Cross Border Health Care Flows - Article Example

Cross Border Health Care Flows Introduction There are challenges in systems of Healthcare to deliver quality care with inadequate resources. With the pressure to manage costs, it is critical for healthcare systems and hospitals to design systems that provide quality health care for patient with limited resources (Whittaker, 2008). An important element of this goal is to design process to improve the flow of patients, offer timely care, and utilize the available resources. Analysis of patient flow represents the study of how the sick move through the system of healthcare. Globally, particularly in United States, healthcare consumes a huge percentage of the economy. The causes of the rising costs are due to aging population and cost of new and modern treatments. Inefficiencies in delivery of healthcare also play a role in rising costs (Reisman, 2010). Healthcare science has rapidly progressed than the ability of managing the systems of healthcare. Patients are the main determinants of directional flow of health care, with the need to get quality and affordable treatment. Economic constraints to offer quality care lead to the need for healthcare institutions to design mechanism to meet the needs of patients. Efficient healthcare systems guarantee affordable, timely, and quality care (Bookman, 2007). Cross border hospitals Global difference with regard to price among hospitals is brought about by the service rendered quality, health and government policies in respective countries, technology used, wage bill and time. Hospitals, especially in the United States have a high cost mainly due to government policies that has made health sector expensive. Insurance is also unaffordable form many Americans. Hospitals that use state of art technology tend to be more expensive than the ones without. The payments for physicians and doctors also determine the cost in different hospitals. Doctors in America are highly paid than any other doctors. Some patients who need privacy need hospitals that are suitable to them for discrete procedures. Such hospitals tend to charge higher for such services. These are the major factors determining the difference in prices of hospitals globally According to Vick (2010), flow of patient represents the ability of systems of healthcare to serve patients efficiently and quickly as they pass through the various care stages. Working system ensures the sick flow like a river, indicating that every step of care completes with little delays. In a broken system, patients build up like a reservoir. This is seen in chronic delays especially in many emergency departments. Successful healthcare systems aim at reducing delays of patient getting affordable care. Management, doctors, and all practitioners get involved in the success of the systems put in place. Management techniques influence the general flow and running of the organization. Such techniques need to meet the modern challenges in the healthcare industry. Patients are the major shareholders and customers in any hospital; they therefore, deserve quality services (Balaban & Marano, 2010). What explains the global price differential among hospitals? Global price differential among hospitals emerge because of different quality services and advanced medical equipments among hospitals. Given choice, it is clear that patients will travel across borders to get healthcare. Cost, delays, proximity, and access are the major factors contributing to cross border healthcare. However, it is not clear to health experts, policy makers and the service payers as to what will be the quality level when patients move across borders (Vick, 2010). Typical approaches of regulation like licenses, certification, and accreditation vary between and within nations, and private quarter quality varies frequently. The reasons for variations is that public and private evaluation quality systems vary and give non-comparable data quality. Survey by Joint Commission International showed nations variations exist. Indonesia, India, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, and Malaysia and other countries are the major medical tourism destination (Bookman, 2007). Most of the patients try to avoid delays in getting healthcare. Some of them are uninsured Americans and people who are not able to afford quality care in their nations. Medical tourism is an economic development to the destination countries. Knee and hip replacement, cosmetic surgery, organ transplant, ophthalmologic procedures and injections of stem cell are some of health care services available globally (Keckley & Underwood, 2008). Proponents of cross border health services argue that global market in health promotes choice for customers, encourage competition among health institutions, and enable patients to acquire high quality care at heath facilities globally. Skeptics of cross border healthcare raise their concern on patient safety, quality care, and patient information discourse. Cross border healthcare, have profound consequences to insurances, service delivery, physician patient relationship, funded public healthcare, and medical consumerism (Kangas, 2010). According to the divergent reports, most cross border patients look for faster and quality services than considering cost (Vick, 2010). There are five distinct segments of patients based on quality healthcare. The largest segment is approximately 40 percent of all cross border patients. These patients search for the most advanced healthcare technology in the world. They search for quality care anywhere in the globe, offering less attention to potential destination proximity or the expenses of the healthcare. The second segment has approximately 32 per cent composition of the market (Reisman, 2010). It includes patients looking for better health services than they can find in their nations. They travel from less developed nations and developing nations. Whenever choosing destination, they trade off quality against cost burdens, unfamiliar culture, and distance. The third segment comprises of approximately 15 per cent of market. This segment involves patients who want quick access to medical care. They tend to avoid medical procedures delayed by excess waiting time in their countries for cardiac complications, orthopedic and other chronic diseases (Balaban and Marano, 2010). Nine per cent of medical tourist are in the forth segment. They seek lower expenses for health services. They choose nations for treatment with regard to cost of procedures. The fifth segment represents patients looking for low costs for discrete procedures such as reduction and augmentation of breasts (Kangas, 2010). They cover 4 per cent of the medical tourist market. The segment seeks small but special providers of service instead of bigger multi-special health facilities. There are equally different segments depending on reports classification and the needs of patients (Bookman, 2007). According to Reisman (2010), medical tourism can be categorized into inbound, out band and intra-bound. Outbound medical tourism involves patients from the United States travelling to other nations to get treatment. Inbound medical tourism refers to patients from other nations travelling to the United States to get treatment. Intra-bound medical tourism involves patients in the United States getting treatment within the country but in locations away from their geographical area, mainly to excellence centers in other regions or state. Major focus however is in International and Inbound medical tourism (Balaban & Marano, 2010). There is competition for inbound international. Patient for inbound health care are becoming uncommon. Affordable and quality care is available in other nations thus many people prefer to cross borders (Keckley and Underwood, 2008). Increase of patients in the United States for chronic diseases and illnesses that need special technology not found within the country drive patients to seek solutions in the U.S.A. The numbers of inbound patients are low and in distant locations prompting competition between health institutions to attract the patients. Moreover, rivalry between states is major option for US companies, though the market is low and unlikely to increase the demand. Rivalry among hospitals emerges because of differences in cost of their health care services. Alien competition has developed rivalry in private health service in the United States. Whereas it started with outsourcing of medical transcription and record keeping, most hospitals in the United States are reducing costs by outsourcing claims processing and customer care. US major hospitals like John Hopkins and Mayo have interests beyond borders in functions of back end office (Reisman, 2010). While the expenses of containing patients is the major reason for the cross border search for healthcare, there are other factor too that contribute to the same (Burns et al, 2011). People need to look at business element of healthcare and consider the different opportunity types behind the policy instrument flow beyond national borders. Forces of market motivated spread and development of such systems. Different people saw business opportunities and benefits. For example, Yale Group Research got involved in assisting to build awareness of tools potential of holding conferences and seminars at the University and in different locations such as New Zealand, France, England and others (Kangas, 2010). Why would countries like the U.S. have 10x the charges for procedures like hip replacements? The United States charges expensive for procedures that are special such as hip replacements due to the nature of services and equipments. America does not sufficient or adequate equipments and technology to perform such tasks to affected people. These make the few available equipments in the U.S to be expensive thus being costly as more as ten times compared to other nations. In addition, doctors performing these procedures also charge high as compared to their counterparts in other nations. The natures of the procedure, which seem to be discrete, require higher charges to avoid publicity. These factors have equally promoted cross border tourism. Despite the merit of cross border treatment, there exist some barriers to global care. For example, in health care medical knowledge, available resources and local practices vary largely not only from nations but also from one region to another within the same nation (Burns et al, 2011). For health workers case, major challenges involve exporting medical style training to other developing nations. There is need for being careful of technological advances on how they can lead to changes healthcare landscape across borders. For instance, teleraidology requires ability to read, interpret and digitally sent images to another location. This effectively means that interpreting and reading the images is borderless. Consequently, it depends on the reader’s expertise (Balaban & Marano, 2010). Conclusion In conclusion, it is important to note that tax issues and service are the main causes of differences in cost of health globally among hospitals. In United States, in particular patients pay more, due to insurance and other costly procedures. A patient at Bayonne Hospital in New Jersey going for treatment of COPD pays approximately $99,690 while in 30 miles away at Bronx N.Y, Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center costs $7,044 (Balaban & Marano, 2010). Persons without health insurance on the other hand pay much for health care. Such diversity and the quality treatment lead to people opting for cross border care. Some studies show that high doctor fees in the United States are to blame for the increase in cost of health care. Affordable health care reduces the cross border movements. Hospitals need to aim in offering quality services and that are affordable. Proper training practices need to be in place to ensure that people are attracted to internal health care Global health care management and health care is flattering. Patients seek healthcare outside their nations. New management practices and policies are moving from one nation to the other. Even though health care are primarily local business, local health seeking attributes, and local practice vary significantly (Burns et al, 2011). This is both within and across border. Challenges are to enhance the flow of practice and technology that promote welfare and hinder those that do not. History reveals that such challenges are daunting. Globalization is neither a good nor a bad force. People need to capitalize on the potential benefits of globalization. Critique one I concur with the assertion that today’s world trend towards a more integrated and inclusive globe is challenging our comprehension of public health. As national borders rapidly expand and become porous, public health policy makers and experts require finding new means of managing health care systems. In recent years, more patients have decided to look for medication in foreign nations where they are non-citizens. This is because rich patients might seek for the latest and highest quality medical care while others look for less expensive health care treatment in foreign nations. Movement of patients is seen in developed and developing nations, which serve as source and destination places. Critique two I agree with the author that due to globalization, there is rapid increase in interconnectedness and interdependence of the human community. Due to events occurring in the world, health influences are not left behind. Globalization has changed direction influencing patients, health care workers and managerial practices. Patients have started looking for medical help in foreign countries outside their maternal homeland. On the other hand, health care providers are ready t relocate to developed and developing nations to offer health care services to patients whereas new management practices are spread from state to another. References Burns, L & Bradley, E & Weiner, B. (2011). Shortell and Kaluzny's Healthcare Management: Organization Design and Behavior. Michigan: Cengage Learning. Bookman, M. (2007). Medical Tourism in Developing Countries. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Balaban, V. & Marano, C. (2010), Medical tourism research: A systematic review. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 14, e135-e135. Kangas, B. (2010). Traveling for Medical Care in a Global World. Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness, 29, 344-362 Keckley, P. & Underwood, H. (2008). Medical Tourism: Consumers in Search of Value. Washington: Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. Reisman, D. (2010). Health Tourism: Social Welfare through International Trade. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Vick, L. (2010). Medical Toursim: Legal Issues. Presented at Destination Health Medical Tourism Conference. Olympia, London: Michelmores Solicitors Whittaker, A. (2008). Pleasure and pain: Medical travel in Asia. Global Public Health: An International Journal for Research, Policy, and Practice, 3, 271-290 Read More