A Biosocial Analysis of Health Care Delivery Systems
Abstract
To improve the state of health care delivery towards achieving lower costs, better health, and better care, a number of key principles have been recommended. For healthcare providers and hospitals, some of these principles include the incorporation of social health and behavioral health determinants, embracing collaborative leadership, aligning care delivery processes to the needs of the community, facilitating information, transparency, and technology towards outcome improvement, and the creation of high-reliability, high-safety healthcare organizations. Major health care problems that have been documented include sporadic quality, gap-ridden coverage, and high costs. To address these challenges, additional solutions have been documented. The solutions lie in infrastructure (workforce motivation, balance, and training), organization (forming team-like configurations to reduce misuse, underuse, and overuse), quality (policies that focus on the population and individual level), and payment reform (aligning the health organization managers’ and practitioners’ desires with the resultant incentives). Other solutions include patient activation (engaging individuals in their health and care) and population health (embracing population-wide programs towards achieving full potential).