Help needed to answer this homework please! 1. Although medical technology bring
ID: 127104 • Letter: H
Question
Help needed to answer this homework please!
1. Although medical technology brings numerous benefits, what have been some of the main challenges posed by the growing use of medical technology in the United States? Do you feel that medical technologies are over prescribed in the U.S. Healthcare System? How does this compare health systems in other countries? Use Comparative Health Systems: A Global Perspective text as a reference for this comparison.
2. Predisposing indicate the propensity of individuals to use medical care while enabling conditions focus on the means individuals have at their disposal that enable them to use medical care. Give examples of predisposing and enabling factors. Should people who have predisposing factors for high healthcare utilization pay higher health care premiums? What about enabling factors? Use examples from a supplemental resources to support your opinion.
Explanation / Answer
Healthcare industry is growing tremendously with advancing technology to balace the demans and needs of the people. Medical technology refers to the use of our knowledge and skills to use equipments and instruments save a life, which is very technical in nature. It encompasses two areas in medical technology which are diagnosis and treatment. It can be as simple as a stethoscope, ECG machine, Cardiac monitors to highly advanced scanners like CT, MRI machines and these are used to diagnose the underlyibg illness. Technology provides enormous benefits to patients, but it also brings significant risks that can threaten patient safety as well as environmental safety. Some of the challenges faced by the growing use of medical technology in United States are as follows;
Exposure Dangers From Radiation Therapy and CT:
Radiations from CT and MRI can be devastating if it sis not handled properly or if there are any leakage of radiations. Long term exposure with inappropriate protective devices like lead apron, thyroid collar can leads to dangerous health consquences in staff as well as improper radiation dosing can lead to worst results.
Cross-contamination:
Equipments and instruments are widely used in healthcare industry among numerous patients. Each and every time a machine is used ,then it is a potential factor to spread infection among patients if not properly sterilized with appropriate disinfectants. In the past few decades, it is clearly noticed the increasing trend of multi drug resistent organisms in the healthcare organisations. One of the reason behind this is because of lack or improper sterilization techniques and increasing healthcare demands.
Needlesticks and Other Sharps Injuries:
These are very common type of occupational injuries in healthcare but unfortunately many are under reported. A recent survey saw a sharps injury rate among hospital workers in Massachusetts of 28 injuries per year per 100 occupied beds. Another study found that passive safety-engineered devices were significantly more effective than those that were manually activated. Sharp injuries can lead to serious health problems like HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B & C. The cost behind the prevention strategies are higher than simple precautious measures.
Resistance to antibiotics :
Antibiotic is a serious problem worldwide because of the high and rational use of antibiotics by the clinicians. Higher technologies to treat illness with an outcome of resistant organisms. In recent years, there is no great inventions in the field of antibiotics globally.
Rising cost of Healthcare:
New inventions and advancement in technology is very significant in early diagnosis, treatment and prevention of many illness. But because new technology is the primary driver of rapidly rising health care expenditures, these advances do not come without a cost. And the demand of people to go for higher end technologies again has increased in recent years ,this also leads to use of technology with high cost. Unfortunately, the cost cannot be afforded by all groups of people in a country.
Burden of biomedical and cytotoxic wastes:
Healthcare industry produces large amount of wastes which are infected and toxic in nature. These wates are dangerous and can lead serious health problems and environmental problems if not properly disposed. Even after correct disposal , the quantity of the wastes are increasing because of the use of various technologies and advancement in medical industry.
Healthcare delivery system has evolved drastically from the ancient days because of the increasing demands on healthcare as well as the increaseing health issues and changing disease pattern. Globally, a very same scenario is observed to tackle the different problems in the healthcare industry. Indeed, medical technologu is over prescribed not only in United States but also in many developed and developing countries. Over prescription in terms of usage of medical equipments and devices to control manual errors, effective diagnosis and easy tasking. And many a times, the consequences are over looked because of the benefits they receive from medical technologies. Fortunately, now a days technologies are easy to access thus it is used rationally and in surplus.
Many countries likewise United States face many issues because of increased growth of medical technologies. Only difference is about the way it is tackled and solved by other countries. Cost is a factor which is highly spent by U.S citizens on healthcare than any other country but still the health outcomes are not so appreciated than other countries. According to experts, there are two underlying reasons why the United States spends so much on healthcare: It uses expensive medical technology and prices for healthcare services, and goods are higher than in other countries. Mortality rates are reduced comparitively in United States as well as many other countries like United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Switzerland. However U.S has the highest death tolls comparitive to the other countries. Moreover, disease burden is the highest in U.S than other countries like United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Switzerland.
A well compared study is being presented by the Kaiser Family Foundation, ehich had compared the health system in U.S with other developed countries . It clearly shows that the healthcare system in U.S is expensive with not evry good health outcomes on people.
2. Predisposing factors include biological factors that may influence the likelihood an individual needs a health service, social structure that may influence how an individual can cope with health problems, and health beliefs that may influence an individual's perception of their need for a health service [8]. Predisposing factors include demographic characteristics and socio-structural characteristics such as education level, race and ethnicity, and family size..
Enabling factors, or resources, include family characteristics such as income, insurance coverage, access to services (transportation and distance to care), and community characteristics such as availability of resources and region of the country. Low family income, being uninsured, and having a regular clinician have been identified as risk factors for inadequate access to preventive health care .
It is not always neccessary to pay high premiums for a presence of pre disposing factors but presence of a co morbidity can surely makes the premium higher as the demand are higher. Many preventive health checks with lower premiums can give rise to effective preventive measures among the people. Early detection can drastically cut doen the cost on healthcare rather than spending huge on with complications. But ,certainly predisposing factors itself should not be the final decision for high premium to receive healthcare services.
Enabling factors can give a brief idea about the family's status to pay the premiums depending on their income.Thus, premiums can be planned for such income groups.
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