Health care reform is for the most part governmental policy that affects health care delivery in a given place. Health care reform typically attempts to:
Socialized medicine is a term used in the United States to describe and discuss systems of universal health care—medical and hospital care for all by means of government regulation of health care and subsidies derived from taxation. Because of historically negative associations with socialism in American culture, the term is usually used pejoratively in American political discourse. The term was first widely used in the United States by advocates of the American Medical Association in opposition to President Harry S. Truman's 1947 health care initiative. It was later used in opposition to Medicare. The Affordable Care Act has been described in terms of socialized medicine, but the act's objective is rather socialized insurance, not government ownership of hospitals and other facilities as is common in other nations.
A health system, health care system or healthcare system is an organization of people, institutions, and resources that delivers health care services to meet the health needs of target populations.
The healthcare industry is an aggregation and integration of sectors within the economic system that provides goods and services to treat patients with curative, preventive, rehabilitative, and palliative care. It encompasses the creation and commercialization of products and services conducive to the preservation and restoration of well-being. The contemporary healthcare sector comprises three fundamental facets, namely services, products, and finance. It can be further subdivided into numerous sectors and categories and relies on interdisciplinary teams of highly skilled professionals and paraprofessionals to address the healthcare requirements of both individuals and communities.
Universal health care is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized around providing either all residents or only those who cannot afford on their own, with either health services or the means to acquire them, with the end goal of improving health outcomes.
A comparison of the healthcare systems in Canada and the United States is often made by government, public health and public policy analysts. The two countries had similar healthcare systems before Canada changed its system in the 1960s and 1970s. The United States spends much more money on healthcare than Canada, on both a per-capita basis and as a percentage of GDP. In 2006, per-capita spending for health care in Canada was US$3,678; in the U.S., US$6,714. The U.S. spent 15.3% of GDP on healthcare in that year; Canada spent 10.0%. In 2006, 70% of healthcare spending in Canada was financed by government, versus 46% in the United States. Total government spending per capita in the U.S. on healthcare was 23% higher than Canadian government spending. U.S. government expenditure on healthcare was just under 83% of total Canadian spending.
Healthcare in Canada is delivered through the provincial and territorial systems of publicly funded health care, informally called Medicare. It is guided by the provisions of the Canada Health Act of 1984, and is universal. The 2002 Royal Commission, known as the Romanow Report, revealed that Canadians consider universal access to publicly funded health services as a "fundamental value that ensures national health care insurance for everyone wherever they live in the country."
The term managed care or managed healthcare is used in the United States to describe a group of activities intended to reduce the cost of providing health care and providing American health insurance while improving the quality of that care. It has become the predominant system of delivering and receiving American health care since its implementation in the early 1980s, and has been largely unaffected by the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
...intended to reduce unnecessary health care costs through a variety of mechanisms, including: economic incentives for physicians and patients to select less costly forms of care; programs for reviewing the medical necessity of specific services; increased beneficiary cost sharing; controls on inpatient admissions and lengths of stay; the establishment of cost-sharing incentives for outpatient surgery; selective contracting with health care providers; and the intensive management of high-cost health care cases. The programs may be provided in a variety of settings, such as Health Maintenance Organizations and Preferred Provider Organizations.
The Cuban government operates a national health system and assumes fiscal and administrative responsibility for the health care of all its citizens. All healthcare in Cuba is free to Cuban residents, although challenges include low salaries for doctors, poor facilities, poor provision of equipment, and the frequent absence of essential drugs. There are no private hospitals or clinics as all health services are government-run. The current public health minister of Cuba is José Angel Portal Miranda.
Consumer-driven healthcare (CDHC), or consumer-driven health plans (CDHP) refers to a type of health insurance plan that allows employers and/or employees to utilize pretax money to help pay for medical expenses not covered by their health plan. These plans are linked to health savings accounts (HSAs), health reimbursement accounts (HRAs), or similar medical payment accounts. Users keep any unused balance or "rollover" at the end of the year to increase future balances or to invest for future expenses. They are a high-deductible health plan which has cheaper premiums but higher out of pocket expenses, and as such are seen as a cost effective means for companies to provide health care for their employees.
Health policy can be defined as the "decisions, plans, and actions that are undertaken to achieve specific healthcare goals within a society". According to the World Health Organization, an explicit health policy can achieve several things: it defines a vision for the future; it outlines priorities and the expected roles of different groups; and it builds consensus and informs people.
Due to the near-universal desire for safe and good quality healthcare, there is a growing interest in international healthcare accreditation. Providing healthcare, especially of an adequate standard, is a complex and challenging process. Healthcare is a vital and emotive issue—its importance pervades all aspects of societies, and it has medical, social, political, ethical, business, and financial ramifications. In any part of the world healthcare services can be provided either by the public sector or by the private sector, or by a combination of both, and the site of delivery of healthcare can be located in hospitals or be accessed through practitioners working in the community, such as general medical practitioners and dental surgeons.
Healthcare reform in the United States has a long history. Reforms have often been proposed but have rarely been accomplished. In 2010, landmark reform was passed through two federal statutes: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), signed March 23, 2010, and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which amended the PPACA and became law on March 30, 2010.
mHealth is an abbreviation for mobile health, a term used for the practice of medicine and public health supported by mobile devices. The term is most commonly used in reference to using mobile communication devices, such as mobile phones, tablet computers and personal digital assistants (PDAs), and wearable devices such as smart watches, for health services, information, and data collection. The mHealth field has emerged as a sub-segment of eHealth, the use of information and communication technology (ICT), such as computers, mobile phones, communications satellite, patient monitors, etc., for health services and information. mHealth applications include the use of mobile devices in collecting community and clinical health data, delivery/sharing of healthcare information for practitioners, researchers and patients, real-time monitoring of patient vital signs, the direct provision of care as well as training and collaboration of health workers.
The healthcare reform debate in the United States has been a political issue focusing upon increasing medical coverage, decreasing costs, insurance reform, and the philosophy of its provision, funding, and government involvement.
Healthcare rationing in the United States exists in various forms. Access to private health insurance is rationed on price and ability to pay. Those unable to afford a health insurance policy are unable to acquire a private plan except by employer-provided and other job-attached coverage, and insurance companies sometimes pre-screen applicants for pre-existing medical conditions. Applicants with such conditions may be declined cover or pay higher premiums and/or have extra conditions imposed such as a waiting period.
There were a number of different health care reforms proposed during the Obama administration. Key reforms address cost and coverage and include obesity, prevention and treatment of chronic conditions, defensive medicine or tort reform, incentives that reward more care instead of better care, redundant payment systems, tax policy, rationing, a shortage of doctors and nurses, intervention vs. hospice, fraud, and use of imaging technology, among others.
Healthcare in the United States is largely provided by private sector healthcare facilities, and paid for by a combination of public programs, private insurance, and out-of-pocket payments. The U.S. is the only developed country without a system of universal healthcare, and a significant proportion of its population lacks health insurance. The United States spends more on healthcare than any other country, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of GDP; however, this expenditure does not necessarily translate into better overall health outcomes compared to other developed nations. Coverage varies widely across the population, with certain groups, such as the elderly and low-income individuals, receiving more comprehensive care through government programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.
Patient-centered outcomes are results of health care that can be obtained from a healthcare professional's ability to care for their patients and their patient's families in ways that are meaningful, valuable and helpful to the patient. Patient-centered outcomes focus attention on a patient's beliefs, opinions, and needs in conjunction with a physician's medical expertise and assessment. In the United States, the growth of the healthcare industry has put pressure on providers to see more patients in less time, fill out paperwork in a timely manner, and stay current on the ever-changing medical advancements that occur daily. This increased pressure on healthcare workers has put stress on the provider-patient relationship. The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is a United States Government funded research institute that funds studies that compare healthcare options to find out what options and situations work best for patients of different circumstances. PCORI uses their research to increase the quality of healthcare and push the healthcare system towards a more patient-centered approach. The Beryl Institute, a non-profit institute dedicated to the improvement of patient experience through Evidence-based research, released data that found that over 90% of patients believe patient-centered outcomes to be "extremely important" to their healthcare experience. Individuals that participated in this study by the Beryl Institute claimed that the aspects of healthcare that they see as most influential to their healthcare experience include effective communication, pain management, a clear and well-explained plan of care and a clean and comfortable environment. In addition to this data, women were found to have the largest issues with lack of patient-centered care, reporting higher rates of pain and less empathy than men.
Health care finance in the United States discusses how Americans obtain and pay for their healthcare, and why U.S. healthcare costs are the highest in the world based on various measures.
