Health Care

Health Care

Unit 2 Chapter 2&3

1

With budget crunches in the U.S. health care system, the struggles of public health are getting more attention. As public health administration moves heavily into illness prevention and education to cut costs, issues affecting its successes and failures become more noticeable. Budgets and policy development conflict as health care costs continue to climb. Prevention is increasingly seen as the key to controlling these costs.

Issues in public health deal with the relationship between the state and the community's health. The mission of public health over the last century has been to mitigate effects of industrialism and urbanization. Quality of life increased for many people from improvements in hygiene and sanitation.

The general function of health care administration is to prevent health problems before they begin. Improvements in the predictive power of statistical models---used by public health workers worldwide---aid in this function. Such predictions also save money for already overloaded health care budgets.

Education is central to public health, highlighting the facts about lifestyle issues---poor eating habits, smoking and drug use---for the public. Public health administration also deals with such issues as the care of young people, especially in utero, by providing information and services for maternal and parent care. 2

A Special Interest Group (SIG) is a community with an interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to affect or to produce solutions within their particular field, and may communicate, meet, and organize conferences. They may at times also advocate or lobby on a particular issue or on a range of issues but are generally distinct from Advocacy groups and pressure groups which are normally set up for the specific political aim;[citation needed] the distinction is not firm however and some organizations can adapt and change their focus over time.

Since the inception of the Healthcare Special Interest Group, all the sessions have been linked via a main theme. For the past 2 years, the Healthcare SIG has focused on 'Productivity' and has considered this central theme from many angles. Although productivity still remains a major challenge for UK and global healthcare, we wanted to balance out this discussion on cost cutting and efficiency savings and are now shifting our attention towards "Growth" as our main theme. While the term 'growth' could be a supply side driven term, that is not our main focus here. We are also interested in exploring the facets of this theme which are about opportunities, exploring growth in evidence-based care, growth to increase access to care and the 'growth' around new styles of leadership.

Unit 3 Chapter 4 & 5

1

Ambulatory Surgery Centers—known as ASCs—are modern health care facilities focused on providing same-day surgical care, including diagnostic and preventive procedures. ASCs have transformed the outpatient experience for millions of Americans by providing them with a more convenient alternative to hospital-based outpatient procedures—and done so with a strong track record of quality care and positive patient outcomes. An Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) exclusively furnishes outpatient surgical and procedural services with the expectation ...