In the healthcare sector, m-Health, social media, e-health, and telemedicine are tools that are increasingly being used to deliver healthcare services and information to millions of individuals. These tools can be any electronic monitoring systems and devices that are applied by clinical practitioners to improve or monitor health statuses and outcomes (Al-Shorbaji, 2018). E-health and m-health are both online and offline computer-based applications that are used to stimulate positive health behaviors. However, the use of eHealth, m-health, and telemedicine cover the extensive use in health care settings because they are used for different purposes such as monitoring patient’s progress and provides users with clinical information. E-health, m-health, and telemedicine come with various challenges such as requires complex user experience, the difficulty of patient acceptance, and they are still far from the national implementation (Barnard-Kelly, 2019). Additionally, they pose other challenges such as usability, data privacy and security, reliability issues, systems integration, and network access.
Different health and clinical outcomes exist where individuals can use economic evaluation analysis. For example, the cost minimization analysis, which measures two different therapeutic alternatives for efficacy to determine which one is cheaper to use from the healthcare costs (Bindman, Pronovost, & Asch, 2018). Notably, the three traditional economic evaluations are cost-utility analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, and cost-minimization. Clinical evaluation of healthcare efficacy on health care outcomes addresses different project and program elements that focus on inputs and outputs and processes and outcomes. The evaluation of efficacy should inform clinicians how well a project or program is functioning and whether it is meeting its goals (Choi, Park, Choi, & Yang, 2019). Therefore, evaluation of clinical efficacy and trials focus on health results that generate vital information on efficiency, safety, or the effectiveness of a single intervention. However, they are not suitable for revealing how the resources were used to accomplish health outcomes.
Healthcare delivery systems are the organized response of communities to the health problems of their populations. Healthcare delivery systems are a combination of providers of care, government agencies, insurance companies, and employer groups, among others (Kumar, Bera, Dutta, & Chakraborty, 2018). For example, Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) provides coverage for designated care services for plan subscribers at a fixed prepaid premium and includes four models that are the staff model, network model, group model, and individual practice association. According to Pablos-Méndez & Raviglione (2018) others include the Integrated Delivery System (IDS), which provides a broad spectrum of tertiary and ambulatory care services, the Preferred Provider Organization (PPO), which provides the subscribers with substantial benefits for healthcare services from preferred providers.
An established market for health insurance can be efficient where the vulnerability to chronic diseases is generally low (Barnard-Kelly, 2019. The federal government should plan on how to provide citizens of low-income status can receive healthcare services at lower or no costs. Additionally, the government can supplement the health insurance market where the regulation can be revised and close the gaps that exist where there is unfairness and inefficiency in access to health care. Ultimately, the goal of achieving high quality health insurance for all will require robust partnerships among local, state, and federal governments and the private sector to join efforts that translate to improved health care coverage for all (Choi, Park, Choi, & Yang, 2019). Different attempts are required from the private and public sector health delivery systems that translate general principles concerning the appropriate role of various governments into specific actions within the rapidly changing decentralized delivery systems.
References
Al-Shorbaji, N. (2018). Universal health coverage enabled by eHealth. QJM: An International Journal of Medicine, 111(suppl_1), hcy200-206.
Barnard-Kelly, K. (2019). Utilizing eHealth and telemedicine technologies to enhance access and quality of consultations: It’s not what you say, it’s the way you say it. Diabetes technology & therapeutics, 21(S2), S2-41.
Bindman, A. B., Pronovost, P. J., & Asch, D. A. (2018). Funding innovation in a learning health care system. Jama, 319(2), 119-120.
Choi, W. S., Park, J., Choi, J. Y. B., & Yang, J. S. (2019). Stakeholders’ resistance to telemedicine with focus on physicians: utilizing the Delphi technique. Journal of telemedicine and telecare, 25(6), 378-385.
Kumar, P., Bera, S., Dutta, T., & Chakraborty, S. (2018). Auxiliary flexibility in healthcare delivery system: an integrative framework and implications. Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 19(2), 173-186.
Pablos-Méndez, A., & Raviglione, M. C. (2018). A new world health era. Global Health: Science and Practice, 6(1), 8-16.