Professional Integration within Health Care Pharmacies - Essay Example

This is what will be dissertated in the following. Integrated care systems have unique advantages for conducting research, this system, in particular, is a perfect example of this representation. The HMO Research Network (HMORN) includes research centers associated with 13 large integrated care systems whose research focuses primarily on improving health and health care delivery using the extraordinary platform which is provided by these health systems. "HMORN research centers have access to large, defined populations, comprehensive medical information, extensive computerized data systems, and to medical care delivery systems that offer extraordinary research opportunities.

" (Vogt, Lafata, Tolsma, & Greene, 2004). Integrated care health maintenance organizations (HMOs) provide the absolute optimal mix of the population base, electronic medical and financial databases, and longitudinal observation for much heath research. As well onto this, they are especially well situated for such things as research addressing issues such as the costs and effectiveness of prevention and treatment practices, the organization of care, secular trends in diseases, as well as relative priorities on how to apportion scarce resources.

It was in 1961 that Kaiser Permanente (KP) Northern California formed the Division of Research (DOR), the first of the integrated care research centers. The KP Northwest Center for Health Research in Portland, OR, followed three years later; both centers are professionally autonomous health research centers in the public domain that use the integrated care system as a laboratory for research that improves care. These two research centers grew steadily over the years, competing successfully with universities for federal research grants and developing lines of research that influenced care at the national level, and by the 1970s, their research had already led to changes in federal regulations relating to Medicaid coverage.

From this review, we can see that there is much success possible from the act of professional integration and that the previously discussed forum - The HMO Research Network - is a prime example of just this. The success this company experienced from professional integration is nothing less than the actual core of its prime and stability, which is an obvious factor of proof of how significant professional integration can be. Works CitedJesson, Jill, Rashid, Asia, & Wilson, Keith. "Professional Integration Within Health Care Pharmacies.