Technology
Technological enhancements have gradually changed healthcare delivery in the United States (Groves, kayyali, Knott, & Van, 2013). Technology in medicine has introduced the use of social media support in the healthcare sector, new medical devices, new treatments, and improved drugs. These technological changes have changed modern medicine by improving radiotherapy, antibiotics, magnetic resonance imaging scanners, anesthetics, and many more (Page,2014). Technology is one of the major forces driving healthcare in the United States. Consequently, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has used more than 230 million dollars to fund projects that use information technology to develop the quality of health care in the United States (Page, 2014). Technology has affected the cost, quality, and accessibility of healthcare in the United States.
Technology in healthcare has significantly increased the health sector’s share of the United States’ GDP over the past nine years (Bardhan & Thourin, 2013). A recent Commonwealth Fund report found that the United States spent approximately $7,800 per person in 2009 on all healthcare services (Bardhan & Thourin, 2013). Conversely, New Zealand spent one-third whereas Norway spent two-thirds as much as the United States. Greater use of technology and higher prices are the major factors leading to the high rates that the United States spends on healthcare. According to the study, the U.S. provides less superior care compared to 10 other industrialized nations, yet it spends more on the delivery of healthcare. Additionally, about fifteen percent of the United States’ gross domestic product (GDP) constituted of healthcare services in 2009 (Bardhan & Thourin, 2013). Conversely, a country like Japan spent about eight percent of its GDP on healthcare services in the same year. Similarly, the most commonly used prescription drugs are thirty percent higher in the U.S. compared to Germany and Canada. Consequently, the United States would have saved more than $600 billion in 2009, if it spent the same GDP share on healthcare as the Netherlands (Bardhan & Thourin, 2013).
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Technological breakthroughs in communications, research, treatments, and information gathering will improve medical practice in the United States’ healthcare sector (Bardhan & Thourin, 2013). Technology will significantly change healthcare in the U.S. by providing new medicines and medical equipment. Similarly, the changes in the health sector will lead to treatments with higher chances of recovery, therefore, saving lives of millions of Americans. Technology will significantly improve the quality of studies and research, which will help medical experts enhance healthcare services in the United States. Technology will also make doctors more efficient and easily reachable (Bardhan & Thourin, 2013). Doctors will utilize online medical databases to check out their patients’ medical histories and to search for case studies. Additionally, technology will allow doctors to consult each other worldwide through conference facilities, text messages, videos, and images. The practice of doctors consulting each other is known as telemedicine (Lindberg et al., 2013). Technology in the healthcare sector will make patient care more consistent and safer than before. Doctors and nurses will use sophisticated hand-held computers to ensure they are administering the right treatment and record accurate patient health history. The technology will also facilitate the efficient electronic recording of patients’ medicine orders, lab results, and vital signs on the main database that can be accessed later. Consequently, patients will easily access their information so they too can know their progress health-wise (Bardhan, & Thourin, 2013).
Technology will make health more accessible in the United States by making it easier to understand, cheaper, and easier to reach. According to the CDC, more than twenty-five million Americans under the age of sixty-three lack health insurance (Page, 2014). Insurance is a major factor that determines the persons who access high-quality health care in the United States. However, other factors like how much money a person makes, where a person lives, and the language they speak can limit the access to high-quality healthcare. Technology will play a major role in making health care more accessible in the United States. Telemedicine, which involves talking to a medical practitioner via video or phone, will grow significantly. Approximately nine hundred thousand patients accessed telemedicine services in 2017 only (Page, 2014). Telemedicine will be economical compared to personal visits to the hospital. About twenty percent of Americans live in rural areas, yet there is only approximately nine percent of doctors available in these areas. Consequently, telemedicine will make homebound persons living in rural areas to access health care easily (Agha,2014). American citizens with limited English face health risks because they find it hard to converse effectively with medical practitioners. Technology will help eradicate the language barrier by using application software that will translate medical terminologies from one language to another. Additionally, technology will allow clinics to use video conference or phones to link patients with the appropriate medical interpreters. Video conferences will also help doctors in rural areas consult with specialists in special medical cases. Similarly, patients will be able to use video conferencing whenever they want to get advice from medical specialists. Consequently, Patients living in remote areas will not have to travel to specialists when the need arises (Agha, 2014).
Disruptive Innovation
Stakeholders in the healthcare division have turned to disruptive innovation to change the United States health care system in the future (Lee, Mc McCullough, & Town, 2013). A recent New Marketplace study showed that clinical personnel believe that innovation will not come from old healthcare organizations. Approximately sixty percent of the respondents in the study feel that disruptive innovation is mostly needed in health systems and hospitals (Lee, Mc McCullough, & Town, 2013). Additionally, healthcare information technology was second in the list of sectors needing innovation, and primary care ranked third. Specialty care ranked lowest with only ten percent of respondents ranking it among their best three sectors. Disruptive innovation will significantly affect the cost, quality, and accessibility of healthcare in the United States (Lee, Mc McCullough, & Town, 2013).
Disruptive innovations will increase the affordability of healthcare services and products in the United States. A good example of disruptive innovations in the United States is the retail clinics (Bardhan & Thourin, 2013). These clinics affect the primary care business models because they run outside conventional medical practitioners offices. Reminders prompts and alerts allow nurses in charge of the clinics to make wise medical assessments. Most low-cost providers ensure that less complicated work is delivered to new venues, away from expensive providers. Approximately eighty percent of retail clinics visits comprise of simple conditions like bronchitis, ear infection, and conjunctivitis. According to a 2009 report on Health Affairs, a usual visit to a physician cost between fifty dollars and two hundred dollars (Bardhan & Thourin, 2013). Conversely, in the same year, a visit to a retail clinic costs between forty-three dollars and seventy dollars. Similarly, telemedicine will lead to better outcomes, improved access and will allow early screening to avert severe and expensive health cases. More than $230 million will be saved in the next twenty years if medical practitioners communicate electronically with their patients (Bardhan & Thourin, 2013). Similarly, digital innovations will allow the elderly to remain in their homes and avoid nursing homes. These homes will be fitted with high-end technologies that will save costs by more than ten percent compared to nursing homes. Accordingly, there will be savings of more than $200 billion if expensive healthcare cases like obesity and cancer are controlled using in-house technologies (Bardhan & Thourin, 2013).
Introduction of disruptive innovations will significantly increase the accessibility of healthcare services in the United States. Healthcare services in the mountains, countryside, and desert have been difficult in the past years (Kellerman & Jones, 2013). However, disruptive innovations like telemedicine will be effective in areas like Norfolk, a rural area with a small population and few medical facilities. Kiosks will be built in remote pharmacies to facilitate telemedicine (Kellerman & Jones, 2013). These kiosks will help pharmacists search for an in-patient’s medical history online and make necessary records. These kiosks will also have attachments like exterior extensions to measure weight, glucose level, lung function, and blood pressure. Retail clinics will also increase healthcare accessibility in the U.S. There will be more than 3,000 retail clinics in the next five years (Kellerman & Jones, 2013). Seventy percent of these clinics will be found in drugstores all over the United States. Similarly, the remaining thirty percent will be located in grocery and discount stores like Publix, Walmart, and Kroger. Patients in the United States will have easy access to healthcare because these stores are evenly distributed in most parts of the country (Kellerman & Jones, 2013).
The use of disruptive innovations will affect the quality and safety of healthcare services in the U.S. The increase in disruptive innovations will significantly increase the quality, convenience, and service of health institutions in the United States (Agha, 2014). Health facilities will seek to improve and expand beyond what they currently offer. Retail clinics have already started improving their services as the RediClinic chains in Houston have incorporated wellness screenings for hyperlipidemia, diabetes and other diseases. However, disruptive innovations like telemedicine are not a safe technology (Agha, 2014). The difficulty of use may lead to wrong diagnosis and treatments if the medical officers are not conversant with the technology. Additionally, telemedicine lacks security when receiving and sending information. Medical practitioners are also reluctant when it comes to adjusting to electronic patient communication for fear of breaching confidentiality (Agha, 2014).
Global Competition
The technologies that facilitate the existence of medical tourism are quick air travel and improved medical technologies in other countries (Bodenheimer & Smith, 2013). Medical tourism depends on medical price and wage differentials. The business model involves brokers who create convenient travel packages. Similarly, these brokers reduce the cost of surgery by more than twenty-five percent compared to the United States. Most global firms will incorporate offshore health coverage for their employees who will be traveling on business. More than 800,000 Americans will leave the country for care and treatment elsewhere (Bodenheimer & Smith, 2013). Similarly, most of these patients will be seeking elective procedures like dental treatments, cosmetic surgeries, and heart valve surgeries, and hip replacements in Thailand, India and other countries. The patients seeking treatment overseas help to develop the economy of the countries they visit. The South Korean government intends to set aside approximately 400 acres to build a medical clinic complex on Jeju Island. The South Korean governments also hope the scenic beaches will attract foreigners seeking medical treatment. According to a Deloitte report in 2010, medical tourism outside the United States will grow significantly over the next six years (Bodenheimer & Smith, 2013). The report projected that U.S. medical tourists would grow to more than five million by 2011.The increase in the number of U.S. medical tourists will represent approximately $18 billion lost incomes to the United States health facilities (Bodenheimer & Smith, 2013). Customers will realize that there are considerable differences in the price of similar procedures because firms will post their outcomes and prices online. Planet Hospital is one of the major brokers of that improved medical tourism. The company engaged insurers and employers and came up with treatment and travel packages. The company makes airfare arrangements, prepares transport from the airport and later back to the airport, and ensure that clients recover in classy hotels. Planet Hospital also ensures they deliver a medical report to the client’s physician (Bodenheimer & Smith, 2013).
Medical tourism will ensure high quality of healthcare to all the consumers. The Joint Commission International oversees the delivery of quality healthcare to all clients (Connell, 2013). JCI has successfully reviewed more than 120 international health facilities. The inspections inspire confidence to clients seeking medical help outside the United States (Connell, 2013). Similarly, major hospitals in the United States have collaborated with foreign hospitals. An example is the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in the U.S. that works closely with the Saint Luke’s Medical Center in the Philippines. Employers are taking advantage of the price differences to send their employees to countries with better and cheaper healthcare. A hip replacement surgery costs about $11,000 in Singapore whereas, in the U.S., the same surgery costs about $45,000 (Connell, 2013). The spread of medical tourism among employers in the United States has led to significant losses in the medical sector over the years. As a result, health facilities have to compete with the quality of healthcare in other countries and cost of treatments.
Potential barriers to medical tourism will be community healthcare centers that will disagree with large firms that encourage staff to seek treatment elsewhere. Similarly, Customers will be concerned with factors like getting necessary immunizations, applying for passports and visas, guaranteed continuity of care and traveling to politically unstable countries (Connell, 2013). The customer will also worry about filing malpractice lawsuits if the health procedure goes wrong. Some of these concerns may prevent the clients from considering medical tourism despite the option being cheaper than local treatment. Employers have their considerations when dealing with medical tourism. Some of the concerns are if the company should pay for travel and accommodation costs of an employee’s spouse. The company will also decide if it is responsible for bringing the body back to the U.S. in case the patient dies (Connell, 2013). Additionally, the employer has to decide who will meet the extra costs in case of complications and the patient has to extend their stay. Companies that are self-funded and fully insured will start integrating medical tourism in their employees’ health insurance. Consequently, more than ninety insurance companies and employers have incorporated medical tourism in their medical plans. These companies have started sending their staff abroad for health care because they receive more than eighty percent discounts on major surgeries (Connell, 2013).
References
Agha, L. (2014). The effects of health information technology on the costs and quality of medical care. Journal of health economics , 34 , 19-30.
Bardhan, I. R., & Thouin, M. F. (2013). Health information technology and its impact on the quality and cost of healthcare delivery. Decision Support Systems , 55 (2), 438-449.
Bodenheimer, T. S., & Smith, M. D. (2013). Primary care: proposed solutions to the physician shortage without training more physicians. Health Affairs , 32 (11), 1881-1886.
Connell, J. (2013). Contemporary medical tourism: Conceptualisation, culture and commodification. Tourism Management , 34 , 1-13.
Groves, P., Kayyali, B., Knott, D., & Van Kuiken, S. (2013). The ‘big data revolution in healthcare. McKinsey Quarterly , 2 , 3.
Kellermann, A. L., & Jones, S. S. (2013). What it will take to achieve the as-yet-unfulfilled promises of health information technology. Health Affairs , 32 (1), 63-68.
Lee, J., McCullough, J. S., & Town, R. J. (2013). The impact of health information technology on hospital productivity. The RAND Journal of Economics , 44 (3), 545-568.
Lindberg, B., Nilsson, C., Zotterman, D., Söderberg, S., & Skär, L. (2013). Using information and communication technology in home care for communication between patients, family members, and healthcare professionals: a systematic review. International journal of Telemedicine and Applications , 2013 .
Page, T. (2014). Notions of innovation in healthcare services and products. International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development , 8 (3), 217-231.
