The healthcare costs in the United States are affected by various factors such as change in insurance, aging population, and increase in hospitals costs among others. However, the most recent factor that is affecting healthcare costs is the advancement in medical care technology (Sorenson, Drummond & Bhuiyan Khan, 2013). Medical technology involves new practices such as advanced electronic medical records, telemedicine, new drugs, and telemedicine among others. Although these advancements increase the costs of healthcare, they can equally aid in reducing the same.
Pediatric heart care is one area of healthcare that requires advanced technology. Individual specialties of intensive care, pediatric cardiac surgery, and pediatric cardiology depend on technology. The form of technology they need is costly and sophisticated and can only be made available in healthcare facilities through massive investments (Sorenson, Drummond & Bhuiyan Khan, 2013). In that case, only few organizations in the United States can afford it. The overhead costs are huge and as such, they make it difficult to for average individuals to afford. Despite impressive economic growth in the United States, majority of average families cannot afford the cost associated with catheter intervention and other heart related surgeries.
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Advancement in ultrasound technology in order to diagnose numerous ailments is immense. Through echocardiography, it has become possible to use ultrasound imaging in all human organs. In order to acquire professionals and experience of obtaining and interpreting images through ultrasound, a heavy cost is involved (Monegain, 2012). This technology has evolved over the last three decades, and has become sophisticated. It helps in diagnosing various heart ailments, and the current machines have the ability of displaying heart images in three dimensions in various measurements. Although they have become extremely advanced, most organizations making them have not focused on making them inexpensive and accessible. Considering the cost of acquiring echocardiogram has not changed, it has led to increased cost on the patient, and overall healthcare cost.
However, not all advancement in technology leads to high costs of healthcare. For instance, the introduction of digital marketing has allowed health systems to target individuals suffering from specific conditions (Kumar, 2011). Individuals have been provided with a platform of shopping online for the medical specialty. In the United States, effective targeted digital marketing has reduced cost of accessing healthcare, compared to the traditional approach.
In overall, advancement in medical care technology has affected the cost of healthcare in the United States in positive and negative way. On one hand, it has increased costs of accessing healthcare, and on the other one, the improvement has seen the cost of accessing healthcare decrease.
References
Kumar R. K. (2011). Technology and healthcare costs. Annals of pediatric cardiology , 4(1), 84-6.
Monegain, B. (2012). Technology helps drive high cost of U.S. healthcare. Retrieved from < https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/technology-helps-drive-high-cost-us- healthcare>
Sorenson, C., Drummond, M., & Bhuiyan Khan, B. (2013). Medical technology as a key driver of rising health expenditure: disentangling the relationship. ClinicoEconomics and outcomes research: CEOR , 5, 223-34. doi:10.2147/CEOR.S39634
