Health Care Issues Paper

Healthcare sector in the United States, similar to many nations, is challenged with widespread and growing issues today. Some of the problems include lack of adequate number of specialized doctors and support personnel, complex patient needs, overcrowding, uncompensated care, complicated processes, professional liability insurance crisis, medical as well as data errors, excessive waiting times, non-value added activities, and poor coordination between various functionalities of the healthcare system among others; which result in direct harm to the patients, alarming healthcare costs and patient dissatisfaction (Kizer, 2002). According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the total national health expenditure was $3.0 trillion dollars in 2014. Although the healthcare expenditure in the United States exceeds most of the other developed nations, the healthcare quality lags very far behind (McDermott, Stock and Shah, 2011). …show more content…
Over the years, healthcare providers have attempted to reform the healthcare system based on financing methods, cost control or changes in political ideologies and remained unsuccessful (Corrigan, Donaldson and Kohn, 2001). Historically, there has been an increase in the implementation of the quality methodologies and tools in the healthcare sector. But instead of identifying the root causes to the recurring problems and developing new processes based on best practices, healthcare providers have been applying solutions to the symptoms of problems (Land and Stefl,