Emerging Influences in the United States Healthcare System - Essay Example

Emerging Influences on United s’ Healthcare System al Affiliations Introduction There are several aspects based on changes in factors that influence the livelihoods of the United States which may influence the healthcare system in the country. Such issues may arise from development of policies that either help to promote service delivery in healthcare systems or sanctions that hinder the development of healthcare systems. Moreover, age factors and retirement rate in the country may play a major role in determining new trends in the healthcare system. Competitiveness fuelled by awarding systems to organizations including the healthcare organizations influence trends in service delivery since every other organization combines business strategies that help in the best performance of the institution (Bowden & Smits, 2012). This paper attempts to analyse to what extent workforce tsunami, Hospital Acquired Conditions policies and Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award system influences current trends in the United States healthcare system. Workforce Tsunami It is evident that there are a lot of skills that the old workers in America have accumulated over time; but in the next ten years or so, this story may hit the economical headlines and human interest. People talk about age as just being a number, but at the same time I think this saying should only work best during birthdays because aging as far as the American workforce is generally concerned is becoming an economic threat. This factor, generally referred to as the workforce tsunami, cuts across all businesses and workplaces, including the human healthcare facilities. These facilities invest so much in the old, trusting them for their long term experience without considering the fact that a time will come when most of these old employees will pass on. This occurrence will have the risk of greatly affecting the American workplaces and facilities in the healthcare system may lack workers for an unknown period before the right experts are obtained to replace the aging and perishing generation. This basically will have a potential detrimental impact on the lives of Americans, especially those in their sick beds during such an unfortunate occurrence (Laing eta al., 2009). Realistically and evidenced by statistical data, it is expected that about 10,000 baby boomers will continue turning to that age of sixty five years every year until we get to 2030. A more realist observation is that about a quarter of a million of all Americans find themselves celebrating sixty five years of age on monthly basis. Looking at these figures may not indicate a great impact, but the truth of the matter is that at least a quarter million Americans will be expected to obtain their retirement each month following this emerging trend. Irrespective of how many more workers the American population may have at hand to replace the retiring generation, it is obvious that the transition will dearly cost American both Public and private sectors economically, while at the same time the health sector may be badly hit due to its responsibility of dealing with life at its critical stages. Needless to say, the workforce tsunami will have a great influence on the state of things especially in the healthcare system, having a negative impact on most, if not all of the activities that occur in an attempt to save human life (Laing eta al., 2009). The Ruling on Hospital Acquired Conditions (HAC) It happened in 2008 that the Medicare would withhold reimbursement for the treatment of medical conditions that were acquired from the hospitals during treatment of which the contraction of the diseases could be avoided. This policy happened to be one of the government’s toughest conditions for the healthcare department while at the same time the government was trying to crack down on conditions that are unnecessarily acquired during hospitalization. Following this policy implementation, it is expected that about a quarter of all hospitals in the United States of America already known to be having the worst conditions will part with about one percent of payments made by Medicare every year. Shortly after the policy was put in place, about seven hundred and sixty one hospitals directly felt the impact of the denial of such payments with respect to patient’s diseases acquired during hospitalization. This is an emerging trend in the human health system in the United States of America, but it is expected at least to reduce the number of cases related to acquisition of new diseases during the period that a patient is under medication (Ruggie, 2005). What was unfortunate for such hospitals is that these sanctions were applied during a period of time when there was generally a reduction in the number of cases of diseases acquired during hospitalization. All in all, such Hospital Acquired Conditions were still very common in the United States hence such an action from the government at such a time was still justified. According to some government estimates, one in every eight patients ever hospitalized in America by 2012 had contracted a new disease condition during the stay in the hospital. Despite the fact that there is a general decrease in the number of Hospital Acquired Conditions as time goes by, it is evident that this decrease still does not meet the expectations of the government, hence the sanctions still remain. The most disappointing bit of this experience is the outbreak of antibiotic resistant conditions that have become a challenge to deal since they are proving too difficult to treat, yet they are conditions acquired during the stay in hospitals. Therefore, there is a room for hospital managements to improve on their treatment conditions and procedures to meet the new policies as outlined by the government (Davey et al., 2011). According to and analysis performed by Dr. Ashish of Harvard School of Public Health, the repercussions of the government policies on Hospital acquired Conditions will be a bit heavier to some hospitals as compared to others. Most penalties are expected to face the public hospitals, including big hospitals which deal with a large number of patients with a relatively small medical fee and those hospitals in the West, Northeast and in cities. For instance, some preliminary penalties have already been exercised on a third of the hospitals in Colorado, District of Columbia, Oregon, Utah and Alaska among other places as indicated by medical records. Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award The Malcolm National Quality Award, simply referred to as MBNQA is an award scheme that performs a recognition for organizations and business institutions in the United States of America including healthcare, education, small and large businesses and the non-profit making organizations based on their excellence in performance. This is the only formal kind of appreciation to public and private organizations in the US which is issued out by the President of the United States of America. The National Institute of standards and Technology is and agency in the Department of Commerce in the US and is the one that manages Baldrige Performance Excellence Program which is responsible for the administration of the MBNQA through the president. It happens that sometimes even about eighteen awards maybe issued out in a year which cut across organizations that are related to small businesses, education, healthcare, service, manufacturing and the non-profit making organizations. According to government records, 105 awards had already been issued out to best performing organizations which amounted to ninety nine taken repeat winners into account (Schniederjans, Mahour, Nabavi & Raghu-Nathan, 2006). This award was established by Malcolm Baldrige National Improvement act of 1987 has achieved seriousness in the recent past with the development of awards schemes performed by the president himself in a bid to isolate and appreciated well performing companies and organizations. It is this award which has insinuated some form of competition amongst business entities, reaching out to healthcare facilities while seeking for identification and funding from the government for excellence performance in service delivery. Completion for the award also encourages healthcare facilities and managements to share strategies that boost good performance and this generally has improved service delivery and excellent performance in the healthcare system (Bowden & Smits, 2012). For instance, if hospital in the United States is to receive this award, it is compulsory that the hospital displays really good organizational management system which can be emulated by other hospital managers. Moreover, the hospital organization must be able to display continuous improvement in service delivery and customer satisfaction through efficient and very effective operations in the response to clients and all other stakeholders in the healthcare sector. The fact that the award is never issued out to specific products or services allows all organizations in the United States to compete on fair grounds and best organization in terms of utilization of the best organizational models and systems crowned by customer satisfaction is awarded. It is this competitive nature of institutions powered by the desire to be awarded that has led to improved medical conditions in the United States in the recent past (Schniederjans, Mahour, Nabavi & Raghu-Nathan, 2006). Conclusion It goes without saying that the workforce tsunami which entails an aging population of America really impacts on the trends experienced in the American healthcare system. It is expected that as the employees in the medical field continue to age, they keep on retiring at such a high rate that at some point it may be impossible to have enough medical practitioners to attend to all patients in hospitals in the US. Moreover, some policies that stop issuance of reimbursements to hospitals for diseases acquired while in the hospital affect many hospitals to a greater extent, especially those hospitals that treat the middle and low class Americans, implying that their earning would be insufficient to cater for hospital acquired conditions. Finally, an award scheme such as the Malcolm Maldrige National Quality award given by the president creates competition necessary for the improvement in service delivery of most hospitals in the United States of America. References Bowden, D. E., & Smits, S. J. (2012). Managing in the context of healthcares escalating technology and evolving culture. Journal of Health Organization and Management, 26(2), 149-57. Davey, S. M., Brennan, M., Meenan, B. J., McAdam, R., Girling, A., Chapman, A., & Lilford, R. L. (2011). A framework to manage the early value proposition of emerging healthcare technologies. Irish Journal of Management, 31(1), 59-75. Laing, S., Poitier, R., Ferguson, H., Carraher, S. M., & Ford, S. (2009). BABY BOOMERS AT 60: EFFECTS ON RETIREMENT PLANS, BENEFITS, AND THE WORKFORCE IN THE BAHAMAS, JAPAN, AND THE USA. Allied Academies International Conference. Academy for Studies in International Business. Proceedings, 9(1), 11-15. Ruggie, M. (2005). Mainstreaming complementary therapies: New directions in health care. Health Affairs, 24(4), 980-90. Schniederjans, M. J., Mahour, M. P., Nabavi, M., S, S. R., & Raghu-Nathan, T. (2006). Comparative analysis of Malcolm Baldrige national quality award criteria: An empirical study of India, Mexico, and the United States. The Quality Management Journal, 13(4), 7-21. Read More