Healthcare is a critical institution in any society whose functions is unmatched or irreplaceable. Like any other institution, the healthcare needs to adapt to the changes and dynamics in the society in order to continue providing its essential services and maintain its relevance. As a result, the healthcare sector undergoes series of reforms to enable it to adjust and realign the needs of the society. The reforms in the healthcare sectors have triggered changes in the quality of service offered to the public, patients’ safety and all the reforms have also impacted the economics terms in the USA. The interplay between the healthcare reforms and its subsequent impact on the patient safety, economics and quality have resulted in a significant impact it the general healthcare system and how healthcare is delivered to communities.
Healthcare reforms and quality
Generally, healthcare reforms are triggered by the need to improve the provision of quality services to the people regardless of their conditions, situations and profiling that the society, may levy against them. Over the years, the series of reforms in the health sector have resulted to the improvement of quality in terms of the kind of medical services given to the patients, increase in the number practitioners making it possible for the patients have the maximum attention of the medics. There has been an insistent introduction of the use of modern and the latest technologies in the healthcare all with the intention of improving quality of services delivered to the society. The reforms that have led to the improvement of quality have been necessitated by both changes in policies and the improvement of infrastructures. In terms of policies, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) revolutionized the sector, the law implemented comprehensive reforms designed to improve the accessibility, affordability, and quality of healthcare. Checking on quality has also been necessitated by the increased measures taken by the institution to quality management measures, “At the Federal level, HCFA has emerged in recent years as one of the leaders in health care quality, a major purchaser, a quality innovator, and a quality-change agent” (Friedman, 1995).
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The reforms that brought about the improvement of quality have impacted the society, the healthcare system and service delivery in a variety of ways. In the healthcare system, delivery of services has been made more efficient and medics have been able to discharge their duties more carefully and meticulously with the aid of the technology. Through the Quality Assurance Reform Initiative (QARI), and other policies put in place, “a series of specific criteria and guidelines for Medicaid managed-care plans to use in designing their internal quality-assurance programs” (Friedman, 1995). The institutions have also prioritized on extending their service including awareness to the communities in order to enhance service delivery and increase response capabilities.
Healthcare reforms and economics
Generally, reforms in any institution come with its own economics, however, it is always the desire of those spearheading the reform agenda or part of the need for the reform to have a new system that is cost effective but not compromise on their critical aspects. The healthcare sector in the United States has undertaken series of reforms that come with changes in the cost of services and the increased cost investment especially in the infrastructure and cost of manpower. The recent healthcare reforms have been aimed to provide affordable healthcare programmes, the enacted of the Affordable Care Act into law marked another milestone in the health care especially in terms of the cost incurred by the patients, first, “the law has improved the availability of health insurance by means of a variety of mechanisms” (Hamel ed, 2015), the Americans were able to access medical services through the insurance schemes that were based on the consideration of the demography and backgrounds of the persons.
The reforms especially those put in place courtesy of the ACA have centered on reducing the expenses incurred by the health institutions, while this move has impact to the research, expansions and delivery of services, it is lauded for the helping cutting down unnecessary expenses, “the law’s reductions in payments to Medicare providers are probably helping to moderate increases in Medicare spending, and reductions in Medicare readmissions, hospital-acquired conditions” (Hamel, ed, 2015). The reforms, therefore, intend to balance delivery of services at affordable rates and also reduce the expenses in the sector.
The economic reasoning behind the reforms has had great influence healthcare system and healthcare delivery to the communities in the US. Many people have been able to acquire health services because of the insurance scheme that covers people from all walks of life, one generous influence of the reforms to the sectors is that the “public health practitioners have been able to access preventive, curative, and palliative care for vulnerable populations” (Glied & Jackson, 2017). The reforms have also centered around investing on healthcare plans that will enable people to access service from every corner of the country.
Healthcare reforms and patients’ safety
The recent reforms came in the backdrop of the public outcry on the recklessness and negligence which resulted in suffering and even death of patients, the reforms aimed at improving the safety of the patients seeking treatment in the healthcare facilities. The reforms have enshrined their measures to pressure on accountability from the practitioners to ensure that everyone take the responsibility of the actions, this was meant to improve patient safety. Similarly, the reforms aimed at addressing the pertinent barriers that hinder patients form safe medical services and the general patient safety. On the key factors that contributed the problems of patient safety, Lucian Leape (2015) notes that “healthcare culture is dysfunctional in that they are unable to consistently deliver a high-quality product, effective care, in an efficient, cost-effective manner.” The new reforms put in place aimed at improving the safety of the patients, Hamel et al (2015) notes that “The ACA expanded a previous program of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that penalized hospitals for egregious avoidable threats to the safety of Medicare patients.”
The impact of the reforms made in regards to the issue of patients safety have influenced and revolutionized the US healthcare system and the delivery of services to the people, the ACA creates Medicare payment incentives for hospitals and physicians to improve their performance on a variety of quality and cost metrics (Hamel et al, 2015), such incentives together with improvement in training and infrastructure medics have had favorable working environment. For the patients on the hand, the reforms have enabled an improved delivery of quality services with great regards to their safety as patients and proper mechanisms have also enshrined to help them report cases of negligence or poor service.
Generally, the reforms are meant to help improve quality services and improve patient’s safety while minimizing the cost of operating. While criticisms have been levied against reforms policies such as ACA, it should be appreciated that regardless of the loopholes it may have; it has helped revolutionize the sector. But still, more reforms need to be put in place to address the issue of cost that the patients still as burdensome to them.
References
Leape, L. L. (2015). Patient Safety in the Era of Healthcare Reform. Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research , 473 (5), 1568–1573. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11999-014-3598-6
Friedman, M. A. (1995). Issues in Measuring and Improving Health Care Quality. Health Care Financing Review , 16 (4), 1–13.
Blumenthal, D., Abrams, M., & Nuzum, R. (2015). The Affordable Care Act at 5 Years (M. Hamel, Ed.). Th e new england journal o f medicine, 2451-2457. Retrieved February 7, 2018.
Glied, S., & Jackson, A. (2017). The Future of the Affordable Care Act and Insurance Coverage. American Journal of Public Health, 107 (4), 538-540. Retrieved February 7, 2018.
