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Changes In Health Care -US

Changes In Health Care -US

Written by: Michael
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 Improving the Nation’s Health Care System
The United States currently spends more than $2.2 trillion annually on health care expenses, including costs borne by the government, the private sector, and individuals. In 2007, the latest year for which data are available, the nation spent on health care 16 percent of its gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic output—a level higher than any other developed nation. Many observers argue that with this level of investment, the nation should be able to provide all of its residents with quality health care. Yet the health care system falls well short of that goal. Nearly every component of the system costs too much to operate, and the various components too often fail to work together, with the whole system becoming less than the sum of its parts. But perhaps the system’s overarching flaw is that it provides many patients with less-than-optimal care or, in some cases, no care at all. Such concerns are driving interest in health care reform from both sides of the political aisle.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) seeks ways to help reinvigorate the health care system every year. Studies range from crafting blueprints for major system overhauls to offering guidance for how health care professionals should provide care to patients, to studies on development of policies and technologies that reduce the effects of disabilities.
Creating a health care system that works well
The nation’s health care system is complex almost beyond description, with payers, providers, regulators, and patients interacting in myriad ways. Across every sector of the system, opportunities exist to streamline operations and improve patient care.
Coping with an aging population
The nation is rapidly growing older. By 2030, the number of adults aged 65 and older will almost double, placing accelerating demands on the nation’s health care system. Older adults rely on health care services far more than other segments of the population. Additionally, this cohort of elderly people will be the most diverse the nation has ever seen, with greater education, increased longevity, widely dispersed families, and more racial and ethnic diversity, making their needs much different than previous generations.
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Episodes
  • USA-Health Improvement Podcast

    USA-Health Improvement Podcast
    Nov 3 2025
    With support from a number of private organizations, the IOM examined what this explosion of older people will mean for the nation and how it can prepare to meet the challenges certain to arise. Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce (2008) finds that the current workforce is too small and woefully unprepared to provide an adequate level of high-quality care to this growing population group, and it calls for a series of bold initiatives—starting immediately.
    Among the initiatives, a national effort is needed to train all health care providers in the basics of geriatric care. Such training may be undertaken in health professional schools and health care training programs or through other means. A national push also is needed to better prepare family members and other informal caregivers to tend to older people, as well as to prepare these individuals to take more active roles in their own care. To foster such efforts, Medicare, Medicaid, and other health plans should pay more for the services of geriatric specialists and direct-care workers to attract more health professionals and to staunch turnover among care aides, many of whom earn wages below the poverty level.
    Governments at all levels, along with a spectrum of health care organizations, need to do more to disseminate innovative models of care delivery that have proved efficient and cost effective for older adults. Diffusion of such models has been minimal, often because current financing systems do not provide payment for features such as patient education, care coordination, and interdisciplinary care. Because no single model of care will be sufficient to meet the needs of all older adults, Congress and public and private foundations should significantly increase support for research and programs that promote the development of additional innovative care models, especially in areas where effective delivery models are lacking, such as in preventive and palliative care.

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    6 mins
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