Health economics involves the study of how the scarce resources get allocated for the alternative uses within the health care so that they are able to promote and improve on health. Moreover, the study involves analysis on how the benefits derived from health care as well as the cost incurred during such processes are shared equally. Since the resources available for the health care programs are normally very limited, the managers have the responsibility of making sure such resources are used adequately. In order to be efficient in using the resources, the managers must know what they are supposed to fund and what not to fund during such processes (Sorenson, 2011).
At the regional authority levels, there are very limited approaches that the decision makers can use in a bid to come up with the correct balance of using the resources within the various portfolios. It is therefore important that a priority setting should be launched so that the resources are used in accordance to the most urgent and important matters. At a macro level, the most important thing is to come up with ways of making the correct budget and having a marginal analysis framework for the implementation.
The availability of the resources has a way of determining the quality of services that is offered to the end consumers of the healthcare services. One way through which quality can be enhanced in the health care market is through the enhancement of a functional and competitive market in a country. Competition does have an impact on the quality of services since everyone will want to get the attention of the patients through the quality of services that they offer. Moreover, a competitive market will be beneficial to the patients in the long run since they will be paying low prices for the services offered. Additionally, an increase in competition will result in an increase in innovation among the health care providers both in the short term and long run (Sorenson, 2011). The provision of quality services to the patients has however, been affected over theyears by a number of factors. One of the factors that hinder the provision of quality services in the health care system is the lack of transparency among health care providers. There are managers who use the resources availed to them inappropriately so that at the end of the day the end receivers do not benefit from the services. Apart from that, there is a group of professionals who constantly embezzle funds meant for the provision of quality services to the patients. Once the funds have been in doing other projects other than what they were meant to do then definitely the quality standards will also deteriorate.
The second factor that works against the provision of quality services is the major information asymmetry in the health sector. In most cases, the services providers normally have some knowledge on certain factors that can hinder their provision of quality services yet their patients do not get to know such information. Similarly, the top managerial officials may have vital information on how to improve the quality of services but then they do not share such information with the policies makers. At the end of the day such information asymmetry greatly affects the overall quality of services in health care (McDaniel’s, 2010).
Health financing has also been a problem and a factor that has contributed to the low standards of services provided in the health care. What most people tend to seek is health financing rather than creating systems that can finance the health sector and make standard machinery available for the purposes of running such services. Additionally, most of the current health care policy makers and providers have the tendency of maintaining the status quo rather than coming up with new policies that can build and improve the current system. The policy makers are aware of the shortcomings in the health sector but none of them has the will of making concrete changes. Finally there is very little to appreciate in terms of the consumer sovereignty. The health sector has over the years been designed in such a way that the consumers take the services as provided to them but they cannot have a say on how they want the services to be delivered to them and at what cost.
A revolutionary change that will be the game changer in the provision of health care is the adoption of new technological systems. The physicians have no option but to come up with a mobile technology system that can act as the game changer in the provision of health services(Batstone and Edwards, 1996). One of the systems that can be used is tele-health system that allows patients to get treatment through conversations calls and Skype chatting sessions. The physicians therefore just provide online guidelines and advice on what the patients should do and what type of drugs they are supposed to use without necessarily being present with the patient. Health care providers should also come up with ways of using technology to collectdata on the patients as well as analytics in order to better understand how to provide the health services. Additionally, the physicians should consider creating portals for their patients as a way of closely monitoring such patients over a given period of time.
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