Reviewing the Health Reforms

¶ … Prescription for Health Care System Stakeholders

Discuss Dr. Wilson's "prescription" for the private sector, business, and government. Do you concur with this prescription? Why, or why not?

Dr. Wilson believes that healthcare reform is among the biggest priorities that will challenge the entire spectrum of people who are involved, either directly or indirectly, with the healthcare system. There are many different perspectives that are involved in the series of reforms who are at different levels. However, treating patients in an efficient and effective manner, while also providing the best health outcomes possible, is the basis for guiding reforms; albeit, many of the different stakeholders have significantly different ideas about how to achieve such objectives. Dr. Wilson further believes that there are four points of major friction in the system and offers the prescription for challenges that will be present in order to make health system reform a success: medical liability, skyrocketing costs, inefficiencies in health care delivery and Medicare underpayment (Wilson, 2010).

Another contribution the author makes is to divide the relevant stakeholders, and their specific challenges, into different groups. The private sector, business, and government are offered similar recommendations in substance. Each of these groups is recommended to keep in mind that the patient is the most important. It is easy to see why these stakeholders may have objectives that are not consistent with maintaining the best possible outcomes. The private sector has an incentive to maximize the return on investment for the financial stakeholders, as well as many of the businesses that are directly or indirectly related to the industry. Similarly, the government, through its elected officials, also commonly focuses on its own self-interest by maximizing their political power and public perception. Therefore, each of these groups can be motivated by objectives that are subsidiary to the real issues and objectives that serve as obstacles to effective reform.

Part 2: Discuss Dr. Wilson's "prescription" for patients, medical students, and physicians. Do you concur with this prescription? Why, or why not?

Dr. Wilson's "prescription" for patients, medical students, and physicians also has a similar theme in which they could be categorized by. For example, each of these groups has been given the recommendation to empower themselves, to the greatest extent as possible, throughout the duration of the ongoing reform measures. Wilson clearly states that although the system is virtually broken in its current form, at the core of the system there is need for well-being that can be achieved by different means. Furthermore, today's generation of healthcare patients are vastly different than at any previous time in history. These new engaged patients frequently take a list of questions to the doctor with them -- perhaps after first performing an Internet search on the physician's background and their symptom; they may also check their lab and imaging reports through their online patient portal, and compare treatments on disease-specific message boards and are prepared when they actually visit the doctor (Butler, 2014).