Saturday, December 16, 2017
Health Management In It's Entirety
It is easy to forget how many different parts and pieces go into community health and health management. As mentioned earlier in my blogs, it is quite common for most people to be unaware of community health and the issues that are faced. As time goes on, I hope that our world becomes more aware of health issues and how these things can affect their health. There are many health plans that have been implemented to improve population health and lower health care costs for the U.S.. I believe that if we can continue to educate people on public health such as the opioid crisis, the effects of sugar sweetened beverage, and the power of good health management, than it can be done. The communities health will improve, costs will go down, and we can take another step closer to this 20/20 health vision. We need to educate and create health management advocates and workers to provide leadership and direction to our health systems that provide our people with health services. Sometimes people just need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. What I mean by it in this situation is, let us step back and not forget the importance of well developed and hardworking leaders and managers. Let us look at new factors in today's day and age that hinder our health such as the enormous consumption of calories through sugar sweetened beverages and unhealthy eating. Let us step back and not be angry but help drug addicts and make a peace offering to improve our community. Let us plan now for our long term care in the future to help with costs and preparedness. Let the medical world adjust to how the current generation, the millennials, do and learn and succeed. Let us learn from our errors in the health care field and become better at what we do. Let's continue to control infections, understand chronic diseases, and and enforce health policy. Many different aspects and health communities contribute to the over health and they all need health management skills so that the 20/20 health vision can be reached.
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
Opioid and Drug Epidemic Need Health Management Too
As many people are well aware, the opioid and drug epidemic is increasing at alarming rates. New Hampshire faces many problems with this epidemic as there are many drug abusers in the state. Managing health care isn't always just in a hospital setting. It is important to remember that we need to look elsewhere in the community for good health management tactics as well. These management skills used by CEO's and health care organizations should be seen by doctors, pharmacy's, and public and state health facilities as well. Keeping an eye on positive health initiatives and enforcement throughout the community is not always easy but it is critical. Many people do not support clean needle exchanges and needle safe containers around the community but we need to remember these are the programs getting the dirty needles off of the streets and out from under our feet. We need to offer the help we can give to those who need it. We need to encourage and support doctors to give smaller prescription doses after surgeries and injuries. We need to encourage people to expose of extra pills appropriately rather than sell them on the streets. We need to offer as much help as we can to improve the drug crisis. Many people are sick and are willing to get help if it is there. Manchester turned a local fire station into a safe house for drug addicts to come in and get clean. More addicts retrieved the help offered than Manchester had expected. Superior and quality management skills are needed not only for the good but also for the bad. With determined individuals who show these phenomenal health management skills to the community can be the difference. These are the people who can improve the health of the community and the quality of life for everyone around them. The population will continue to see this opioid epidemic and a drug crisis. This is where health management is needed more than ever.
Saturday, December 9, 2017
Minimizing Health Care Costs and Excessive Bills
Over the past years it is apparent that the United States is not
effectively spending money on healthcare. We rank 35th for life expectancy,
which falls on the lower side, yet the United States spends more money on
healthcare than any other country. This should not be the case if the United
States is effectively using it's resources and allocating supplies and money
where it is needed.
One of the biggest problems is that doctors
and surgeons may be over paid in the United States and there are far too many
extra tests run at each visit. It is a very controversial decision because
doctors and surgeons are highly trained and skilled workers who save people's
lives. However, if health care costs continue to increase and life expectancy
for the U.S. continues to rank at the bottom of the totem pole than more
problems are going to arise. As a Type 1 Diabetic, I am in a hospital or doctor’s
office more than the typical human being. I tend to see many unnecessary tests
performed, whether it be on me or other patients. Now sometimes their is a
patient who is very sick and the prognosis is unknown. These situations often
require multiple tests which can get very expensive. However, I once went into
the hospital because my insulin pump malfunctioned so my blood sugar became
very high and I was headed towards ketoacidosis. I had been at the hospital
maybe an hour, when the radiologist came into get me to take an x-ray. I did
not need this x-ray for any reason but the doctors insisted and said it was
part of the work up. This is a prime example of an extra test that costs both
the hospital and me money and could have been avoided. Again, high salaries,
high costs and excessive testing need to be improved so that we can work towards
attainable health care costs for all and improve life expectancy. The system is
looking at shifting towards value based care which could be another necessary
step in lowering costs and improving the quality of care. This will allow
extra costs to be avoided as well as improve the quality of care.
Sunday, December 3, 2017
Managing Population Health and Prevention
Population health is often
misunderstood by the general population and therefore I believe it is
incredibly important to educate people to the best of our ability. When I
started as a Health Management and Policy major, even I could not truly answer
what public health and population health was. The definition can vary and the
aspects that contribute to population health are constantly changing as well
and I believe this is what makes it so difficult to grasp. Over the past few
years I have been able to gain a better understanding of population health and
how to achieve it on a whole new level. Accountable Care Organization’s, Triple
Aim, health payment reforms such as Value Based Care, Community centered health
homes, and Health Impact Assessment are all important factors that impact and
contribute to successful population health.
Primary prevention is also an
important factor in the success of population health. Many initiatives have
been taken in New Hampshire towards prevention. For example, a program was
created by Rudolph Fedrizzi. This innovative program known as Healthy Monadnock
2020 was to become the healthiest community in the nation by 2020. This showed incentive
in the community to reach population health by creating this program and
advocating for new walking trails, available jobs for the unemployed, and
healthy eating habits which would allow health care costs go down in the long
run. Rudolph Fedrizzi was an advocate for saving community health and put an
emphasis on it. Additional prevention strategies have been taken in Manchester
as well. It is prevention strategies like these that need to be advocated for
so that we can improve population health and maintain a healthy community.
Taking precautionary measures will not only ensure better health for the
population but it will lower health care costs as well.
Monday, November 27, 2017
Long Term Care Management and Planning
Long
Term Care, Nursing Homes, and Medicare need funds. The aging population of
America also will need this care at some point. Both the care and the funds are
essential for older population. But the question of where the funds will come
from has no concrete answer. Many people do not realize the importance and
costs of long term care until they are presented with a problem that correlates
a family or friend with long term care. Unfortunately, The United States
struggles with the costs of long term care because they are extremely high. The
reason these costs are so high is because Americans do not like the idea of
paying for this long term care in advance, or at a younger age.
The Older American Act is in
place which could help elders by providing things like meals on wheels and
elderly support in general. These precautionary measures and care could save
money in the long run. Medicare will slowly be pushed to a universal health
care system but funding could make this impossible, however, I believe it could
work with proper financial planning.
Maggie Hassan, William
Thomas, and Marco Rubio all bring an interesting view on how to provide funds
for long term care. William Thomas created the Green house project which Maggie
Hassan and Marco are in favor of, however, Marco believes premium support
systems could be the answer that allows elders to have the choice of whether to
spend their money on private insurance or Medicaid. Maggie Hassan also
disagrees with the private funding aspect of the Green House Project. All this
controversy of how funding should be accumulated, whether it be through the
government or private insurers is the face of the problem. Ted Cruz is so
against federal funding and social medicine. We face the problem of how to
settle somewhere in the middle to find funding for the health care of the aging
population. The question of whether or not we should make this long term care
insurance mandatory in the United States is presented. I find it critical that
we make this decision and decide how to start saving up funds to put towards
our care in the future. I believe that acting and taking precautionary measures
such as taking a percentage of our pay and putting it into an account to
accumulate and gain interest could be the answer. Taking such precautionary
measures and a primary approach could be essential. There needs to be a plan or
some form of collecting money for long term care to help deal with the costs
and provide the elderly with the care they deserve.
Saturday, November 11, 2017
How Sugar Sweetened Beverages Effect Our Health
Time after time we see science and health care changing. This change is inevitable and that is why it is necessary we recognize the change and work with the change. A simple public health crisis 20 years ago was tobacco and cigarette use. Although there is still some challenge ending tobacco use, there are new problems our society is facing such as childhood obesity. A small group of students that I have been working with have been doing some research on sugar sweetened beverages and how they affect the obesity of our population.
Beverages such as soda are becoming a health risk today and no one would have expected this, just as no one had known or expected cigarettes to cause as much harm as they do. Numerous studies have shown the correlation between sugar sweetened beverages and childhood obesity. Recently Mexico has implemented a tax on sugar sweetened beverage and there has already proven to be a drop in the number of purchases of these sweetened drinks. There are hopes that people will soon see a drop in childhood obesity and obesity rates all around. The idea of implementing this tax on sugar sweetened beverage is fairly new to the United States. Philadelphia has talked about implementing this tax and requiring that all funds collecting from this tax go directly to healthcare programs or schooling programs for children.
With concrete data from Mexico, perhaps the U.S. will be more likely to follow through. I do not believe this taxation will take place anytime soon in the U.S. because many people are likely to fight it. However, I believe if a small amount of tax is put on these sugar sweetened beverages in the United States it will beneficial for many. Some people will not continue to buy soda, and hopefully sugar sweetened beverage sales will drop and so will obesity rates. Those who do not mind paying the tax will continue to buy sugar sweetened beverages and the tax will help fund education and health promotion as well as contribute to primary prevention of obesity and diabetes. It is important for many of us to see numbers and exactly where the money from the tax is going so that we support it. For me personally, I would not mind paying a few extra cents on things if I knew it were going to benefit and improve the health of our community. "According to the city of Philadelphia, a three cent per ounce excise tax could raise approximately $400 million over the next 5 years" (Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax, Philadelphia). Even this one example can show just how much money can be raised if this plan is executed. 400 million dollars is an incredibly large amount of money to be made and used in health care from something that is currently making $0 on tax. In addition to the fact that the intention of this is to improve the health of our people. Making the change with health and medicine is often difficult but essential.
References:
-Afzal, Stephen C. Resch and Angie L. Cradock J. Ward, Jessica L. Barrett, Erica L. Kenney, Kendrin R. Sonneville, Amna Sadaf Steven L. Gortmaker, Y. Claire Wang, Michael W. Long, Catherine M. Giles, Zachary. 2015. "Than They Cost To Implement Three Interventions That Reduce Childhood Obesity Are Projected To Save More"."Than They Cost To Implement Three Interventions That Reduce Childhood Obesity Are Projected To Save More". Retrieved 11 November 2017. http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/34/11/1932.full.html
-Choices Project. Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax, Philadelphia. 2017. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
PA BRIEF_Cost-Effectiveness-of-a-Sugar-Sweetened-Beverage-Tax-in-Philadelphia-PA_CHOICESproject.org_5.20.16.pdf.
References:
-Afzal, Stephen C. Resch and Angie L. Cradock J. Ward, Jessica L. Barrett, Erica L. Kenney, Kendrin R. Sonneville, Amna Sadaf Steven L. Gortmaker, Y. Claire Wang, Michael W. Long, Catherine M. Giles, Zachary. 2015. "Than They Cost To Implement Three Interventions That Reduce Childhood Obesity Are Projected To Save More"."Than They Cost To Implement Three Interventions That Reduce Childhood Obesity Are Projected To Save More". Retrieved 11 November 2017. http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/34/11/1932.full.html
-Choices Project. Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax, Philadelphia. 2017. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
PA BRIEF_Cost-Effectiveness-of-a-Sugar-Sweetened-Beverage-Tax-in-Philadelphia-PA_CHOICESproject.org_5.20.16.pdf.
Sunday, November 5, 2017
Millennial's in Health Care
I had the opportunity to attend the Northern New England
Association of Health Care executives this weekend in Ogunquit, Maine. This
conference took place at the Cliff House and I was fortunate to be surrounded
by many intelligent and upper level health care executives such as CEO's,
CNO's, COO's and more. The amount of knowledge in the room was incredible. One
man, however, really stuck out to me and all the things he had to say were
important in my eyes.
Josh Luke is a well developed and experienced health care futurist and
has had some of the best opportunities in the game. Josh has a lot of strong
beliefs in health care and how to improve healthcare as a whole. Much of what he
said came back to Millennials and how we do things as a generation. He said
" When I ask baby boomers to jump, they say how high, but when I ask
millenials to jump, they say why?". We as millennials will always ask why
and that is how we think. Why would we do something? Why would it help us, hurt
us, improve us? We want to know why. We constantly ask questions and we want an
explanation for most things. I think that this is important because we all
think this way and function this way. We do and will think this way in our
future healthcare jobs as well. I think many of our "why's?" have led
to new techniques, discoveries, and advances in health care and they will
continue to do so. Josh then proceeded to say that "there is nothing wrong
with the way the millennials think but it is different and we need to learn and
adjust to it because they are going to be running our health care system
soon". Josh Luke made so many great points about fixing the bad, fixing
the problems, and working to improve. It is essential that current healthcare
professionals and millennials work together to advance health care and understand
one another's mindset. We use technology in everything we do, for example every
hospital is implementing EMR's if they haven't already. A millennials train of
thought and technological skills are already being seen throughout the
healthcare world. As millennials trickle into health care systems and spread
their "why's" and technology knowledge things will continue to
change. Adjusting current views and working the two generations into one
another is key for success in running any healthcare system. Millennials
have a different way of thinking that has the potential to improve healthcare
systems as we face the challenge of continuous change in healthcare.
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