Health Administarion - Essay Example

There are several elements of healthcare that continue to change. There are: negative ways entrepreneurship has affected health care; positive ways entrepreneurship has affected health care; and several changes in ways in which the health care staff do their jobs as well as the way patients receive services. Entrepreneurship has affected healthcare in some negative ways. There was one case of a nose doctor who charged his patients for care that they actually didn’t need. Perhaps one might not call that entrepreneurship, but rather, criminal activity.

Entrepreneurship has, in a manner of speaking, allowed a lot of people into the profession seeking to make a profit at the expense of people who would like to make a quick buck. For example, many people have gotten into the business of selling supplements that they claim will do something remarkable like improve their patients’ memories or some other such promise. This is a negative element in itself. Another negative aspect of entrepreneurship in healthcare is that many students are now getting online degrees for some professional capacities that require hands-on learning in practica before they can go further in their medical careers.

Online universities are capitalizing on the fact that students don’t want to spend a lot of time and money commuting to a physical building to get educated; rather, they would like to stay at home and do their coursework from the comfort of their own homes. The positive ways in which entrepreneurship has affected healthcare are many. More people have been given access to preventive and innovative services that once evaded many. For example, there are mobile medical units that come around and visit sick patients.

These “MobileMed” vehicles usually transport doctors around to give people medical services who otherwise wouldn’t be able to get to a hospital or clinic for various reasons. Also, there are innovative services offered by healthcare professionals that used not to be a part of health care—such as cardiac rehabilitation, and so forth. Also, mental health services have been greatly improved since the beginning of what we know as modern healthcare services. One of the biggest problems in healthcare today is the staffing shortage which plagues the medical field, especially in the field of nursing.

Nursing staffing has been reduced significantly, which certainly has had a negative impact upon nursing as a profession. What is especially troubling is that, even though nurses have relatively high rates per hour, is that they are still being underpaid. This is not to mention the fact that they are, to some extent, still being overworked. It is unfortunate that staffing shortages cannot be replaced immediately. In lieu of doing that, registry nurses are hired in order to fill the stopgaps when new nurses are needed.

Another issue is that sometimes, even though nurses are not rationing care as per the U.S. model, but they are many times told by doctors that their patients cannot acquire pain medications. This happens especially in hospice settings, where pain is often undertreated. There are many doctors that do not adequately treat pain. This often changes the standard and quality of care that patients receive. Another change in the way patients receive services has changed as well. Some people are just simply not able to get to the hospital.

This is where hospice and home care visits come in.