Healthcare Industry Essays (Examples)

Hospital Corporation of America
Introduction
Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) is not only one of the country’s largest hospital companies, but it also happens to be one of the most notable healthcare services providers in the country. At present, HCA manages more than 170 healthcare facilities offering a wide range of services across the nation. This for-profit organization is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. It is important to note that to remain relevant in the increasingly dynamic healthcare industry, organizations such as HCA ought to have the relevant strategies in place to address the various needs of citizens going forward. This text assesses the readiness of HCA to address the healthcare needs of citizens in the next decade. The paper also compares HCA to Singapore Airlines in an attempt to evaluate its readiness to tackle inherent marketplace challenges.
Discussion
HCA operates outpatient healthcare facilities, psychiatric hospitals, acute care hospitals, and general…

Al-Sawai, A. (2013). Leadership of Healthcare Professionals: Where Do We Stand?.

Oman edical Journal, 28(4), 285-287 3p. doi:10. 5001/omj.2013.79

This study defines leadership as behavior that drives a group towards an identified goal, and it describes a variety of leadership theories (such as transformational leadership, collaborative leadership, conflict management and shared leadership), beginning with the "early Great an theory" (the idea that some people have the quality of leadership and some do not). Its main purpose is to identify and describe several theories of leadership as they would apply to the health care industry. The finding of the study is that effective leadership strategies should highlight "dynamic relationships between leadership values, culture, capabilities and the organizational context." The evolution of leadership development is such that, today, the most important aspect of leadership is now based on making sure that "a ready supply of replacement leaders" is available at all times…

Mabbott highly recommends this book for its good advice on leadership. The book acts as a go-to guide for anyone in a leadership position who has questions and/or needs tips on leading. The book's structure is divided into three sections and examines in a straight-forward manner the precise and practical issues that determine the quality of leadership and management today. It does so in a simple way, however, so that any person who is new to leadership in the healthcare industry can easily make his or her way through the book and come to identify and better understand nursing concepts and how they might actually relate to the real world. Case studies are utilized in the book to help to shed light on the concepts as they are discussed. All aspects of management are covered, from budgeting to time management, to recruiting and filling staff positions to clinical risk. The way the book is structured it can be used as an encyclopedia of leadership in nursing.

MacPhee, M., Li-Lu, C., Havaei, F., & Wen-Shan, C. (2014). A Descriptive Account of an Inter-Professional Collaborative Leadership Project. Administrative Sciences (2076-3387), 4(3), 373-399. doi:10.3390/admsci4030373.

This study examines the outcome of a collaboration leadership exercise between a group of five "inter-professional teams" located at an urban cancer treatment center in Taiwan and the healthcare faculty plus professional development director. This workshop exercise resulted in the development of a new structure and process of workshopping ideas connected to leadership in the health industry. Instruction was provided by the academic faculty and discussions were facilitated by the professional development director's efforts among the five teams. Interactive exercises were also conducted to reinforce ideas and concepts taught by the faculty. Suggestions were made for better overall development of leadership skills, such as the continuation of appreciative inquiry exercises as well as the rotation of team members in leadership positions, so that each member gains more experience as the leader. The study concludes with a discussion of the fundamental elements of leadership as they were covered in the workshop as well as an assessment of the evaluation method, instructional strategies and expected results that a future program for increasing effective leadership in the healthcare sector could utilize.

Health Care

In the wake on new and very contentious health care reform, many firms have undergone extensive transformations. These transformations have been predicated on both cost control and quality management. In particular quality management has had a profound impact on the underlying business operations of many health care firms. For one, firms are now finding methods in which to enhance the overall patient experience while also mitigating potential loses due to negligent means. The focus on quality management has also made firms more efficient in regards to the overall delivery of service. In particular, my firm has done extensive work with reducing elderly accidents within the facility. This quality management initiative has not only reduced costs associated with accidents, but it also has enhanced the trust and patient experience of all stakeholders within the firm (Kelly, 2011).

Identify the milestone you chose in the history of quality improvement in…

References:

1) Draper, Elaine, Joseph LaDou, and Dan J. Tennenhouse. 2011. "Occupational Health Nursing and the Quest for Professional Authority," New Solutions 21, 47 -- 81

2) Kohn, L.T., Corrigan, J.M., & Donaldson, M.S. (Eds). (2000). To err is human: Building a safer health system. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

3) Kelly, D.L. (2011). Applying quality management in healthcare: A systems approach (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press

4) Lucia, Patricia R.; Otto, Tammy E.; Palmier, Patrick A. (2009). "Chapter 1

ecause unions retain the exclusive right to negotiate on behalf of its members, the individual worker may have little recourse to easily address incompetent leadership.

The Disadvantages of Unionized Labor for Healthcare Employers:

The primary disadvantages of unionized labor for healthcare employers correspond to the relative loss of control over issues and workplace elements commonly transferred to workers (through their unions), which accounts for the traditional resistance with which many employers responded to unionization attempts. On the one hand, unionized workforces are able to secure better pay and benefits from employers than would have been available to workers without union representation; likewise, employers must cede control over many aspects of operational and personnel decisions traditionally within administrative control.

On the other hand, particularly in light of the beneficial effect that unionized nursing has had on the quality of patient care and reduction in patient mortality, it is difficult to conceive…

Bibliography

Daft, R. (2005) Management (7th ed.) Mason: Thomson South Western.

Nevins, J., Commager, H. (1992) a Pocket History of the United States.

New York: Pocket Books

Seago, J., Ash, M. (2002)

On the other hand, the industry will most likely insist on the service quality segment rather than on the price transparency. A constant improvement of the services provided within the healthcare facility will not only produce the appropriate competition on the market, but it will also provide the incentives for the other healthcare organizations, thus rising overall quality levels in the market. This will rather change the way hospitals price their services rather than price transparency.

Nevertheless, price transparency will change ridiculous situations in which the client is charged $35,000 to change a battery in a pacemaker. It will drive such prices lower, encouraging price competition.

ibliography

1. A Call for Transparency in Healthcare Cost and Quality. On the Internet at http://blogs.msdn.com/healthblog/archive/2006/05/16/599064.aspx.Last retrieved on June 30, 2007

2. Feld, Stanley. What Is Real Price Transparency? Medicine: Healthcare System. May 2007. On the Internet at http://stanleyfeldmdmace.typepad.com/repairing_the_healthcare_/2007/05/what_is_real_pr.html.Last retrieved on June 30, 2007…

Bibliography

1. A Call for Transparency in Healthcare Cost and Quality. On the Internet at  http://blogs.msdn.com/healthblog/archive/2006/05/16/599064.aspx.Last  retrieved on June 30, 2007

2. Feld, Stanley. What Is Real Price Transparency? Medicine: Healthcare System. May 2007. On the Internet at  http://stanleyfeldmdmace.typepad.com/repairing_the_healthcare_/2007/05/what_is_real_pr.html.Last  retrieved on June 30, 2007

Call for Transparency in Healthcare Cost and Quality. On the Internet at

Centralization and decentralization of HM

Centralized HM operations are conducted within the HM department and they assume that all employee related actions be implemented by the human resources specialists. Such an endeavor creates a context in which the human resource actions are taken in an objective and professional manner. Specifically, the decisions are made based on the organizational benefits and the technical considerations at an overall organizational level. In the case of decentralization nonetheless, the human resource decisions are taken in a less formal manner and they are influenced by personal bias of the medical staff conducting the interviews. The benefit is nevertheless that of the staff decisions being made not on grounds of organizational benefits, but on skills and abilities at a medical level.

A centralized human resource department then supports organizational gains and objectives, whereas a decentralized human resources act supports professional and medical benefits. It is expected…

References:

Connor, E.T., Educational tort liability and malpractice, University of Iowa,  http://www.uiowa.edu/~c07p134/tort.htm  last accessed on March 3, 2011

Salvador, F.A., Which is better? Formal authority or informal authority? Entrepreneur, http://www.entrepreneur.com.ph/features/article/which-is-better-formal-authority-or-informal-authority last accessed on March 3, 2011

Website of Medicare,  http://www.medicare.gov  last accessed on March 3, 2011

The penalties for being out of compliance when OSHA comes knocking should be enough to motivate any healthcare facility to devise a plan to make sure that they are in compliance with OSHA's regulations. The startling thing is that it took an initiative like NEP to wake these facilities up and get them thinking about being compliant. Since they deal with people and their well being on an everyday basis, these are things that they should have been doing all along and not just because there is an increased probability of getting into trouble by OSHA.

eferences

Harris, S. (2012). OSHA in Health Care: Out of Sight & Out of Mind? etreived from http://ohsonline.com/articles/2012/04/01/osha-in-health-care.aspx

Healthcare workers. (2012). etrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/healthcare/

New OSHA inspection initiative focuses on healthcare. (2011). etrieved from http://www.puresafety.com/public/workingwell/?p=1209#.UAa4aFJ6EM

Occupational Safety and Health Administration ("OSHA") Targets Nursing and esidential

Care Facilities. (2012). etrieved from http://www.hancocklaw.com/p/OSHA_Newsletter_212_May_H1768037.PDF

Prepare Your Facility…

References

Harris, S. (2012). OSHA in Health Care: Out of Sight & Out of Mind? Retreived from  http://ohsonline.com/articles/2012/04/01/osha-in-health-care.aspx 

Healthcare workers. (2012). Retrieved from  http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/healthcare/ 

New OSHA inspection initiative focuses on healthcare. (2011). Retrieved from  http://www.puresafety.com/public/workingwell/?p=1209#.UAa4aFJ6REM 

Occupational Safety and Health Administration ("OSHA") Targets Nursing and Residential

Meanwhile, without any competition, such as n the form of a public healthcare insurance system, the private healthcare insurance industry also continually increases premium fees virtually at will (Kennedy, 2006; eid, 2009). Furthermore, by refusing policies to high-risk patients, private health insurers essentially "cherry pick" the lowest risk patients while leaving the most expensive medical services to be furnished at the public's expense by public funds available to provide healthcare for low-income individuals (Kennedy, 2006; eid, 2009). That is why, at the very least. The future of American healthcare insurance must include a public option (Kennedy, 2006).

The Issue of Government Healthcare Insurance Lobbying

The principal way that the private healthcare insurance industry maintains its control over American healthcare is through political lobbying of government representatives (Kennedy, 2006). In fact, there are approximately six healthcare industry lobbyists in Washington for every publicly elected representative. Throughout the 2009 negotiations in Washington…

References

Kennedy, E. (2006). America: Back on Track. Viking: New York.

Reid, T. (2009). The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. New York: Penguin Group.

The reason why, is because this is a sign that the quality of care that is being provided in declining. What normally happens is staff members, will often become frustrated with: health care environments that are inefficient and where management has an attitude of indifference. This is problematic, because it can spread through the organization like cancer by: eating away at the fundamentals that made the facility great.

Once this occurs, it will have an impact on: the costs, efficiency and profitability of the hospital. This is the point that this could undermine the reputation of facility and it could have an impact on the brand. When this takes place, it is a sign that many hospitals are falling into a downward spiral of: declining quality of care and increasing costs. At which point, it only becomes a matter of time until: some kind of major restructuring must occur or…

Bibliography

Ableson, R. (2010). Employers Push Costs for Health Care on Workers. New York Times. Retrieved from:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/business/03insure.html 

Palfry, C. (2004). Effective Health Care Management. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Shortell, S. (2006). Health Care Management. New York, NY: Thomason.

The experiences of seniors within the healthcare delivery system will alter how all Americans view healthcare. The healthcare delivery systems and overall organizational structure in the United States has been slow to adjust but that rest of the world is currently in flux that will migrate into our system. Technological advances in communication have made telehealth and telemedicine vialbel solutions to our outdated healthcare industry orgainzational structre. While these types of advances are only in their infancy, "...there seemed to be broad acceptance that telehealth and telemedicine had provided positive benefits to the worlds healthcare delivery system." (Telehealth Applications) Our technoloically challenged seniors have actually discovered the trend within the healthcare system and telehealth and telemedicine seems to be an advance that will find worldwide support so we as a nation will be reqquired to jump on the bandwagon.

In conclusion, this article review focused on new Healthcare Delivery Systems…

References

Farnsworth, Chris. "The Truth About Fraud" Washington Monthly 01 May 1997.

Joshua-Amadi, Mabel. "Recommendations: A Study in Motivation: Recruitment and Retention in the NHS" Nursing Management. February (2003).

Soloye, Daniel J. "Privacy and Power: Computer Databases and Metaphors for Information Privacy" Stanford Law Review July (2001).

Telehealth Applications. (2004) "Current Telehealth Applications" Retrieved October 26, 2004, at  http://www.startegis.com/epic/internet/inict-tic.nsf/PrintableE/it07545e.html

Health Staff

the Allied health care staffing agency is a staffing agency that focuses on the niche of the nursing jobs within the healthcare industry in Chicago

The Allied healthcare staffing agency works to recruit registered nurses belonging to all medical Specialties, Practical Nurses that are licensed also called LPNs, Nursing Assistants that are certified also called CNAs and Specialists from the allied health sciences. These professionals would be hired both from the area of the metro city as well as the suburbs and placed within the hospitals, the neighborhood medical centers, Adult care facilities, clinics, and rehabilitation centers.

The mission of the Allied Healthcare Staffing Agency is to provide the best opportunities of employment both to its collaborators which are the local healthcare organizations as well as serving the entire nursing community to provide amply amount of job opportunities to choose from in a time when the turnover of…

Works Cited

Bureau, U.C. (2000). Census 2000 Demographic Profile Highlights:. chicago illinois, fact sheet .

commerce, U. d. (2010). bear facts, state illinois. bureau of economic analysis .

directory, a. h. (2010). free stats & national stats. Retrieved september 7, 2011, from american hospital directory: www.ahd.com

Lindberg, R.C. (1991). To Serve and Collect: Chicago Politics and Police Corruption from the Lager Beer Riot to the Summerdale Scandal. chicago: praeger publications.

Healthcare in Marketing (Lasik)

Lasik's Methods in Other Health Care Organizations

Customer profiling is a vastly unexplored marketing method in the health industry. While it has been used to target very specific markets, such as potential consumers of elective surgery, other markets have been largely neglected (arber 2001). The reasons for this are many, but mostly they include difficulties with medical data gathering, and legal issues regarding potential customer profiling.

Despite the above-mentioned difficulties, there are several organizations that can and do benefit from customer profiling. One such entity is the pharmaceutical industry (Winterhalter 2002). Here the customer being profiled is normally the health care professional, rather than the patient. y gathering geo-demographic data as well as customer loyalty information from a group of health professionals, pharmaceutical companies can significantly enhance the effectiveness of their marketing practices. This will further benefit not only the professionals, but also the healthcare consumer,…

Bibliography

Barber, F.A., R.K. Thomas, M. Huang. "Developing a profile of LASIK surgery customers." Marketing Health Services, Iss. 2, Vol 21. Chicago: Summer 2001.

Business Wire. "New Customer Wins Position Lawson as Dominant Enterprise E-business Solution Provider to Healthcare Industry." New Orleans, 2001.

Winterhalter, K. "Customer profiling in the healthcare industry." Weber Shandwick, 2002.  http://www.browna2.fsnet.co.uk/PMLive/doctor_who_frame.htm

Each of these was included in the initial Senate bill, but was struck from the final Senate version. Despite the victories, the group isn't ready to pledge support for health reform bills. The AMA will not endorse any legislation unless Congress gets rid of the mandated payment cuts of more than $200 billion over 10 years in the government's Medicare program for the elderly. The cuts are part of Congressional action that was passed in 1997 in order to cut costs in the Medicare program, but have never gone into effect. There are also several hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical manufacturers and advocacy groups that are withholding final support. Most of these groups have pledged support to health care reform in principle while working privately through lobbyists to protect their industries (Eaton and Pell, 2010).

Healthcare lobbyists range from very large companies and corporations to very small groups who are all looking…

References

BREAKING: Health care lobby invests in reform summit. (2010). Retrieved March 1, 2010, from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Web site:

 http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/44211 

Eaton, Joe and Pell, M.B. (2010). Lobbyists Swarm Capitol to Influence Health Reform.

Retrieved March 1, 2010, from the Center for Public Integrity Web site:

Healthcare Changes

Changes to Healthcare Practice and Delivery: A Study of Two Detroit, MI Healthcare Facilities Separated by Twenty Years

Changes to technology and to the political and regulatory landscape have led to many changes in the ways that businesses in all manner of industries operate. Increased communications capabilities, the shrinking size and cost for advanced technologies, and a variety of other changes have provided many businesses with an opportunity to operate more efficiently, and in so doing have also made many industries and markets more competitive. An examination of some typical businesses operating in these industries today as compared to their counterparts that were in operation twenty years ago provides ample evidence of the changes that have occurred and the ways in which businesses have adapted.

The healthcare industry has by no means been immune from these changes, but in fact has changed more than many other industries due…

References

Anderson, J. & Aydin, C. (2005). Evaluating the organizational impact of health care information systems. New York: Springer.

Armoni, A. (2000). Healthcare information systems: challenges of the new millennium. Hershey, PA: Idea Group.

Wager, K., Lee, F. & Glaser, J. (2009). Health care information systems: a practical approach for health care management. New York: Wiley.

A patchwork of laws provided narrow privacy protections for selected health data and certain keepers of that data." (Administrative Simplification in the Health Care Industry) Therefore, new technologies such as relational databases have simplified the data gathering and maintenance processes of all types of healthcare related data like the physician information process. It is not unheard of today for healthcare and insurance providers matching or 'sinking data' on a monthly or quarterly basis because of the availability of better communication capabilities as well as compatible database comparison processes.

Even the doctors themselves have access to providers' systems and databases today. Through automatic telephone systems, business to business Internet portals, and tape or disk delivery processes, all of a physician's personal, office and patient information can be updated easily. In many cases, the entire process including security and confirmation is a completely hands free operation. In other words, without human intervention,…

Works Cited

Administrative Simplification in the Health Care Industry. Ed. HIPAA. Health and Human Services. 23 Oct. 2004 http://www.hipaa.com/.

HMO Patients Can Contact Their Doctors Electronically as Blue Shield of California Expands Online Communication Services. Ed. Unknown. October 29, 2003. Relay Health. 23 Oct. 2004  http://www.relayhealth.com/rh/general/news/newsRecent/news49.aspx .

Hoffer, Prescott, and McFadden. Modern Database Management. 7th ed. Add City: Add Publisher, Add Year.

Database

(Menzel, 1990, p. 3) Fisher, Berwick, & Davis alude to the idea of integration in health care, with providers linking as well as creating networks of electronic medical records and other cost improvement tactics.

The United States and other nations over the last twenty or so years, have begun a sweeping change in health care delivery, regarding the manner in which health information is input, stored and accessed. Computer use in the medical industry has greatly increased over the last thirty years the culmination of this is fully networked electronic medical record keeping. (Berner, Detmer, & Simborg, 2005, p. 3) the electronic medical record trend began in the largest institutions first, as hospitals and large care organizations attempted to reduce waste and improve patient care, while the adoption has been much slower among physician's practices and smaller medical institutions. (Hillestad, et al., 2005, pp. 1103-1104) Prior to this time medical…

Resources, and Utilization

Health Care Finance

Financial analyst Eric Feigenbaum (2009) notes that while we like to think of hospitals in terms of compassion, patient care and dedication to altruistic aims, they are businesses concerned with revenues and expenses like any other business (Feigenbaum 2009, p.2). In today's hectic world of economic downturn and financial struggles felt from individuals of every demographic and social status, revenue and expense accounting are issues that must be addressed carefully by nearly every business in every market. The same holds true for the health care industry and health care providers. With financial uncertainty come threats for health care providers in managing revenue and expenses during the upcoming years. However, with these threats remain certain opportunities for health care providers to take on in order to combat the uncertainty that comes with managing revenue and expenses when the amount of each is not ideal.

With the appropriate management…

References

Bristow, W. (2009). How to thrive during a recession. Doctor's Digest. 81(1): p.16.

Retrieved from: LexisNexis Database.

Feigenbaum, E. (2009). Categories of expenses and revenues in the hospital business setting. Demand Media, 2(1), pp. 2-5. Retrieved from: ProQuest Database.

Johnson, N., McNichol, E. And Oliff, P. (2011). Feeling the recession's impact on health care. Handbook of Health Economics 3(2), pp. 54. Retrieved from: ProQuest Database.

Healthcare Legal Issues

Discuss the impact Federalism has on the regulation of health care delivery; how do the different sources of law as they related to the federal and state governments matter, if at all?

In general, federal regulation of health care delivery would be much more appropriate and efficient than state or local law, at least in so far as major aspects of health care delivery are concerned. That is because state laws vary considerably; that makes it impossible to establish a consistent or uniform standard of health care delivery across state lines. Certainly, there are aspects of health care that are appropriate to regulate at the state or even the local level, but there are others that would be much better to regulate on a national or federal level.

One of the best examples of an aspect of health care delivery that should be regulated federally are elements…

Reference

Reid, T. (2009). The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. New York: Penguin Group.

The American Public Health Association (APHA) is founded. This organization is concerned with the social and economic aspects of health problems.

The National Quarantine Act is signed into law. This legislation is designed to prevent entry into the country of persons with communicable diseases.

1899 the National Hospital Superintendent's Association is created. It later becomes the American Hospital Association.

Patel & ushefsky, 1995, p. xvii)

The seeds of health care legislation and centralization began before 1875 but began to take hold as the most accepted manner in which to ensure safe and scientifically founded health care for many and to begin to ensure that diseases that commonly plagued a newly urbanized and highly stressful environment of mass immigration could be dealt with, in a more centralized and practical manner. Founded earlier in 1847, the American Medical Association began to have a concrete and centralized role in the health care decisions…

References

 

Healthcare Budgetary Decision Making

With resources becoming increasingly limited in the healthcare industry, managers are continually challenged with devising effective strategies for dealing with budgetary concerns. The most prominent challenge comes in the form of decision making that results in striking a balance between cost reduction and the maintenance of high quality care and safety for patients. The following discussion outlines approaches that can be utilized by managers to effectively deal with budgetary concerns in healthcare settings, with an emphasis on the advantages of group decision making strategies.

It is evident that there is often a struggle in the healthcare industry for managers to continually and effectively manage depleting resources, address the ever-changing needs of patients, and all the while provide a high level of patient care (Sibbald et al., 2010). This struggle has at its core a need for improvement in regards to the processes in which priorities are…

References

Burleson, G. (1984). Management, budgeting and the use of resources -- a private sector review. Hospital and Health Services Review, 80(3), 124-5.

Sibbald, S.L., Gibson, J.L., Singer, P.A., Upshur, R., Martin, D.K. (2010). Evaluating priority setting success in healthcare: a pilot study. BMC Health Services Research, 10, 131.

Xie, H., Chaussalet, T., Toffa, S., Crowther, P. (2005). A software tool to aid budget planning for long-term care at local authority level. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 114, 284-90.

Healthcare in the United States: Where We Have Been, Where We Are Going

The current healthcare crisis in America is not one that happened over night. It is one that has been building for more than a quarter century. There was a time in America when healthcare was a stellar institution: research, cures, technological advances, and treatments. The focus of healthcare was maintaining and improving the quality of life. Then, during the early 1980s, managed care became an entity between the physician, the patient, and the healthcare provider of hospital services. It began subtly, but has, today, become one of the most aggressive and successful business ventures of our time; and it has been the unmaking of a once stellar and progressive American institution.

Managed care is a "distinctly American" product (Birenbaum, 1997). It was legislation introduced by the Nixon Administration with the intent to regulate healthcare and to maintain…

Reference List

Bernstein, A.B., Hing, E., Moss, A.J., Allen, K., Siller, A., and Tiggle, R. (2003). Health Care in America: Trends in Utilization. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.

Birenbaum, A. (2002). Wounded Profession: American Medicine Enters the Age of Managed Care. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Birenbaum, A. (1997). Managed Care: Made in America. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Committee on Health Care Access and Economics Task Force on Mental Health (2009). Improving Mental Health Services in Primary Care: Reducing Administrative and Financial Barriers to Access and Collaboration. The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, March, 30, 2009, pp. 1248-1251.

Healthcare spending and GDP

With the renewed comprehensive healthcare system, the obvious challenge that came with it is how to finance it. The huge projections of the financial inputs needed to efficiently run the program portends a challenge to the government and is likely to spin out of control and be unaffordable in the long run after a few decades from now. This is informed by accompanying supplies and services increasing in cost like the essential original drugs that have been noted to have increased in prices among other services within the healthcare. In many countries people are expected to pay for their own health care. Therefore the ability of people to pay for their health care or the affordability of the healthcare has become a policy issue in many countries and especially an issue of urgency. The issue of healthcare spending has been a topic for debate over the…

Rise in healthcare spending can also be attributed to the use of improved technology, vaccine improvement, antibiotics, introduction of disease care as well as advances in surgery. There have also been improved medical devices like CT scanners, MRI, ultrasounds and defibrillators that can be implanted. At the same time there are developments in pharmaceuticals and administration costs have also contributed to the rise in costs of healthcare. Mostly the heath care costs are due to medical technology which is approximately over 200 billion per year (Wayne, 2012).

The Americans lifestyles also impact the health care industry in significant measures, almost sixty percent of the population is overweight and childhood obesity is rampant. Other factors that have an impact on the healthcare spending are; poor diets, high blood pressure, smoking, lack of exercise, drugs and drinking. It is the people themselves who have pushed the costs of health care up. The high healthcare spending ahs effects not only to families but also to businesses and public budgets. Expenditure on healthcare is seen to rise at a rate that is fast even faster than the state of the economy entirely and the wages of the working people.

In 2011 spending on medications, hospital visits as well as other medical care went up with an estimated percentage of 3.9 this consumed about 17.9% of the GDP. This is more than three times the deficit. Much of the money is considered to be spent appropriately which is keeping people alive and healthy but of

S. healthcare structure do not include the unobserved disparities. This may sound very rudimentary, even silly to point out, but in by understanding that the numbers are actually worse than they appear, and that the rising costs of healthcare services re associated with both what we see and can't see, it is easier to understand how costs rise so quickly.

It is also a sobering fact that what we cannot observe is still out there, existing beyond the scope of the government and social programs designed to help people overcome obstacles to access to healthcare and health insurance. The ethnic group that is most unobserved within the bounds of many of the studies and statistics related to the disparities in the U.S. healthcare industry is non-Mexican Latinos (Bustamante, et. al., 2009). This group represents a major portion of the U.S. population that currently lacks access to healthcare. In understanding this…

Works Cited

Bodenheimer, T., Chen, E., and Bennett, H.D. (2009). "Reorganizing Care:

Confronting The Growing Burden Of Chronic Disease: Can The U.S. Health Care Workforce Do The Job?" Health Affairs. Vol. 28, No. 1. Pp. 164-174.

Braveman, P.A., Cubbin, C., Egerter, S., Williams, D.R., and Pamuk, E. (2010).

"Socioeconomic Disparities in Health in the United States: What the Patterns Tell Us." American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 100, No. 1. Pp. 186-196.

Health Care Market

In discussing the market for a health care good or service, one must first understand that in speaking of "health care," one is actually speaking of the entire health care industry, along with each of the goods and services that are produced and exchanged within this market. From organ transplant operations and blood donation to therapeutic massages and nursing home activity programs, the span of health care goods and services is both vast and varied. Further, in viewing today's uncertain economy, the market for health care goods and services is one that brings with it many different questions that must be addressed in order for a stakeholder to fully comprehend what decisions need to made in order to turn a profit.

Scarcity of esources

Scarcity of resources within this market significantly influences the decisions that stakeholders are forced to make. With scarcity of resources comes limited action…

References

Case, K. And Fair, R. (2007). Principles of economics. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

Education, Inc.

Fullerton, D. (2008). How economists see the environment. Nature, 385(6701), p. 433.

Retrieved from: LexisNexis Database.

While the study had a number of scientific limitations; the two most significant were: 1) although the response rate of interns that volunteered to participate was 80%, those that did participate may not have been representative; and 2) the case-crossover analysis cannot account for the contribution of within-person factors that may have been co-variables with exposure status.

Evaluation

As a result of the related research, hospitals will be using medical resident interns as a means of making up for the lack of doctors caused by financing concerns. The redistribution of medical interns was expected to be completed before the next residency training year starts July 1, 2005, however, it remains currently underway. The Association of American Medical Colleges has stated that the health care system would be better off if the cap were lifted so hospitals could respond to the needs of their communities, such as adding a new cardiology…

Bibliography

Barger, L., Cade, E., Ayas, N., Cronin, J., Rosner, B., Speizer, F. & Czeisler, C. (2005).

Extended Work Shifts and the Risk of Motor Vehicle Crashes among Interns. NEJM

Cauchon, D. (2004). Medical Miscalculation Creates Doctor Shortage. USA Today,

Croasdale, M. (2004). Residency Slots Reallocated to Relieve Doctor Shortages.

A recent article touted the 6.1% growth of spending on medical care in 2007.

The same article cautioned however that, "most experts know that no matter what the numbers say, there is still a great deal of work ahead to reform a healthcare system that is still fundamentally broken -- and is facing one of the worst economic recessions in decades" (Lubell, 2009, pg. 6).

Government and industry officials have been working to reform the industry for more than a decade yet the problem seems to be getting worse rather than better. More and more individuals are finding that insurance takes too much of their income and are forced therefore to forego that expense. Government is leery of committing to the cost of such expense, and industry is reluctant to offer expanded coverage without the backing of the federal government. As the interested parties do the two-step the problem becomes…

References

Bentley, C.S.; (2005) the new healthcare system, New American, Vol. 21, No. 18, pg. 44

Blizzard, R.; (2002) the haves and have nots of healthcare, Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing, pp. 8-9

Brown, J.; (2009) Obama healthcare plan would shut down private sector, OneNewsNow,  http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=414372 , Accessed February 10, 2009

Conn, J,; DerGurahian, J.; (2008) HIT budgets taking a hit: study, Modern Healthcare, Vol. 38, No. 50, pp. 10-11

In the case of pill mills, participating physicians and pharmacists bill insurance companies or Medicare for prescription drugs, allowing participating beneficiaries to resell those drugs to criminal middlemen. The pharmacy then repurchases the drugs at a lower cost. According to the USGAO, any misuse of beneficiary identification information is a felony.

Criminals may also steal beneficiary information by creating drop boxes. The drop box scheme involves establishing a phony health care company in order to obtain insurance or Medicare payments. Like the drop box scheme, the pill mill scheme, and the rent-a-patient scheme, third-party billing also involves felony acts. Illegally obtaining beneficiary identification numbers, a criminal can use third-party billing agents to receive insurance payouts. The third-party billing company may not even be aware of the scheme. In other cases, the third-party billing company is a part of the scheme, defrauding by tacking on fraudulent claims to legitimate ones and…

References

Cornell University Law School. "Health Care Fraud." Retrieved Aug 7, 2008 from  http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/healthcare_fraud 

United States General Accounting Office (USGAO). "Health Care Fraud." Retrieved Aug 7, 2008 from http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:NcKXTYWPgDEJ:www.gao.gov/new.items/os00015t.pdf+health+care+fraud&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Contracts with doctors often contain a clause which doesn't allow the doctors to discuss

Health care 7 with their patients financial incentives to deny treatment or about treatments not covered by the plan (Glazer, 1996). This has caused many consumers, especially those with chronic illnesses, to form organizations with the American Medical Association and physician specialty groups to promote legislation forbidding "gag rules" (Glazer, 1996). One group, Citizen Action, has 3 million members and "has been lobbying in state legislatures for laws that would require plans to disclose how they pay their doctors; give patients the right to choose specialists outside the plan; and provide appeals for patients who get turned down for expensive treatments" (Glazer, 1996).

The doctor-patient relationship is also affected if a patient must switch to a new doctor under managed care. Having a longterm relationship with a primary doctor is important because he or she is…

Works Cited

Bennett Clark, Jane (1996, July). What you should ask your HMO.

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine. pp. 92-93.

Glazer, Sarah (1996, April 12). Managed Care. CQ Researcher, 6,

Koop, C. Everett (1996, Fall). Manage with care. Time. pp. 69.

As a result, millions of Americans remain unable to bear the heavy financial toll of medical expenses. Indeed, the problem of a lack of insurance for many is related to the problem of the cost of healthcare. So confirms the article by Consumer Reports (CR) (2008), which finds that "health-insurance premiums have grown faster than inflation or workers' earnings over the past decade, in parallel with the equally rapid rise in overall health costs. Industry spending on administrative and marketing costs, plus profits, consumes 12% of private-insurance premiums." (CR, 1) This reiterates the case that the undue imposition of costs by the healthcare industry -- a reflection of a free-market industry with little to no regulatory oversight -- has negatively impacted the accessibility and quality of healthcare for many of the poorest users.

Moreover, these users are most vulnerable to the long-term economic damages provoked by unexpected healthcare costs. So…

Works Cited:

Bureau of Labor Education (BLE). (2001). The U.S. Health Care System: Best in the World, or Just the Most Expensive? The University of Maine.

Childress, M. (2010). Poverty is on the Upswing, but Metric is Out of Date. The Washington Independent.

Cockerham, W.C. (2004). Medical Sociology and Sociological Theory. The Backwell Companion to Medical Sociology.

Consumer Reports (CR). (2008). High Health Care Costs. Consumer Reports Health.org.

Stated to be barriers in the current environment and responsible for the reporting that is inadequate in relation to medical errors are:

Lack of a common understanding about errors among health care professionals

Physicians generally think of errors as individual that resulted from patient morbidity or mortality.

Physicians report errors in medical records that have in turn been ignored by researchers.

Interestingly errors in medication occur in almost 1 of every 5 doses provided to patients in hospitals. It was stated by Kaushal, et al., (2001) that "the rate of medication errors per 100 admission was 55 in pediatric inpatients. Using their figure, we estimated that the sensitivity of using a keyword search on explicit error reports to detect medication errors in inpatients is about 0.7%. They also reported the 37.4% of medication errors were caused by wrong dose or frequency, which is not far away from our result of…

Bibliography

Discussion Paper on Adverse Event and Error Reporting In Healthcare: Institute for Safe Medication Practices Jan 24, 2000

Patient Safety/Medical Errors Online at the Premiere Inc. page located at:  http://www.premierinc.com/all/safety/resources/patient_safety/downloads/patient_safety_policy_position_2001.doc 

Medstat / Shortell, S. Assessing the Impact of Continuous Quality Improvement on Clinical Practice: What It Will Take to Accelerate Progress.

Health Policy Monitor (2001) A Publication of the Council of State Governments Vol. 6, No. 1 Winter/Spring 2001 PO18-0101

d).

The health care industry is heavily regulated and has several special risk areas that need to be looked out for. An effective compliance program is necessary in order to mitigate these risks. In addition to the challenges that are associated with taking care of patients, health care providers are subject to huge and sometimes intricate sets of rules that govern the coverage and reimbursement of medical services. Because federal and state sponsored health care programs play such a big role in paying for health care, compliance with these rules are necessary in order to avoid penalties that can occur. These penalties can include such things as recoupment of improper payments, along with sanctions imposed by Medicare and Medicaid against health care businesses that engage in abuse or fraudulent practices (Corporate esponsibility and Corporate Compliance: A esource for Health Care Boards of Directors, (n.d.).

A good health care administrator will…

References

Corporate Responsibility and Corporate Compliance: A Resource for Health Care Boards of Directors. (n.d.) Retrieved April 3, 2009, from Office of the Inspector General Web site:

http://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/docs/complianceguidance/040203CorpRespRsceGuide.pdf

Health Administration. (n.d.). Retrieved April 3, 2009, from Web site:

 http://www.nmsu.edu/~soahec/manual/hadmin.html

Health Care

The government should provide health care, because the economic characteristics of health care make it ripe for abuse in a market environment. Government should provide as a service to its population those goods that, for one reason or another, are open for abuse in a normal market economy. Normally, the main condition is natural monopoly, which makes the case for government involvement in commodities like electricity, water, or policing. Health care is not a natural monopoly in that there can reasonably be a number of different providers, but it has other characteristics that make it a strong candidate for government intervention.

In even the freest capitalist economies, there are public goods that the government provides. The government provision of certain services is accepted by populations because the alternative -- total anarchy -- results is a severely degraded quality of life. No government services at all is a failed…

Bibliography

Besley and Gouveia write about different modes of health care provision. They discuss in particular some of the cost drivers in the American system, and evaluate some other systems in order to come to some conclusions about what other options exist. They note that insurance is a key issue for a private health care system, and because of this most countries opt for public health care systems, typically with mandatory insurance.

Gupta and Davoodi seek to understand how corruption affects the provision of government services, including health care. Unfortunately, their analysis has significant bias, as they begin with the assumption that government-run programs are inherently corrupt.

Transparency International is an organization that measures the level of government corruption in all the countries of the world. This source was required to examine the claims of Gupta and Davoodi. It was found that in the West there is very little government corruption. While the U.S. has more than most Western nations, it remains a spurious claim on the part of Gupta and Davoodi that corruption is inherent in government programs. Further, the line between corruption (accepting payment in return for favors) and capitalism (accepting payment to provide a service) is not explored.

Lloyd and Sreedhar wrote about Hobbes' moral and political philosophy. Hobbes' seminal discussion about the state of nature is relevant because societies have evolved different forms of governance specifically to avoid the state of nature; an argument that government should not be involved in health care must consider the implications of having such a weak government -- these range from the state of nature to poor health outcomes and quality of life measures.

Healthcare Standards

there are three parts. PAT A EQUIES 4 DIFFEENT ANSWES

Standard: ICD-10-PCS

"ICD-10-PCS is intended to replace ICD-9 volume 3 for facility reporting of inpatient procedures….ICD-10-PCS is a totally new coding system designed to better accommodate the rapidly changing world of procedures. The code system was developed in the 1990s, but use of the continually updated codes will start almost 20 years later." (Dimick 2011). This new standard is supposed to be more accurate and reflective of current healthcare realities than standards of the past, but it is uncertain if in its implementation this promise will be realized.

Current status of implementation

This standard has yet to be fully implemented. "On October 1, 2013, healthcare providers must begin reporting HIPAA claims using the ICD-10 counterparts to the current ICD-9 code sets" and full implementation will be a 20-year process (Dimick 2011).

Three major issues related to implementation status…

References

About ASC X12. (2013). ASC X12. Retrieved:  http://www.x12.org/about/index.cfm 

Dimick, Chris. (2011). Learning and using ICD-10-PCS. Journal of AHIMA. Retrieved:

 http://journal.ahima.org/2011/02/09/learning-and-using-icd-10-pcs/ 

Health Level 7 International. (2013). HL7. Retrieved:  http://www.hl7.org/implement/index.cfm

If a hospital has a poor record of infections and patient falls, those patients who have a choice will avoid the hospital. So, as the hospitals begin recording and tracking the information, those that do not choose to improve lose patients (HQA 2011). Contrary wise, those hospitals that remain on the cutting edge of improving the quality of care for patients are hospitals that will be sought after by patients who have an option.

Another possible reason for the desire to improve conditions is for the sake of attracting better physicians. Many physicians are selective as to the hospitals they serve with. For instance, most Catholic physicians tend to only seek admission to Catholic hospitals.

It is possible that hospitals may seek reimbursement as a means of dealing with quality issues with patients. Currently, when a hospital makes a mistake the patient is still expected to pay the full amount…

Works Cited

Hospital Quality Alliance (2011). Quality Measures. Extracted February 4, 2012.  http://www.hospitalqualityalliance.org/hospitalqualityalliance/qualitymeasures/qualitymeasures.html 

Washington State Hospital Association (2011). Quality Indicators Search Page. Extracted February 4, 2012. http://www.wahospitalquality.org/index.php

Health Care -- Lean Philosophy on Cost Reduction and Quality Improvement

Lean Philosophy is initially traced back to Henry Ford's innovative assembly line, revolutionizing manufacturing while failing to provide true variety. Building on Ford's concepts Toyota management established a Lean Philosophy in the 1930's and 1940's that focused on production flow and waste elimination, resulting in rapid, low cost and high quality processes, along with simpler and more accurate management. These concepts were further elucidated by authors including James omack, who established the Lean Enterprise Institute in 1997.

The essential elements of Lean Philosophy are 5 principles including: defining the value sought by the customer; specifying the value stream of the product satisfying that value while challenging wasted steps; making a continuous flow of product through refined steps; creating "pull" (essentially meaning "customer demand/expectation") from step-to-step for continuous flow wherever possible; continually improve and refine the process to cut the…

Works Cited

Berk & Associates. (2011). Idea: Lean government. Seattle, WA: Washington State Auditor's Office.

Jimmerson, C. (2010). Value stream mapping for healthcare made easy. New York, NY: Productivity Press.

Lean Enterprise Institute. (2009). 5S - Visual workplace. Retrieved October 5, 2012 from www.lean.org Web site:  http://www.lean.org/Workshops/WorkshopDescription.cfm?WorkshopId=39 

Lean Enterprise Institute. (2009). Lean timeline. Retrieved October 5, 2012 from www.lean.org Web site:  http://www.lean.org/WhatsLean/Timeline.cfm

Nurses, who have first hand knowledge and understanding of how to live healthy and how to take proper care of themselves, are far better equipped to teach others about these concepts. Certain populations can benefit greatly from prevention, especially those who are prone to specific types of diseases or conditions.

One of the most common behaviors that leads to many chronic and often very damaging health conditions is smoking. Smoking can cause a multitude of diseases and conditions from emphysema to heart disease to lung cancer (Chapman, 2007). The list goes on and on. But smoking is 100% preventable and nurses need to understand not only how to treat these smoking-related diseases but how to more importantly discourage and prevent people from smoking in the first place. Many nurses agree that this behavior leads to many of the worst case scenarios for people with pre-existing chronic conditions. It is therefore…

References

Chapman, Simon. (2007). Public Health Advocacy and Tobacco Control: Making Smoking

History. Blackwell Publishing, New York, NY. Pp. 55-56.

Chung, Daniel C. (2008). "Stool DNA Testing and Colon Cancer Prevention: Another Step

Forward." Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol. 149, No. 7. pp. 509-510.