Delivering Healthcare in America - Research Paper Example

Delivering Healthcare in America Affiliation: Chapter 8 Your opinion of the most important concept from the chapter and reason for importance The most important is the classification of hospitals, where they have been classified according to the services they offer and ownership among others. This is important because this ensures that the medical needs of the different individuals in the society are taken care off. This includes individuals with terminal illnesses, those who have little or no insurance or money to pay for the services and individuals belonging in specialized groups like the prisoners, soldiers among others (Shi and Singh 2011). Give an example from your experience that illustrates that concept When there was the terrorist attack in the US, this classification made patients to be attended to accordingly. Individuals were categorized according to their insurance cover, the seriousness of their conditions, the location of the hospitals and also according to the special groups. Those who had no insurance were taken to community hospitals, private non-profit hospitals and also church-based hospitals. This helped to avoid deaths of patients due to delays in payment or transfers to other hospitals. The categorization was the best idea the healthcare sector came up with because it also created jobs in all those different hospitals. This categorization ensured that there were no patients that were not treated because the hospital they were taken to could not attend to them fully or that military personnel who are supposed to be treated in their own special forces hospitals (federal hospitals) was treated in the general hospital and hence his or her life endangered. Categorization according to the chapter is also aimed at reducing chances of discrimination in some hospitals and hence leading to lawsuits as a result of discrimination or ethical issues (Shi and Singh 2011). Chapter 9 Your opinion of the most important concept from the chapter and reason for importance Managed care that is being conducted by several organizations related to healthcare has helped different people save on the costs of hospitals (both inpatient and outpatient). They are able to save because managed care emphasizes preventive care as opposed to curative treatment which utilizes a lot of money from individuals some of whom may not have spare money to spend on hospital constantly (Shi and Singh 2011). The other reason why managed care is important is because it eliminates the insurance costs and all other intermediary costs that come about when a patient goes to hospital. It does this though handling all these issues and not allowing intermediaries. They come up with their own way to assist those individuals who do not have insurance to cover their own medical bills and especially the inpatient treatment. Give an example from your experience that illustrates that concept I had an experience with the managed care where a friend of mine had been admitted in hospital for a couple of times and had been spending a lot of money on the hospital bills and through insurance. He was advised to try one of the managed care organizations and seek their services to reduce the intermediary costs. He was required to fill a few forms for legal purposes and it took a few more processes and eventually, he was initiated into the system and soon there was no burden of the insurance expenses that he had been experiencing before. The above example is linked to the discussion on the managed care because it is providing evidence of the kind of work managed care organizations carry out. My friend had been having problems with the intermediaries and the insurance but managed care organizations came to his rescue (as they always do) and hence my friend is not incurring a lot of costs and has even reduced his frequency of going to hospital because they also exercise preventive care. Chapter 10 Your opinion of the most important concept from the chapter and reason for importance The most important concept is the nursing care of the long-term diseases that include cancer among others. The nursing of such people happens both at home and in the hospice or hospitals. The nursing is important because these individuals need constant care due to their conditions. Nursing individuals from the locations they prefer is one of the best services in the long-term care (Shi and Singh 2011). Social support is needed for such individuals and nursing them constantly is a way to provide such social support to these individuals. Nurses who provide the long-term care to such patients with the terminal illnesses provide not only the health support but also psychological support like encouraging them to hold on, bringing religious services for the religious patients and also linking them with other terminally ill patients to provide more social support. Give an example from your experience that illustrates that concept A colleague of mine had the final stages of colon cancer and could no longer work and therefore had to be put in a hospice. He was receiving nursing care which according to him is what kept him alive. The reason was because the nurses were friendly, cooperative, and ready to listen to the patient any time and were empathetic. They also had time to talk with the patients and encourage them when they were down and hence my friend’s mood was always elevated unlike when he had not been in the hospice. The hospice had also set a few hours every day for the people to meet and share their experiences, worries and hopes among others and this further provided support and “energy” that made them long to live another day and bear the pain on and the numerous medications they are required to take. This is evidence enough of the nursing provided as a long-term care indicated in the chapter. It also indicates that the nursing makes more terminally ill patients to live longer than they would have had the nursing not been available. Statistics indicate that most long-term care patients improve more when they have nursing care than when they have none at all. The nursing though depends on the personality of the nurse or health worker. Even though most of them are caring, empathetic and helping, some have care-free attitude which aggravates the patient’s condition and hence making the person worse than they initially were. References Shi, L. and Singh, D. (2011). Delivering Health Care in America. Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Read More