Healthcare Management. Allocation Health Care Resources From

¶ … HEALTHCARE Management. Allocation Health Care Resources From review readings week, provide a critique quality -- life surveys health care economic analysis determine allocation health care resources

Issues in health care management

The healthcare sector is one of the more important ones within the American society, but it has recently proven unable to cope with all pressures. The economic crisis and the dramatic aging of the population pose additional threats on the healthcare system and raise new questions regarding the allocation of resources. At this level, a question is being posed relative to the appropriateness of using quality of life surveys and health care economic analysis to ensure the allocation of the health care resources. In order to answer this question, four specific issues have to be addressed, as follows:

The allocation for public and private health care services

The incremental and comprehensive reform

The ethical underpinnings of resource allocation, and last

The business opportunities for the development of health care providers.

1. Public and private health care

The public sector is allocated resources from the state budget alone. The private sector is allocated some of the resources from the state budget, but a large portion is also provided by private groups, such as employers or even individuals who pay their extra medical insurance. The resources allocated within the public sector are generally insufficient and they run out even before they can actually reach the patient. In other words, the resources allocated to the public sector are used for the simple survival of the health care sector, without it being able to grow, develop and improve.

Within the private sector, the resources which are being allocated are used in a different manner. The private health care institutions are for profit agencies, which invest their money, rather than using it only for internal consumption and survival. The private institutions as such seek to generate a positive return on the resources they have invested. In such a context then, the resources which are allocated to the private sector are used in a more efficient and profitable manner.

This realization leads to the subsequent conclusion that more resources should be allocated to the private sector as this is better equipped to use them in a more suitable manner. It provides higher quality services for the patients and it also generates a return on the investments. Through these lenses then, the criterion to be used in the allocation of the resources is represented by the health care economic analysis, with emphasis on the costs and benefits of allocating the resources to various institutions (Douglas and Normand, 2005).

2. Incremental vs. comprehensive reform

In the setting of the problems currently faced by the American health care sector, the need for reforming the system is imperative. Still, the actual means to completing the reform is yet uncertain. On the one hand sits the possibility of implementing an incremental reform, whereas on the other hand sits the possibility of implementing a comprehensive reform.

The incremental reform strives to reduce the number of people without medical insurance and it would work towards this objective with various tools. It would for instance force employers above a certain size to offer their employees medical coverage; it would offer subsidies to the uninsured people or develop the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The comprehensive reform seeks to provide universal medical coverage to all people in the United States so that no single individual is uninsured. Efforts to attaining this objective would include personal mandates and subsidies, single payer proposals, or the voucher system.

The dispute over the two types of reforms is still ongoing. The incremental reform is virtually unable to provide medical coverage to all people, to reduce costs or to solve other problems in the health care system. Its only benefit is that it is politically viable. The comprehensive reform is less viable from a political standpoint and more complex from a processes standpoint (Fuchs and Emanuel, 2005). Nevertheless, it is the only hope to provide medical coverage for all the population and it is the viable alternative to the current system.

3. Ethics of resource allocation

So far in the discussion, it was mentioned that the health care resources should be allocated based on the ability of the institution to put them to good use -- to serve patient needs and to generate a return on the investment. Nonetheless, the allocation of the resources should also consider the characteristics of the population it targets. In other words, an ethical component of resource allocation should be represented by the quality of life and the quality of health life for the targeted population. This need is even more so impending as studies have shown that the social and demographic features of the population impact their access to health care. People of a lesser educational level, of a lesser income, as well as minorities groups are more prone to the lack of adequate access to medical services (Lubetkin, Jia, Franks and Gold, 2005). In other words, a major ethical underpinning with resource allocation revolves around the means in which the resources would improve the quality of life for the population.

Another important ethical underpinning in the allocation of the resources is represented by the quality-adjusted life year. This virtually refers to the weighting of the costs and benefits of a medical intervention. The costs are paid by the medical sector and the benefits are enjoyed by the patient. The tradeoff between the two is a crucial determinant when allocating resources to the health care acts, but the ethics behind these activities are questionable as the life of a person would be decided based on a statistical analysis of probabilities (Hirskyi).

4. Business opportunities for health care providers

In the setting of the problems encountered by the health care system, the changing social, economic and demographic conditions and the features of the public and private health care sectors, the partnership between the institutions in the two sectors is more and more plausible. In other words, the public and private sector have started to collaborate in order to improve the quality of the medical act and to ensure its financial stability. The partnership between the private and public institutions is only expected to solidify within the years to come.

In light of this partnership, the health care providers are presented with opportunities for development. They could for instance benefit from additional resources from the state budgets, which would in turn help them develop their business. The additional investments from the state budgets could be used to attract more patients through integrated marketing campaigns; they could be used to purchase new medical equipments or to hire new medical specialists. Aside from the money, another opportunity is presented by the ability to gain access to specialized input and consultancy from the players in the public health care sector.