Health Services Organization
Health Care System In this paper there will be a brief discussion of three forces that have affected the development of the U.S healthcare system. It will observe whether or not these forces will continue to have an effect on the U.S healthcare system over the next decade. This paper will also include an additional force, which may be lead to believe to have an impact on the health care system of the nation. And lastly this paper will evaluate the importance of technology in healthcare.
There are three major forces that have affected the development of the health care system within the U.S. and these forces include social, political and economic. The first force is defined as a social force, and during this time in the year of “1850 was the development of the first hos-pitals within the United States, which marked the beginning of formal organization in the U.S” (Williams & Torrens, 2010, p.3). “This particular force concentrated its efforts on public health problems, such as epidemics and various acute infections that affected large amounts of those individuals as a result of poor living conditions, such as unclean foods, contaminated water and housing. After most of the epidemic problems started getting under control, hospitals had to now solve other major problems such as trauma and diseases which were in critical need of surgical intervention” (Williams & Torrens, 2010, p. 3).
The second force that affected the health system of the U.S is defined as political. During World War II and the years that followed after it up to 1980 was a period of major social and political development in the U.S health care system. “After the discovery of antibiotics, there were improvements in medical and surgical treatments of acute diseases, which would then allowed the health system to then focus its attention on more chronic illnesses as major targets for the very first time” (Williams & Torrens, 2010, p. 4).
References: Brookins, T. (2012, July 3). Socialist Journal: Obamacare. Socialist’s Journal: Obamacare. Retrieved from http://www.eurweb.com/2012/07/the-socialists-journal-obamacare/ Williams, S. J., & Torrens, P. R. (2010). Understanding Health Systems: The Organization of Health Care in the United States. In M. Staudt, & M. Stranz (Eds.), Introduction To Health Services (Custom ed., pp. 3-4). Mason, Ohio: Ce.