The most evident trend present in the healthcare industry today is hospital price transparency. The attempt to have healthcare practices list their pricing online was to help consumers know the cost of various hospital items or services that the organization offers. Through this new mandate, each hospital operating in the US is required to provide pricing information online as a comprehensive/readable file with all items and services and in a consumer-friendly format. Some hospitals throughout the U.S. are not fond of the mandate because it can lead to patients choosing other competitors due to more affordable pricing. The Mandate was put in place to advocate and support patients throughout the country to have a more efficient and effective healthcare experience. Patient-centered care is providing care that is respectful of, and responsive to, individual patient preferences, needs and values, and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions. This approach requires a true partnership between individuals and their healthcare providers, one where the individual’s needs and aspirations drive both healthcare decisions and how outcomes are measured. When patient-centered healthcare is being prioritized, patient and family preferences, values, cultural traditions, and socioeconomic conditions are respected, Patients and their families are an expected part of the care team and play a role in decisions at the patient and system level, information is shared fully and in a timely manner so that patients and their family members can make informed decisions and care focuses on physical comfort as well as emotional well-being.
POST 2
The United States currently spends more than any other nation on healthcare, as a percentage of gross domestic product and per capita. Consumers of health care in the United States often lack information on the actual prices of the care they receive and can also lack access to information about the quality of their care. Public payers typically set prices for physicians and hospitals prospectively, and commercial health plans negotiate with physicians and hospitals to determine prices. Although the government does not directly affect prices paid by commercial health plans, commercial prices tend to be positively correlated with Medicare fee-for-service prices (Rao et al., 2022). In the U.S. health care market, prices are generally opaque to consumers and not often known to them before they receive care.
This is partially because the U.S. health care system is complex, with multiple payers paying different prices for similar services and negotiated rates between commercial insurers and providers that are not publicly disclosed. Price transparency initiatives, like all payer claims databases, can improve healthcare market functioning in all these areas by providing relevant information to decision-makers, including patients, providers, payers, and policymakers, at key decision points.
Price transparency initiatives that provide patient, provider, procedure, and plan level of specificity on price and quality to consumers, accompanied by a financial incentive, like reference pricing or tiering, have proven more effective. (King, 2018) Another initiative with trying to control healthcare cost is telemedicine. Telemedicine is working to reduce costs in its structure and operations, The health system also aims to deliver care in more cost-effective ways to meet consumer needs (Decker, 2019). Telemedicine service offers convenience and better access for patients by connecting them with healthcare providers from home, thus eliminating the wait for an appointment and the hassle of traveling to a physician’s office.
POST 3
Education of the masses is vital to all healthcare organizations. It is important to encourage access to .gov and .org websites as well as access less politically motivated, peer-reviewed search engines such as PubMed to deter misinformation. It is also equally important to have educated employees confident in their knowledge of scientific facts that can spur solid discussions about what is true and what is false. Covid help lines, for instance, need to have one answer for the same questions, not different opinions by different providers and employees. There needs to be a rubric for answering infection prevention questions, as not to take away healthcare worker’s credibility. Petratos (2021) also recommends creating anti-fake news tools such as better, stronger networking among valid organizations such as .gov and .org websites. Kiran & Bolukbasi (2021) also argue that although most media is considered relatively liberal, vulnerable populations were forgotten about and were not marketed during the covid-19 pandemic. It was as if the entire media had forgotten about its liberal roots and marketed to the Caucasian majority that was watching programming and viewing social media. This spurred a lot of distrust of the media in vulnerable populations, especially vaccinations.
POST 4
Healthcare is one of the most disputed fields of innovation. With the rise in technological advancements, the medical field is subject to various trials and breakthroughs which influence medical results. Reflexology is a form of feet or hand massage, which some individuals claim treats internal organs when specific spots are pressed (Hall, 2018). As a healthcare leader, a functional structure groups employees into different departments by work specialization. Each department has a designated leader highly experienced in the job functions of each employee supervised by them. The functional organization structure will serve the organization best. Ideally, leaders of different teams communicate regularly and coordinate their strategies while lower-level employees have little idea of the processes taking place outside their department.
Over the last two decades, internet users have been increasingly using social media to seek and share health information. These social platforms have gained wider participation among health information consumers from all social groups regardless of gender or age (Suarez-Lledo & Alvarez-Galvez, 2019). When individuals read misleading information from written sites, they believe that the medical field aims to create harmful vaccines or medicines. As a leader, it is important to highlight misleading posts by posting useful and accurate information. The correct information is critical in ensuring that individuals understand and appreciate medicine’s role in solving illnesses and any arising issues.
