Health Care Systems

Healthcare Delivery Systems
Name
Institution
Roles
The role of healthcare delivery system varies in various healthcare settings. Healthcare is currently delivered in health institutions, homes, and other places. The healthcare delivery system seeks to ensure that quality healthcare is delivered in all health institutions. The main role of a health care delivery system that has been emphasized is the reduction of cost. The healthcare delivery system is tasked with ensuring affordable health care to everyone. It is a role that has gained widespread attention due o the expensive nature of quality healthcare in some places.
Reducing the number of hospitals is a way that the delivery healthcare system has undertaken to ensure an affordable health care cost. Reduction in the number of health institutions would lead to an increase in home care and other places besides hospitals (Kovner, Knickman & Jonas, 2011). It would be a cheaper option for an individual to be treated at home than seek treatment in a hospital, which would result in additional cost. The cost of healthcare in a hospital would also be reduced by decreasing the time spent by a patient waiting for treatment. It is a role that the healthcare delivery system has also undertaken to ensure that patients do not spend extra time in a hospital when seeking treatment. The home-care industry has emerged as an alternative health care delivery system with many people getting accustomed to it over time due to low cost. The home-care industry has also led to changes in the role of physicians and nurses in the healthcare sector.

The role of a health care delivery system has also influenced the out-patient setup in a healthcare facility. The changes in the healthcare sector have led to the reduction of people seeking acute-care facilities in both home-care industry and hospitals.
Management of Resources
The healthcare delivery system ensures that resources in the healthcare sector are managed well in hospitals. The healthcare delivery system helps in managing the resources in the healthcare sector through the decreasing the amount of time spent by patients hoping to seek treatment. It is one of the strategies that the health care delivery system uses to level the playing field among patients in the healthcare industry. It also helps the patients to save money while seeking quality health care in a hospital (Bullock, 2005). The healthcare sector has been regarded as the fastest growing industry in the world regardless of the location. The health care delivery system has invested a substantial amount of money in facilitating the smooth running of affairs in the sector regarding quality service delivery.
In the year, 1988, the health care delivery system injected over two billion to the healthcare sector to improve services. That amount of money injected into the sector that year was spread to all forms of healthcare including home-care delivery. The home-care health delivery has been instrumental in ensuring that the resources in the healthcare sector are well utilized and controlled. The cheap cost offered by the home-care health delivery has provided hospitals with an opportunity to save the amount of money spent on their facilities. In 1999, the health care delivery system spent an additional twenty billion in the healthcare sector. A significant amount of money was also spent in the home health industry. It was a move that has today increased the number of patients seeking treatment at their homes as a form of acute-care setting.
References
Bullock, E. (2005). What are the Roles Provided by the Healthcare Delivery Systems? Article
Doctor: Health and Fitness Articles.
Institute of Medicine (U.S.). (2003). The future of the public’s health in the 21st century.
Washington, D.C: National Academies Press.
Kovner, A. R., Knickman, J., & Jonas, S. (2011). Jonas & Kovner’s health care delivery in the
The United States. New York: Springer Pub
Rouse, W. B., & Cortese, D. A. (2010). Engineering the system of healthcare delivery.
Amsterdam: IOS Press.
Wolper, L. F. (2011). Health care administration: Managing organized delivery systems.
Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.