Yuri Yoon (40570020)
BAIT 550 Case Study
Introduction
The United States is recognized as one of the world’s largest health care industries based on their state-of-the art health care research and first class facilities. Despite their recognition as a world leader in health care, US hospitals are facing issues that hinder their current and future operations. Specifically, the amount of money invested into health care in the US does not accurately represent an improvement in the overall quality of health care operations. This results into another issue of health care becoming too expensive as prices are increasing to compensate for the amount of funding invested into health care. It is inevitable for the US to incur change in their current health care system in order to resolve these issues. Integrating the use of IT into current operations is a possible solution; however this creates another issue of forcing current employers of the health care system to adjust into a new system and abandon their traditional practices.
Analysis
Based on the information in exhibit 1, the percentage increase in GDP Spend on Health Care for the United States is increasing from 1998-2002. However, the increase in health care spending did not necessarily improve health care quality. This is an issue, as a world leader in health care, the amount of money being invested into the daily operations should reflect excellent and not poor health quality. For example, funding for transaction processing skyrocketed; however there was still a high a level of inadequate availability of information for patients travelling to multiple health care facilities. Health care facilities operate as independent entities, as a result, Physicians and Pharmacies for example, end up working independently with their own methods of data storage (often verbal interaction with patients) when they should be working synonymously in addressing patient prescriptions. Important data is lost during...