Professional blog

The Commonwealth Fund provides an international review of health care systems. Read the Commonwealth Fund report, International Profiles of Health Care Systems, 2014, and take the associated quiz. Discuss what knowledge you gained from the quiz and describe any changes you would apply to the U.S. health care system.

The most frequently used bases for comparing international health care resources are health care expenditures, measured either as a fraction of gross domestic product (GDP) or per capita. There are several possible reasons for this, including the widespread

Click here to ORDER an A++ paper from our Verified MASTERS and DOCTORATE WRITERS: DNP 835 Topic 4 Discussion Question Two

DNP 835 Topic 4 Discussion Question Two

availability of historic expenditure figures; the attractiveness of collapsing resource data into a common unit of measurement; and the present focus among OECD member countries and other governments on containing health care costs. Despite important criticisms of this method, relatively few alternatives have been used in practice. A simple framework for comparing data underlying health care systems is presented in this article.

It distinguishes measures of real resources, for example human resources, medicines and medical equipment, from measures of financial resources such as expenditures. Measures of real resources are further subdivided according to whether their factor prices are determined primarily in national or global markets. The approach is illustrated using a simple analysis of health care resource profiles for Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the USA. Comparisons based on measures of both real resources and expenditures can be more useful than conventional comparisons of expenditures alone and can lead to important insights for the future management of health care systems.

Each overview covers health insurance, public and private financing, health system organisation and governance, health care quality and coordination, disparities, efficiency and integration, use of information technology and evidence-based practice, cost containment, and recent reforms and innovations. In addition, summary tables provide data on a number of key health system characteristics and performance indicators, including overall health care spending, hospital spending and utilisation, health care access, patient safety, care coordination, chronic care management, disease prevention, capacity for quality improvement, and public views.

Click here to ORDER an A++ paper from our MASTERS and DOCTORATE WRITERS: DNP 835 Topic 4 Discussion Question Two