Public-private partnership healthcare systems in Europe and Asia

Health Care System From the International Perspective: PPP Healthcare

Reid (2009) actively seeks an international cure for healthcare that the United States just cannot seem to manifest although other developed nations are able to deliver universal healthcare at a cost that is reasonable and reports that the U.S. pays more healthcare than does any other developed country in the entire world up to as much as 16.5% of the GDP. This work involves a review of literature on PPP Healthcare which has the express objective of investigating the healthcare system from the international perspective and specifically examining countries that are pioneers in the PPP healthcare systems including France, the U.K. And Germany as well as Japan and Singapore. This study intends to determine if PPP healthcare initiatives in these countries is applicable to the U.S. health care system improvement initiatives and if so will attempt to determine the best practices in regards to the healthcare systems in Europe and Asia and to finally make recommendations for improvement of the U.S. healthcare system upon the bases of the identified best practices. [In regards to PPP Healthcare it is reported "…the use of open architecture which involved integration of the desktop "across a sophisticated network environment, PPP healthcare can manage its cocktail of complex and varied documents within a single workflow solution. In doing so, PPP healthcare has unraveled the mystery of business process automation to benefit its customers, its staff and ultimately contribute to its future growth." (Workflow Management Coalition (WIMC) and Future Strategies, Inc., 2003-09)]

The Health Care System From the International Perspective

Introduction

This work involves a review of literature on PPP Healthcare which has the express objective of investigating the healthcare system from the international perspective and specifically examining countries that are pioneers in the PPP healthcare systems including France, the U.K. And Germany as well as Japan and Singapore. This study intends to determine if PPP healthcare initiatives in these countries is applicable to the U.S. health care system improvement initiatives and if so will attempt to determine the best practices in regards to the healthcare systems in Europe and Asia and to finally, intends to make recommendations for improvement of the U.S. healthcare system upon the bases of the identified best practices. [In regards to PPP Healthcare it is reported "…the use of open architecture which involved integration of the desktop "across a sophisticated network environment, PPP healthcare can manage its cocktail of complex and varied documents within a single workflow solution. In doing so, PPP healthcare has unraveled the mystery of business process automation to benefit its customers, its staff and ultimately contribute to its future growth." (Workflow Management Coalition (WIMC) and Future Strategies, Inc., 2003-09)

PPP Healthcare or Public-Private Partnership Healthcare, is part of AXA and is the leading private medical insurance provider in the U.K. Management of PPP Healthcare is reported to be a target for "improvement of both telephone response timings and correspondence turnaround." (Workflow Management Coalition (WIMC) and Future Strategies, Inc., 2003-09) A separate report states that the healthcare brand awareness of PPP is of primary importance to the company and especially in terms of its future growth. High-profile marketing programs have been activated for promotion of its "caring and personal approach" or so that is the claim of PPP healthcare. PPP healthcare is reported to have show cased a wide variation of healthcare products and services alike however, "products alone do not build a consistent market image." (Workflow Management Coalition (WIMC) and Future Strategies, Inc., 2003-09) Healthcare has quite simply become unaffordable resulting in the inability of people to access healthcare however, it is reported in the work of Belein (2006) that European countries invest heavier in healthcare than does the United States. High quality services are only accessed by those with private health insurance . The problem is that the private insurance premiums are unaffordable for those who are considered 'high risk'. However, in Germany risk is based on age group rather than on ones' individual characteristics. Insurers in Germany are not allowed by law to refuse clients. The Netherlands disguises between "catastrophic health insurance and routine healthcare and Switzerland's healthcare system is "more…private than…social" type insurance. Belein refers to Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany as "laboratories for reform" in their different solutions to the high risk individuals and health insurance challenges in a process that allows individuals to purchase health insurance without the penalty of paying twice. Their systems are reliant greatly on capitalization with an "investment pool of domestic capital which is a consumer-driven industry and a private system that enables "experimentation, which is a necessary prerequisite for finding solutions." (Belein, 2006)

Harrell (2009) highly criticizes the previous health care system in the United States and states that the Obama administration is overseeing the transformation of the U.S. healthcare system to the European model. Harden (2009) claims that healthcare costs in Japan are approximately 50% less than are healthcare costs in the United States. McKee, Nigel and Atun (2006) reports a study of Spain, Australia and the U.K. with findings that costs involved in PPP has been underestimated and that in the U.K. For 2006 that of the private finance initiative projects 76% were delivered on time while 79% were delivered on-budget. Moffit, et al. (2001) states that if the American healthcare system would only attempt to mirror that of the European healthcare system that the healthcare system in the United States would be drastically improved in terms of service and quality.

I. Service, Quality and Satisfaction

Business project manager for PPP healthcare, Mike Tinsley, explains that while anyone can design products and most could likely sell new products -- but "the reality is that people buy and buy again, based on service quality and satisfaction. It is the service in our business that will make or break customer loyalty." (Workflow Management Coalition (WIMC) and Future Strategies, Inc., 2003-09) Because of this PPP is vested well in its IT infrastructure, which is focused on delivering on PPP healthcare's 'brand promises'. Tinsley stated that PPP healthcare's technology is such that enables us to provide the best customer service in the business, in that we respond to a customer inquiry instantly." (Workflow Management Coalition (WIMC) and Future Strategies, Inc., 2003-09) A stated requirement before PPP healthcare before will have the capacity to provide a guarantee that their service will be the best possible service available its customer support and responses processes will have to be examined quite closely.

II. PPP Healthcare Identifies the Problem with the Traditional Healthcare System

There is a large in -- and out-bound flow of various types of documents arriving and being sent to a variety of entities including those related to "…daily correspondence, claims, hospital and consultant/specialist provider accounts being merged into a single case file" which traditionally has resulted in a great deal of paper work including handling and filing. There was previously too much room for human error to result in substandard healthcare history reports and breakdowns in the links of the various information that began in a file that upon closing was relegated to a customer claim and then finally archived on microfiche. (Workflow Management Coalition (WIMC) and Future Strategies, Inc., 2003-09, paraphrased)

IV. Workflow System and Mainframe Integration

The workflow system is reported to "interact with the mainframe, retrieving legacy data that resides on the Amdahl/MVS…." (Workflow Management Coalition (WIMC) and Future Strategies, Inc., 2003-09) It is reported as here that Mosaix "…integrates with the terminal emulation software, Attachmate. The system represents the first true client server environment the Company has ever had; it required many changes in the IT department. We needed new skills for support and discovered that managing a client server environment is much more complex than managing a mainframe." (Workflow Management Coalition (WIMC) and Future Strategies, Inc., 2003-09) When the system was first implemented, it drastically improved response time but because the customer was left holding for 30 seconds, the customers perceived a long wait time. PPP healthcare addressed this issue and upgraded their 486-based PCs with the "Pentium-based technology reported to have "…immediately improved the retrieval times -- the result is the customer perceives instant response times" now taking no longer than a mere nine seconds to retrieve "every item of information." (Workflow Management Coalition (WIMC) and Future Strategies, Inc., 2003-09) In addition, PPP Healthcare is reported to have further upgraded its system performance when it migrated is database to NT SQL Server. It is reported that the use of open architecture which involved integration of the desktop "across a sophisticated network environment, PPP healthcare can manage its cocktail of complex and varied documents within a single workflow solution. In doing so, PPP healthcare has unraveled the mystery of business process automation to benefit its customers, its staff and ultimately contribute to its future growth." (Workflow Management Coalition (WIMC) and Future Strategies, Inc., 2003-09)

Summary and Conclusion

It is clear that the workflow system utilized by PPP Healthcare is of the nature that increases efficiency, reduces costs associated with healthcare service delivery and as well that the system is of the nature that is flexible with its open architecture and that enables integration in reality-based communication and interaction processes through real-time desktop information accessible patient records.