Excess Of Health Care

The health care system in the United States (U.S.) is constantly evolving, prompting the American people to remain up-to-date (especially those who work in the health care industry) with new policies and guidelines to follow to provide (or achieve) high-quality care. Bodenheimer and Grumbach (2012) refer to the conventional health care system as a “paradox of excess and deprivation” (p. 1). A deprivation of care would include individuals that are uninsured, underinsured, or have Medicaid coverage in which many practitioners do not accept; whereas, the excess of care would refer to those who receive too much care that may be costly, unnecessary, and potentially harmful (Bodenheimer & Grumbach, 2012). The health care system may incorporate …show more content…
Hundreds of quality measures have been developed by government agencies (i.e., AHRQ, CMS), accreditation organizations (i.e., The Joint Commission), professional societies and certification boards (i.e., AACN, ANCC), quality improvement organizations (i.e., NQF), and private organizations (Hevenor, Kurtzman, & Johnson, 2016). Despite the advances in health care, medical errors still occur and affects tens of thousands of individuals each year (Mason, Gardner, Outlaw, & O'Grady, 2016). Medical errors may include medications, surgery, diagnosis, radiological procedures, equipment, or lab reports; thus, all are preventable (AHRQ, 2014; National Quality Forum [NQF], …show more content…
population at an alarming rate. The annual incidence of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) is alarmingly estimated at two million, and accounts for more than 90,000 deaths with more than $4.5 billion in associated health care costs (NQF, n.d.). According to Lacey, Cox, Erickson, and Rich (2016), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 400,000 deaths occurr due to medical errors and ranked as the third leading cause of death in the U.S. (pp. 530-531). Romero et al. (2013) states that medication errors are the most common medical error and accounts for 78% of severe medical errors the intensive care unit (ICU) and other specialty areas. The definition of medication error is any preventable incident that may lead to inappropriate medication use or cause patient harm (Manias, Williams, & Liew, 2012; Pop & Finocchi, 2016). Medication errors may occur during any stage of the medication management process, which includes prescribing, transcribing, preparation and administration (Manias et al., 2012). Statistical data suggests that a hospitalized patient experiences one mediation error per day (Kruer, Jarrell, and Latif,