Delivering Health Care in America - Research Paper Example

Position Paper 2 Client's School Affiliation Chapter 4 of the book “Delivering Health Care in America” by Leiyu Shi and Douglas A. Singh focuses on issues concerning health services professionals. Among all the concepts discussed in this chapter, I believe the most important topic is the maldistribution in the physician labor force. Health is a highly important and critical concern, and considering the commodification of today's health care services, it is just right and fair for people to receive the medical attention that they need.

Receiving the appropriate medical attention encompasses being attended to by a physician with the specialty that fits the medical requirements of the patients. However, due to the problem with maldistribution in the physician labor force, people end up being treated by a doctor who does not specialize in the field that some patients require, or even worse people end up waiting in vain due to physician shortage. According to the book, maldistribution pertains to “either a surplus or a shortage of the type of physicians needed to maintain the health status of a given population at an optimum level” (Shi & Singh, 2012, p. 132). Maldistribution creates a problem both for the field of health services and for the people.

If there is a surplus of physicians in one area health care expenditures also increases unnecessarily. On the other hand, a shortage of physician in one area will lead to the incompetency of health care services in terms of not being able to appropriately respond to the medical needs of the people. Due to insufficiency in the numbers of doctors and the increasing number of patients who are continuously requiring medical attention, the doctors easily become stressed out that may eventually result to inaccuracies in the physicians' delivery of health services.

Concurrently, the health condition of those people who are patiently waiting for assistance, if not appropriately assisted, may worsen. Indeed, the problem with maldistribution in the physician labor force, which is perceived both in terms of geography and specialty, is a serious issue in the field of health services. I experienced this problem with maldistribution in the physician labor force when I visited my grandmother one summer. She lives in a rural area and, as expected, there was only one small hospital in the area with few doctors working at the hospital.

As far as I could remember, there were approximately 10 nurses, two general practitioners, and only one surgeon. One fine day of my stay there, I accidentally broke my leg and my grandmother brought me to this hospital. My condition was serious and it needed immediate attention. Unfortunately, when we went to the hospital, there was only one doctor, the general practitioner, and maybe 8 nurses. The surgeon was not there because she was in another area helping other people. It was a difficult situation both for me and the healthcare practitioners in the hospital, especially the doctor, because I could sense his willingness to help me but he was just not the right kind of doctor to do the operation.

I needed an orthopedic surgeon to help me with my broken leg. I watched them discussed while I was waiting in pain. Finally, they transferred to another hospital to do the operation. My experience clearly demonstrates the potential problem that physician maldistribution creates. It makes health services incompetent and the people wait in vain. If people need an immediate medical attention and there are no doctors appropriate for the people's medical needs, it definitely will be a huge problem.

In chapter 5 of the book, which is about Medical Technology, the most important concept discussed for me is the growing role of information technology and informatics in the delivery of health care. I consider it the most important because the impact of technology in every aspect of living, specifically in the field of medicine, is inevitable. It is happening and it will continuously happen along with the constant developments and innovations in technology. Therefore, it is important to understand how information technology and informatics help in improving the delivery of health care services for us to know how we can maximize the benefits we get from using information technology and informatics.

Today, it is a lot easier to transform medical data into useful and comprehensible information with the use of information technology (IT). Through this advanced technology that hospitals and doctors use, it becomes easier for them to communicate with their colleagues and, most importantly, patients. Also, with IT transferring of data and information becomes easier and faster, which I believe is very important in the field of medicine because it makes the entire system more efficient and accurate.

In addition, the incorporation of IT and informatics in today's health services minimizes the errors in medical records that enables health care professionals produce timely reports on quality of care delivered, and provides guidance in clinical decision making. Every time I go to my doctor I find it very efficient that my doctor keeps a record of his patients in his computer. Every time I go to his clinic, his assistant checks on my name in the computer and their records immediately populates all necessary medical records that they need about me.

His records also indicate the last visit I made, my complaints, and any follow up visits that they have advised me to do. It saves his assistant the time of opening a drawer and pulling out the folder of his patient and then browsing all the papers and other medical documents in the folder to find what is supposed to be done with the patient. It allows his to spend more time with his patients instead of dealing with the records. In addition, it minimizes any mixed up with his patients' records, which usually happens.

Using IT and informatics enables my doctor to efficiently keep track of his patients' records and effectively deliver. Meanwhile, as a patient, I feel more comfortable, safe, and protected seeing all of my medical records put in order. Reference Shi, L. & Singh, D. A. (2012). Delivering health care in America. A systems approach. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.