Example Of Quality Issues In Healthcare- Overuse Of Medical Services Essay

Overuse of medical and health services has adversely affected the quality and cost of healthcare in the industry. The Institute of Medicine committee expounded the overuse of medical services as the consumption of health care resources with the absence of evidence that the service could assist the concerned patient. According to the U.S experts, conceivably half of the healthcare expenditure does not benefit the consumers and are probably causing harm. Misuse of drugs has averagely cost countries over $50 billion. Duplicating CT scans in hospitals have caused harm to the patients and even to the clinicians who do not take precautions when using such machines. They are exposed to radiations that almost equal to 350 X-rays. State purchasers are urged to take brief actions with contracted plans to minimize misuse of services. Recently, the authorized medical bodies have focused on highlighting the services that cause more harm than good to the patients and reduce their utilization. Such actions include research comparing the services provided in terms of benefits, safety, reliability, timeliness and courtesy. In addition, public campaigns such as “My Health my Choice” have been launched to do away with the medical procedure that is certainly unnecessary. Evidence based guidelines have been used by states like Washington, which have successfully resolved the problem. In Washington, the state has mandated that the best medical evidence should lead the coverage decisions for other agencies that procure healthcare. In the real sense, it is difficult to determine when the service has been misused unless quality assurance managers are involved. All hospitals, clinics, and health management organizations need a highly qualified quality assurance manager to enable them exercise useful services. Quality gurus, Philip Crosby once said, “Quality is free”; meaning an organization that invests in better quality gets more income as compared those that do not spend in quality. Data from medical charts and analysis are probably the only reliable way to determine the service as appropriate or inappropriate.
According to Patel, since early 1990s, misuse or overuse of medical services has directly or indirectly added cost to healthcare. Federal regulators have aggressively prosecuted the fraud in healthcare (Patel, 2014). Delivering of perfect care to the patients will only happen the moment we will come to understand the depth and the aftermath of the complication. In order to create more equitable, efficient and high-value healthcare systems in the industry, we must address all the problem of poor quality. In healthcare, more spending and treatment does not translate into a better outcome. For instance, when the MRI is used appropriately, it does not change the patient's outcome, in which case the technology is a nonessential expense. Through peer-reviewed research, evidences of quality problems have been analyzed such as variation in services, underuse of services, and overuse of services. Studies have too examined that the use of antibiotics in treating ear found out that people preferred expensive antibiotic than the cheap ones because of the efficiency. Deborah Korenstein, Managing Director Mount Sinai School of Medicine, stated that inappropriate use of investigated services is frequently a problem and that there is a significant varies with the rates of overuse. Despite the knowledge that overuse is costly, it was especially utilized in the antibiotics for respiratory infections and coronary angiography. Focusing on managerial or professional levels, there is increased to improve the quality of healthcare one consumes (McLaughlin, 2013). According to McLaughlin Patients themselves should be involved in the health care to ensure they receive high-quality services and avoid overuse due to information asymmetry. They should be critical and question the services they receive. The U.S National Cancer Institute allows the patients to access the information about the cancer and prevents information asymmetry. With the help of the web, there are forums where patients can discuss the progress.
As a healthcare manager, I would apply various measures aiming to reduce the overuse of healthcare with the target of improving quality. This could be done by developing communication policies to ensure the problem of overuse is being discussed within state government. That would be in accordance with how the stalk holders understand the meaning of overuse of health care and believe that it is an important issue to be responded to. In these forums, the patients, doctors, healthcare, managers and the government should discuss the perils of overuse of the healthcare. Before implementing initiatives to reduce overuse, the topic should be the major health policy conversations. By doing so, the problem of information asymmetry between doctors and the patients will be removed hence both parties informed on matters relating to their health. The quality of healthcare will significantly be improved by this action since information is power. Measurements and reports about those providing healthcare should be noted to determine the quality of health services provided. Health as a good should be consumed at required quantity to prevent complications that might result in risks. Countries like Japan where quality originated is referred to as the mother of quality; scholars like Kaoru Ishikawa worked hard to ensure that quality is comprehended in every activity. Heath management organizations should employ quality assurance managers who will ensure that the operations of the organizations are in line with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

References

Foundation, R. W. (2014). State Strategies to Improve Quality and Cost of Health Care. Reducing Overuse and Misuse of Healthcare , 9.
LLC, W. (2012). Medscape. Retrieved April Wednesday, 2015, from Medscape Website: www.medscape.com.
McLaughlin. (2013). Continous Quality Improvement in Healthcare. Burlington: Jones&Bartlett Learning.
Patel, K. (2014). Heathcare Politics and Policy ion America. USA: Library of Congres.