Health Care Industry
The health care industry is constantly changing to accommodate new technology methodology, genetic therapy, drug therapy, and informatics. These changes dictate innovative approaches to new regulations and standards, clinical specialty practices, ethics, and measures of quality that affect the future of health care policy.
Hospitals and Private Practices
For years people use health care services to prevent and mend health conditions, cure illnesses, and improve quality of life. If people did not have chronic diseases, or accidents, the cost of health care would be theoretically at little or no cost. In the last 10 years, the decline in acute illness and the comparative increase in chronic diseases have amplified the cost of medical care, (Fries, Koop, & Beadle, 1993).
Changes in health care in the past decade, including health care utilization, delivery, financing, and structure had a profound impact on people. Contributing factors such as increases in chronic diseases, infectious disease, mental illness, and treatment options make people more educated about the availability of affordable health care. In this decade, the slow rise in health care premiums, and the cost or the lack of health care because of pre-existing conditions have made people more educated, and confident when making decisions about his or her health care; they make better decisions when informed that his or her illness is self-limited. In the next 10 years as patients glean more health related information from the Internet, there is more self-diagnosis and self-care, and hospitals eventually gives care only to terminally ill patients.
Patients discover from doctors that most procedures are non-invasive and ambulatory. With options like ambulatory, instead of inpatient care, patients are likely to receive ambulatory care and get outpatient care instead. Today, the trends in the health care industry are the building of single specialty Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs). Zasa (2010) “this trend is being fueled by the growth needed the physician management companies which is mostly coming out of ancillary service growth” (para. 8). These facilities are functional, efficient, cost effective, and deliver good ambulatory care; this specialty care trend has an insightful impact on the way facilities are created, built and managed in the future.
Personal Role
The education I obtained in this program gave me the necessary skills to advance my career in the technology sector. In the technology field my role as a technology specialist include training doctors and nurses to use a proprietary software, participate in the design, development, and implementation of new technology, or verify, and audit of information security controls, documentation, and reports. To keep up with technology, I have to continue my education by obtaining an advanced degree and certifications; and knowledge of Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations, and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards.
Personal Perception
Over the past four years, my perception of health care is the unnecessary treatment or the overtreatment of patients; this occurs when doctors convince patients a specific type of surgery, treatment, or imaging is necessary. The decision affects the organization’s bottom line as an economic incentive, and I consider this a lack of oversight by the private insurance companies and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which pays health care providers on a “fee-for-service” exemplar. Hamilton (2008) “one primary reason for that level of overtreatment is the fact that doctors and hospitals get paid more for doing more, whether or not the treatment in question is medically necessary” (para. 7). The CMS and private insurance companies should conduct regular audits of providers’ medical records and billing system to
