Stakeholders In Healthcare

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Introduction The healthcare industry is deeply rooted into our American history and can be traced back to the 19th century. Today it has grown into enormous proportions in the United States. There is no doubt that healthcare has made major contributions in improving the health of many people, but with which the original premise of healthcare/medical care was found can no longer meet the demands of the growth of the aging population and advancing medical technology. Healthcare is a billion dollar industry and it keeps on growing, but this growth has not been without its problems. Today there are many stakeholders in the healthcare industry that complicates many things especially when trying to meet the needs of each. The stakeholders in…show more content…
227). Over the years health care expenditure has increased greatly. Studies have shown that health care expenditure has almost surpassed $2 trillion dollars in 2008 or to put it in perspective $7,681/person (http://www.ama-assn.org/resources /doc/health-care-costs/strategies-rising-costs.pdf). Some of the major factors to this increase in expenditure include technological advances, population growth of older adults, increased focus on specialty physicians, uninsured and the underinsured, and prescription medicine. (Sultz & Young pg. 228). All of these factors have contributed to the increased costs of the health care system put on the public and has also influenced some of the barriers that have led to the access of healthcare I spoke about above. The AMA (American Medical Association) also attributes the high cost of health care from the rising toll of preventable illness & inefficiencies in the health care system. They have identified four strategies to contain health care cost, they consist of reduce the burden of preventable disease, make health care delivery more efficient, reduce nonclinical health system costs that do not contribute to patient care and promote value-based decision making at all levels.(http://www.ama-assn.org). I will continue by looking at some of the key expenditures…show more content…
It is amazing what these technologies have provided but the question that comes up is will that medical technology being used change the outcome of a patients illness and overall treatment? It is inevitable that technology will continue to change the medical fields but it has to be used appropriately and not overused if we are to lower costs. I believe that demands will continue to increase; my solution to this is to have physicians develop protocols and standards that are proven in the use of new technologies to see if the patient will truly get a benefit out of it. If the protocol does not prove that a patient will benefit from the use of the technology, then the procedure should not be

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