Health Care

Health Care

Name

Institution

Health Care

Health Care Industry

Health care industry is the division within a country’s economy system delegated with duties that involve providing of goods and services in treating patients. This industry utilizes the palliative, curative, rehabilitative and preventive care approach in treating patients. In the modern health care sector, various divisions and subsections with trained professionals are in the field. They have been able to deal with chronic diseases by providing the necessary healthcare needed.

The number of people who suffer from chronic diseases has risen over the years. Asthma, coronary heart disease, HIV and rheumatoid arthritis are the most common chronic diseases in the world. Estimates of about 174 billion dollars per year of the total healthcare costs have been due to diabetes (“The Impact of Chronic Diseases on Healthcare”, 2013). The healthcare sector has been forced to lookout for ways that can help in medical follow-ups of such patients. The Electronic Health Records (EHR) has proven to be one of the sufficient techniques in taking care of patients suffering from chronic diseases. EHR is an electronic version of a patient’s medical record. It takes into account the hospital demographics, past medical history, progress notes and laboratory data.

Some of the methods used by EHR are surveillance of diseases, their risk factors and the audit and feedback techniques. Using this method allows health practitioners’ stay connected with their patients. For instance, a clinical health worker may consider administering a certain type of drug to a patient due to its past positive effects. Patients are able to manage themselves by recognizing and responding to changes in their disease. They are also able to deal with the problems incurred with the disease. The society benefits from management of these diseases because they are able to live freely and independently with them (Magura, 2013).

Benchmarking for a Health Care Organization

Healthcare benchmarks have been related to improved performance and reduced risks in revenue. They use openly available statistics from state’s resources and compare them with an organization’s interior presentation against peer performance. The outcomes observed lead to continuous improvements in an organizations patient safety, quality, satisfaction and efficiency. Omaha’s Neb-based Alegent Creighton Health organization is one of the facilities that have used benchmarking methods. The organization conducted the healthcare quality benchmarks. This specialty focuses on utilizing the patients’ data and amalgamates it with the hospital data. This in turn results to immediate access of review and management reports of the hospital publicly.

Alegent Creighton Health organization has benefited from this benchmarking method. Its main goals have been to help the psychiatric patients in improve their healthcare (Saldi, 2013). Being a Catholic mission-based hospital, it conducts its services freely. It has been rated as the best hospital regarding psychiatric cases thus attained its goals. In terms of benchmarking, this was an appropriate method used by the organization. The organization had to have a healthcare quality benchmark that would enable it to have a proper public report. The fact that it offers free service may receive a doubting reception from the public. Hence, benchmarking was beneficial to the organization.

Benchmarking approaches vary in terms of performance and efficiency. The organization would profit more if it had used the patient safety benchmarking technique. It utilizes the analysis of patients’ safety conducted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This is accompanied by the quality measures involved and published publicly (“Healthcare Performance Benchmarks”, 2013). The fact that the hospital deals with psychiatric patients, safety would be an important aspect to consider. Thus, the public would approve such organizations.

Increasing Minority Participation in the Health Professions

In the medical world, divisions and subdivisions have to be created for efficient provision of services. Minority participation has increased in healthcare participation. More students are taking up courses in this field with a passion to improve health services. The Texas A & M Health Science Centre and Howard University College of Medicine have had many students graduating in medicine. Institutions that teach medicine have worked in minority basis to reach the society. It can be observed that the Morehouse School of medicine offers online services. It can also be reached through social sites (“Morehouse School of medicine”, 2013). The Emory university school of medicine has their students subdivided in smaller groups for better research programs. A common feature in all these universities is that, fewer students of different ethnic groups take up medicine.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing conducted a research on diversity in the nursing field. It was evident that students from minor racial and ethnic groups were represented in smaller percentages (“U.S. Census Bureau Projections Show a Slower Growing, Older, More Diverse Nation a Half Century from Now”, 2012). This has painted a discriminating feature on America. It noticed its need to improve its work diversity and employed certain measures. These measures were meant to motivate students from minority ethnic groups to pursue nursing and other health related studies. A healthcare provider’s background does not affect the services he offers. The changes they have put in place would enable the country fight racial discrimination. Qualifying professionally in their respective fields is the basic rule for one to work with patients. Hence, race, ethnicity and religion do not affect provision of healthcare.

References

Healthcare Performance Benchmarks. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.mckesson.com/providers/health-systems/enterprise-intelligence/healthcare-performance-benchmarks/

Magura, C. (2009). Chronic Disease Management – The Expert Patient. Retrieved from http://www.disabled-world.com/health/chronic-disease-management.php

Morehouse School of medicine. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.msm.edu/HomePage.aspx

Saldi, G. D. (April 2013). Psychiatric Core Measures Help Hospitals Improve Care. Catholic Health Association of the United States. Retrieved from http://www.chausa.org/publications/health-progress/article/march-april-2013/psychiatric-core-measures-help-hospitals-improve-care

The Impact of Chronic Diseases on Healthcare. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.forahealthieramerica.com/ds/impact-of-chronic-disease.html

United States Census Bureau. (2012). U.S. Census Bureau Projections Show a Slower Growing, Older, More Diverse Nation a Half Century from Now. [Data file]. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/population/cb12-243.html