Influence of Technological Development of Patients on the Choice of Their Attending Physician-Therapist - Essay Example

? Health care delivery model Lecturer Health care delivery model Introduction United s have numerous key health care models. These arebased on organization, social life, economy and public health care. Both individuals and the organizations have developed quite a number of perceptions regarding the perspective of issues like health access, the quality itself, availability of health services, and its efficiency too, effectiveness and finally the quality of health services (Wolper, 2004). American citizens are basically categorized into several groups with regard to provision of health services. That is it captures all citizens regardless of their economic state whether employed or not, a civilian or a military veteran and also private sectors. So these are how they are clearly categorized; a system is developed to serve the all employed and insured individuals. This is done through private non-governmental organizations and hospitals (Meghan, 2005). This paper seeks discuss how technology will play a role in the new health care delivery model, where the technology be used, what type and kind of technology will be integrated, how the physicians interact within this system and with technology, and the technology that may be leveraged in this model. Generally, the paper will be framed around the impact on patient care, physician adoption around technology and how it impacts physician leadership in a health care setting. Health care system is developed to serve all the uninsured and unemployed individuals this is done through provision of public aid facilities and programs. There a system that is developed specifically to serve the military veterans. This is done through government physicians and government officials. There is a system which is developed to serve only the active personnel on duty plus their families, and there a medical cover specifically set to serve the individuals who are aged especially from the age of sixty five years (65 years) and above. This is done through both private and non-governmental hospitals and physicians (Wolper, 2004). United state government view health care as a right to individuals and that every person in entitled to proper health care and services and also has right to access health care but not health itself. That is availability of health care should be the most important thing not the health status of individuals. The United States has therefore developed quality health care models that have encountered all problems of logistics and even errors that might lead to distribution of quality of health care services (Meghan, 2005). Social health care models deal with equity in health care distribution. That is it ensures that health care services are distributed equally without bias and there equality must exist inters of accessing the medical care. Such objectives are achieved when certain principles are achieved. These are; it should be understandable that health care is a right, all resources that are devoted to health care services are enough , the concern of health policy is todevelop just and fair mechanisms to ensure allocation of scarce medical resources (Meghan, 2005). In relation to economic principle of demand, value, incentives, behavior and benefit, the economic model will place price on human life. And such prices placed on human beings can not be reached basically especially without the application of social model so as to reach optimum social consumption and investment (Wolper, 2004). Public health models fulfill the need of the society by putting an assurance to conditions to which people could be healthy. It focuses on the community, private and public organizations so as to fulfill core functions in policy development as well as assurance. It has greatly influenced the health status of United States especially through research, education, implementation of medical technology and regulation. It produces great results since it enjoys the benefit of fiscal support from the government. And therefore does not have political power base (Wolper, 2004). In United States, the organization model of health care system is composed of a composition of if various informal systems which are interchangeable separated into various segments and at the same time, not coordinated at all. This model also focuses on the resources of the four components of health care (Wolper, 2004). These components are the financing sector of health care, the health care delivery itself, the health care personnel, the knowledge and technology facilitate the provision of health care. With reference to the information base for progress in United States, it is noted that a rigorous data I relation to the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) in both hospital settings and physician officers and many changes since then have occurred (Wolper, 2004). The physicians and hospitals have been invested upon by the federal government so that they can adopt the electronic health records (EHRs) and to set a criteria to adopt the meaningful use of technology. Similarly the United Statesgovernment has also set various high quality data collection efforts basically to examine responses and changes to the electronic health records. They include; national ambulatory medical care survey (NAMCS), National center for health statistics (NCHS) and the American hospital association (AHA).all these surveys were funded by national coordination for health information technology (Meghan, 2005). National ambulatory medical care survey is considered to be the national representative survey of practicing physicians. It excludes pathologists, radiologists as well as anesthesiologists.it annually conducts its research through the national health center for statistics (Wolper, 2004). As from the year of 2008, national center for health statistics has been conducting surveys on physicians majorly on the adoption and use of health information technology. In the year of 2011, the survey was sent to many physicians in the United States and in return, the survey received a weighted average of an out sixty four percent (64%) (Wolper, 2004). In response to the research, physicians which used the electronic health records increased from seventeen percent (17%) to fifty seven percent (57%). This occurred between the years 2002 and 2011. According to Meghan (2005), the rate of adoption is found to be varying among physicians over decades. The America reinforcement and recovery act gave the direction of adopting the meaningful useas apriority to national legislation. This authorizes the center for medical care and medical services to give meaningful use of the provided financial incentives (Meghan, 2005). The physicians and hospitals were simply required to show that they were using electronic health records (HER) to capture information, to track important clinical conditions and be able to communicate such information for proper coordination purposes, to be able to facilitate disease and medication management, to be able to report quality clinical report and other public health information. To encourage efficient performance in their goal achievement, they are directly eligible to for incentives. According to Wolper (2004), the 2011 survey only found about fifty two percent (52%) of physicians that intend to apply for incentive and would like to make good use of it. and this varied a cross states (Wolper, 2004). The electronic health records do not fully align with its meaningful use requirement. As per the requirement of the meaningful use, electronic function should provide care to certain percentages of patients and the research found that hospitals had met such standards of meaning useful criteria (Wolper, 2004). Electronic health records are either classified as comprehensive or basic. Basic ones includes; recording patients demographic records or information, clinical notes and patient complainant list, laboratory exercises and use of computerized medical prescription (Meghan, 2005). Comprehensive, indeed technology has posed certain impacts to patients in United States. Generally technology to theside f health sector has adversely increased the spending of the unite states governmet.This has been increased almost by six times as compared to any other spending in an industrialized nation (Wolper, 2004). A poll conducted in the year 2009 indicates that almost over two-thirds of insured adults in United States too worry for their health care and they advocate the need to cut the cost of health care. Despite the need to reduce medical spending like health care organizations, payment to health care, these only affect the income per capita only. Other efforts towards health care cost reduction such as attempt to privatize health care providers too have been advocated for. But in general, physicians who use electronic records have been found reporting high level of quality health care of greater satisfaction (Meghan, 2005). Proper record keeping is very important to doctors since it enable them to retain and communicate patients’ medical history in a convenient format. Therefore relevant information should be readily available to doctors for quick and effective decisions, thus reducing unwanted repetition of procedures (Wolper, 2004). Paper is the most convenient natural way in which medical records were kept just because it was simple to use, cost effective and naturally durable (Meghan, 2005). But it also has a major advantage in that information which is very much confidential may be shared amongst professionals who are attending to the patient.in contrary it also has the following disadvantages; there could arise aproblem of decentralization of health care systems, patients may sometimes get fatigue after constantly visiting one office to another in search of their medical documents and there may also arise problems of missing records of patients. Therefore electronic medical records were developed to solve these problems of traditional paper recording (Wolper, 2004). According to Doctor Henry Lowe, these electronic recording have lasted for a period of a bout fifty years. Examples of early electronic systems include, computer stored ambulatory record (COSTAR), Health evaluation through logical processing (HELP) among others. And recently, electronic medical records have become popular in United States (Wolper, 2004). In 2009 the current USpresident signed a medical bill that was very necessary to Americans since it was going to provide almost $44,000 to all American health care providers to make a meaningful use of electronic records by 2014. Health care industries in United States have constantly made certain progresses towards changes that have proved to be economical due to invention of electronic health care (Meghan, 2005). Some of them are as below; (a) Privacy. Health care electronic systems have established standards to address security and privacy of patients. Their records are considered to be protected under the United States federal government just as to maintain patients’ privacy. (Wolper, 2004). (b) Accountability. All medical records even the physician orders, examination test on patients and test reports are considered to be legal documents and must be kept in a place free from erroneous acts. Doctors and other health professionals too do make mistakes. Therefore, it is very important to remain truthful and accurate in giving information regarding patients. (Meghan, 2005) (c) Efficiency. Medical records are very important especially in health care as they communicate information regarding patients. Technology will act as a watchdog to such processes by speeding patient health care. Therefore data will be managed thus reducing costs through thorough put. (d) Cost. The medical records are must be interoperable and their providers do come from backgrounds which are very large and accessed by varying people with varying a mount of resources.so any change to this status quo do increase long term savings and cause an affordable initial cost barrier. (Wolper, 2004) (e) Consideration of policies. Electronic medical records have gained a lot of support from many health professionals. And so legislation to permit electronic health records has been passed. Law makers still do seek certain policies just as to assist the providers through provision of financial incentives and defining some criteria which can be achievable for medical records to be in place or even helping decide on some data storage standards. (Meghan, 2005) Currently, medical records are kept in variety of stores in United States ranging from cabinet folders to modern electronic databases. A research conducted in June 2008 shown that over half of the hospitals in United States have adopted electronic data documentation (Wolper, 2004). On the same year, the similar research indicated that almost twenty percent (20%) of the facilities in such hospitals are still in the process of information technology development and still no facilities have been fully implemented electronically. And so many health care providers still employ the use of paper based recording system (Meghan, 2005). The current documentation of health records lacks efficiency since most records are stored in so many formats and most patients also do attend to more than one provider. Therefore most records are fragmented and at the same time transfer of information from such segmented documents are also limited (Wolper, 2004). This leads to higher risk of medical error, repetition of procedures and in the long run, it leads to time wastage in obtaining correct information at the right time. Technology has put health care facilities to another level through the introduction of patients’ smart cards (Meghan, 2005). This has adversely promoted the quick transfer and maintenance of patience health records.so each and every patient will be required to carry his or her smart card in the pocket.Therfore confidentiality has been taken to another level since the data on these cards can only be accessed only when the card isinserted into the card reader which are regulated by the government to various health providers (Wolper, 2004). The health providers will only update the smart cards regarding to certain health changes. Individuals will also be capable of possessing their health records at a convenient time at the present. Physician leadership is an important success factor for the health information technology (Wolper, 2004). Technology itself promotes accountability through health organizations. The latest model of these health organizations facilitate efficient delivery of services offered by doctors in hospitals like providing quality health care services. Modern health technology has enhanced a cottage industry of consultants to provide necessary helps to ordinary hospitals (Meghan, 2005). Conclusion In summary, United States of America have numerous key health care models which are based on organization, social life, economy and public health care. Both individuals and the organizations have developed quite a number of perceptions regarding the perspective of issues like health access, the quality itself, availability of health services, and its efficiency too, effectiveness and finally the quality of health services. The health care delivery model is composed of a composition of if various informal systems which are interchangeable separated into various segments and at the same time, not coordinated at all. This model also focuses on the resources of the four components of health care. The computerized clinical support systems have generally improved decision making process among physicians and doctors themselves for proper patient care. It also provides physicians with patients’ information and recommendations through analysis of specific patients’information. Therefore characteristic of individuals patients are matched to computerized knowledge base and software algorithms will generate patients’ specific recommendations (Wolper, 2004).These recommendations can be delivered through electronic medical records (EMRs) for retrieval of patient characteristics. The success of implementing electronic decision making technology, however, depends on a greater deal on whether clinicians have a role to play in designing such solutions. Decision support is not a substitute for any physician’s diagnosis or treatment plan and it doe not aid any physician in compiling any information about the interactionbetween the patient’s condition, history, current medication and possible prescribed medication (Meghan, 2005). References Meghan, G.M. (2005).Using technology to improve medication, New York: Joint commission resource publishers. Wolper, L. (2004). Health care administration: planning, implementing, and managing organized delivery systems, New York: Jones & Bartlett Learning http://www.npr.org/2011/04/01/132937232/accountable-care-organizations-explained. Read More