There has been a genuine concern about the quality and cost of healthcare in the United States. While the inflation cost has remained low, the cost of healthcare in the United States has remained higher compared to other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (Landon, Wilson & Cleary, 1998). It is estimated that the cost of healthcare in relative to GDP has increased from 6% in the 1970s to almost 18% by 2015. One of the major causes of the high cost of health is the lack of government intervention mechanisms. The cost of healthcare is largely determined by the market demands and the perceived quality. Due to the high cost of health, families in low socioeconomic statuses cannot afford to access quality health.
Apart from the challenge of cost, there has also been a question of quality. According to a report by Chassin & Galvin (1998), quality healthcare is yet to be fully realized in the United States. The National Roundtable on Health Care Quality was organized by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) with an aim of assessing and providing recommendations to improve the healthcare in the United States. The meeting established major quality issues and established the main causes. One of the major causes was the failure by the medical providers to adhere to the evidence-based practice. There is a need for medical providers to use knowledge obtained from scientific studies that has also been tested for reliability and validity. As the time goes, infections continue to become more complex. Medical providers need more training so that they diagnose diseases accurately.
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The other main cause of quality issues in the health sector has been the misallocation of resources. Often, resources are used to increase the number of healthcare institutions. However, Chassin & Galvin (1998) established that what was needed is not more healthcare facilities, but increasing the capacity of the existing ones. Instead of establishing more healthcare organizations, the goal should be to recruit more nurses, to adopt the best practices and technology in health, to train existing healthcare providers, and to improve leadership in healthcare organizations. The ratio of nurses to patients remains disproportionate, which is a primary cause of poor quality in healthcare, particularly in the government hospitals. When nurses are overwhelmed, they may suffer from fatigue and burnout. The resultant implications are low productivity, low job satisfaction, and low retention rate.
The cost and quality issues in healthcare need to be addressed urgently. The Obamacare had been established to bridge the gap of affordable healthcare, especially among the low socioeconomic families. Now that Obamacare has been repealed, it will be imperative that the government and other stakeholders in health work closely to make policies that will bring down the cost of health. While the government cannot regulate the prices, it can work with the private sector and other stakeholders in health to make services more affordable. Additionally, the quality of healthcare ought to be emphasized. The main reason why this should be done is to minimize the cases of medical negligence. Nurses and other healthcare providers need more training to enhance their skills. Further, it is vital that the healthcare organizations support the evidence-based practice. This will help in accurate diagnosis of diseases and reducing casualties. The equitable distribution of healthcare resources will also help in addressing the quality issues, particularly in healthcare organization situated in the rural and remote places.
References
Chassin, M. & Galvin, W. (1998). The urgent need to improve health care quality. Institute of Medicine National Roundtable on Health Care Quality. National Center for Biotechnology Information , 16;280(11):1000-5.
Landon, B., Wilson, B. & Cleary, D. (1998). A Conceptual Model of the Effects of Health Care Organizations on the Quality of Medical Care. Journal of the American Medical Association . 1998; 279:1377–82
