Health Care for ALL or NOT for ALL

The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care provides the understanding of the efficiency and effectiveness of Health Care System. This project has documented some variations in how medical resources are distributed in the United States such as Grand Junction and Seattle, Washington and more. Medicare has provided them data and analysis from the hospital and there affiliated physicians. These data are held and analyzed for them to improve health and the health systems across the country. They study medical billing record, study’s results, and the variations of American’s medicine, the different treatments and its costs around the country. They also study the issue of how the supplies that they need drive demands. Through their deep detailed research they found perfect models that define a true health care system such as Mason County in Colorado. It is a great model health care delivery. At the Grad Junction in Mason Country they have a digital record keeping making the information pure gold. They ensure protection and medical care for prenatal situations, meaning that they provide medical care no matter if they have insurance or not before the baby is born. They have medical coverage to everyone, cutting the cost of health care. They also help non-profit clinic that provided health care, dental and mental health care.  At Seattle, Washington, Factoria which is a Global Health patient center medical home, a group of doctors, or so called medical team, organize patients’ schedule and they are responsible for every patient. They see cases every day, and increase virtual medicine, the use of Internet and telephone to communicate with patients. They say that every dollar they spent to create the medical home they save a dollar and fifty cent. To save money they use the appropriate utilization that patients will use. At the Evereff Clinic, they treat 250,000 patients. At this clinic they lowers the cost of care by cutting the cost of unneeded test. They also cut the use of prescription drug and local insurance provides them with data on generic data patterns. They say that the issue of pharmaceuticals is that there’s a 60% error related to the physician’s penmanship of physician and pharmacist retail. Another cut cost are the blood transfusions during procedures. It is also a patient’s decisions, which could lower cost for them.

The access for health care should be a privilege however they should have the right to access/ visit to a primary care physician. If those people put the health first over luxury or any other thing, they do deserve health care. Health care is a delicate topic to discuss. To those people that follow rules, follow what the doctor tell them to, take their medicine, go to their appointments, have their routinely treatment, etc. they have the right and the privilege to have health care. However, there’s patients that do have health care that is provided by the government for free called “La Reforma” that is formally used in Puerto Rico, most of those individuals take advantage of it. “La Reforma” is a form of medicare that is provided for the poor or low income families that have no private health insurance. They have the right to access private physicians as well as primary care. Most of them don’t follow rules, they can’t manage the wait, or they don’t take advantage to those needs and attention that they are given every single day knowing that they are getting it for free. They are getting the same treatment, the same medications and the same attention as to those that have private health insurance. However, all human being should have access to primary care visits. It is the individual who shows interest to their health and shows respect to those that help them.

What I found really interesting from each of the medical systems that were discuss in the PBS program is how patients have the right to choose their treatment, lowering cost. It is strongly believed that physicians still want the best for their patients and have the best outcomes out of those treatments. It was interesting how giving a voice to the patient made the cost be cut and lower the cost of care. Also what I found interesting is how at Seattle, Washington they eliminated the pharmaceutical representatives, which caused a lot of controversy due to the high cost since the United States spends a quarter of a trillion on prescription drugs. I was shocked on how much cost and money was put into prescription drugs/medications. Also the percentage of error that is caused at the pharmaceuticals, which is sixty percent due to penmanship of physician or pharmacist retail. Also blood transfusion! They control the use of blood transfusion during procedures and they found out that lowering blood transfusions places the patient in a non-risk environment.

I think this could be duplicated, especially how the Grand Junction is done with its highly organized new technology and other health benefits. However, it hasn’t been implemented where I’m from, Puerto Rico, because the government plays a big role in the health care issue and there’s a lot of corruption. Also we get a lot of federal funds, however organization should be the primary aspect here and the restructure the health care system. Also there’s a huge population in a small little island, and more than fifty percent of the people are maintained by the government which could be an issue here if you have given them for so many years free access to every health care and given them every free health benefit that they could ever ask for and not take advantage of it. The people and the government should be educated and then the health care system could be reconstructed to a better one.