for food and a living space is higher but not all needs are met creating a higher poverty and homeless rate within Canadians. There is an increase in poverty around Canada. Over two years poverty has risen 19% in Edmonton with 2,618 homeless people. Poverty also has an economic cost. These costs include the impact on our healthcare system, loss of productivity and increased policing and judicial costs as social breakdown results in crime. The governments now have the ability to change structures and policies that greatly impact those living in poverty. Poverty rates among Aboriginal Canadians are significantly higher. They are frequently the last hired and the first laid off, but even when they are employed they work for low wages and poor benefits. Therefore, it is not a country's total wealth that is relevant, but how that country distributes...
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