Healthcare in the United States has experienced dynamic shifts since the introduction of the Affordable Healthcare Act. Numerous agencies were established to ensure those who previously found healthcare expensive got a chance at quality medical care at affordable prices and hence were centered on reducing the costs and improving healthcare quality. This essay, therefore, hopes to evaluate two agencies: a public agency and private agency to determine their effectiveness in ensuring cost effective and quality healthcare. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services use standardized quality measures to ensure the services offered meet their goals of providing affordable healthcare to all individuals across the country.
The measures are further focused on safe, patient-centered, affordable, and equitable care and have thus a significant contributor to addressing healthcare costs and quality in the US. Consequently, the Joint Commission focuses primarily on offering patient safety from health risks that may arise during treatment ( Kline et al., 2015) . The commission has developed standards for ensuring patient safety is guaranteed with regards to medication prescription and use, infections, and emergency management. This further allows patients to have access to proper medical treatment while having a guarantee of their safety with regards to the areas mentioned above.
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The CMS collects data regularly to identify areas of improvement as well as develop future initiatives that will prove more effective than current programs. The agency thus collects data from claims and assessment instruments, which offer further insight into patient needs and whether the agency is effectively achieving controlled costs while consequently providing quality healthcare. Furthermore, CMS has invested in current initiatives such as the "Meaningful Measures Initiative" which hopes to improve the quality of patient care through various standardized measurements and quality improvement efforts.
The Joint Commission, on the other hand, uses initiatives centered on identifying channels through which patient safety can be improved and in turn, improve patient healthcare quality. The commission relies on data feedback provided by family members and patients as well as government agencies to improve its services. Other current initiatives include Patient Safety Research, which involves identifying adequate evidence-based interventions to enhance and help achieve its primary goal ( Baker, 2017) . The commission works cohesively with organizations such as the CDC to maximize the implementation of antibiotics stewardship.
While the CMS has managed to reduce costs and promote quality healthcare throughout the years, the Joint Commission is a private agency that is dependent on sponsorships and donations as well as funding from the patient to maximize on patient healthcare quality and in specific, patient safety. The CMS, on the other hand, is government-sponsored and hence an advantage of minimizing costs and ensuring reduced costs associated with healthcare while maximizing the quality care ( Kline et al., 2015) . This has implications for staff nurses as they are expected to meet the agency's quality standards despite the lack of appropriate funding in some instances.
Additionally, the CMS no pay policy with regards to interventions practiced by nurses and advanced practice nurses has proven ineffective based on the fact that it has failed to improve the quality of healthcare. The Joint Commission is further involved in ensuring patient safety through the prevention of inpatient falls, as this was attributed to the adequate use of evidence-based care ( Baker, 2017) . In conclusion, private and public health agencies have depicted significant differences and hence, crucial implications on the healthcare systems in the US. However, the CMS has proven more effective in controlling the costs associated with medical care while consequently improving the quality of services accorded patients.
References
Baker, D. W. (2017). History of The Joint Commission’s pain standards: lessons for today’s prescription opioid epidemic. Jama , 317 (11), 1117-1118.
Kline, R. M., Bazell, C., Smith, E., Schumacher, H., Rajkumar, R., & Conway, P. H. (2015). Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: using an episode-based payment model to improve oncology care. Journal of oncology practice , 11 (2), 114-116.
