Healthcare Values, Policy & Law
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Healthcare Values, Policy & Law As technology changes, the approach to healthcare services has to change to be at the same level. The pace at which health care services change is slow thus affecting service delivery. Doctors and hospital facilities are working day and night to improve the pace and deliver quality services that are not expensive but affordable to the majority of patients. Several national healthcare trends and policies are taking place that will positively impact on better service delivery. The trends will have a major impact on specific lines related to Orthopedic, Cardiovascular, and Cancer treatment centres proposed by the Trinity Community Hospital for development.
National health care trends and their impact on service delivery
Embracing the concept of free web-base electronic health records to facilitate information sharing of a patient among health facilities (Paterson & Jones, 2011). Even though most facilities have moved away from the issuance of medical cards to electronic capturing of a patient’s information, sharing is the bottleneck that is still to be adopted by most healthcare facilities. The community hospital has enough staff in the proposed three service lines. Using EHR will enable the doctors get to understand the medical history of new patients in at Orthopedic, Cardiovascular, and Cancer centers.
The adoption of digitally-enabled healthcare services by doctors and healthcare facilities. This will incorporate latest technological savvy digital tools and machines used for diagnosis and treatment of diseases (DePhillips III, 2007). Use of latest tools, machines and equipment will lead to quality, efficient, reliable, and cost-effective treatment. The community hospital is old and requires considerable renovations and equipment upgrade. After the upgrade then services the three lines can commence.
The continued increment in patient’s using specialty drugs. Investment in the development of specialty drugs will lower health bills for patients suffering from chronic illnesses. The hospital will benefit from this trend since the federal government is in the process of asking manufacturers to subsidize the prices of specialty drugs.
The free web-base electronic health records will bring transparency in the health sector as far as the cost of healthcare services is concerned. Since the EHR includes the financial information of how doctors charge, patients will be able to compare their fees with other institutions and make informed decisions. The costing of health care services will be done with respect to the charges of the doctors in the surrounding competitor hospitals.
Another trend is the use of bundled payments for the health care facilities that give a lump-sum cost of a specific treatment. That reduces the cost of the treatment by eliminating surprise costs at different stages of the treatment. For chronic diseases like cancer, heart diseases it will be prudent to use the new bundled payment system to be competitive and cost-effective.
Possible legislation that may result from the trends Congress is willing to allow Medicaid negotiate prices of