HLT51612: Health Care Assessment - Faculty of Health Science, Youth and Community Studies Health Science and Biotechnology Department

Health Care Assessment

Case Scenario/ Task

Write an essay that compares and contrasts some of the features of Australia’s health care system, with those of a different country’s health care system.

The essay must address the following points:

Discuss the overall structure of the Australian health care system compared to the other country’s health care system.

Examine the funding models for both health care systems; reviewing the roles and contributions of the government, private insurance companies and the individual.

Compare and contrast the health outcomes of each health care system to global averages.

Identify health care policies and the social impact of health care delivery to Indigenous populations or minorities groups within each country.

Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of both health care systems.

Outline one primary health care, a preventative health care program or a health promotion program that highlights the Australian health care system.

Introduction

There is a variety of healthcare system around the world; this is organizations of people or institutions which provide health services meeting health needs of individuals. Different countries and nations design health care systems to meet needs of its citizens differently. Humans are dynamic beings whose health can vary from time to time although it can be improved within a period if taken care. Health care system includes the creation of systematic care practices to patients to improve the condition and quality of a patient through diagnosing of his body (Denton, 2013). However, in some countries, the health system is divided in the market participants while governments govern other nations, trade unions, religious organizations, charity while private members coordinate others according to the population needs.

Australia’s health system is complex because it is composed of a group of health care services, providers, and massive organizational structures. However, in Australians health system is divided into different components, its either a patient visits an health practitioner who may direct them to a health specialist or a government hospital, gets a diagnostic testing, then be prescribed as per the testing results (Wickramasinghe 2013). The other option is visiting a group of network organization who provide health care system have some test and be prescribed. However, the complex system of health practitioners or the public health care system is both supported by legislative laws, regulatory systems and proper funding arrangements.

Australia, healthcare system structure, compared to the German care system

The Australia’s medical system provides collective access with a broad range of services which is funded through collected taxes. Medicare system in Australia was started in 1984 and provides free treatment in public and general hospitals. Medicare is used to describe the Australia’s medical system through it precisely gives open access to the hospitals in providing for Medicare systems. Statistics done by Fisher (2015) show that Australia health system is the 3rd in the Organization of Economic Corporation Development (OECD) countries with the large longest life expectancy offering the best medical care services. The cross-national comparison allows tracking of the performance of Australia health system with the German health care system. The analysis done by USA Int'L Business Publications (2013) shows that Australia health system is better structured than the German health care system because the German government would spend a smaller share of the GDP on health care.

Funding models for health care system, roles, and contribution of the government

Australia uses a federal system government; it has a national government, six states, and two territories. Therefore, health responsibility remained a state’s responsibility. The federal government has control over the taxes hence having the power to raise revenues. The States have to rely on financial transfers from the national government to support their health care systems. The Australia health care system then becomes complicated because to the level of responsibilities and different roles in the various levels of government (Tatnall & Iyamu, 2016). Therefore the system is greatly financed by the general taxation through the national government with an interplay of the public and private sectors. Though there is a percentage of tax which is waived by the medical levy, it just supports a small portion of 20 percent of total medical finance. The United States apparently pays the doctors to see the patients but does not encourage continuity of care for a person with an ongoing illness.

The private medical care sector there is a high reliance of personal pocket payment which raises a total of 16 percent of the total expenditure. Private insurance covers treatment and out of hospital services with the majority being dental health care and physiotherapy. However, still, the government dominates the healthcare funding with almost 45 percent of the total medical expenditure being provided by the national government and a 25 percent through other different levels of the government giving the federal government (Commonwealth) the highest role in medical care policy making (Rubin, 2016). Medicare system has three components, the public hospital, medical services and the pharmaceuticals. However, the private healthcare system is growing rapidly with the involvement of new technologies in the health care sector. In Australia, the government, however, supports the private health insurance which covers both inpatient treatment and outpatient services which may be covered in by Medicare.

Health Outcomes Of Each Health Care System To Global Averages

Cross-national comparisons give the chance to track performances of heath care systems in different countries with highlights of strengths and weaknesses with the identification of areas which may need improvements. However, analysis can be done in the Commonwealth countries that use health data from Economic cooperation and development to access the health care systems, utilization, and prices differentiation from different countries. OECD countries have a significant provision of insurance with an Affordable Care Act (Duckett & Willcox. 2015). The German has a national health insurance program where the government runs the health insurance system in contrast with the country’s population giving the citizens a clear medical benefits package (Narins, 2014). The general taxes finance covers the health insurance policy through the single payer systems were only one third party is held responsible for payment of health care systems and providing of medical services. Health care service production is private therefore health practitioners receive payments on a negotiated fee in line with the global budget payments (Rice, 2015).

The German healthcare systems are designed in mutual aid societies from the early 19th century. The German health care system is based on the concept of social insurance because it is embodied in the principle of social solidarity. By the application of welfare benefits from the government, the law helps the citizens with benefits of medical care, pension, and disability payments, maternity payments, and social welfare. Individual health insurance premiums for employees are calculated about personal incomes not considering the age of some defendants. Therefore, payroll deducts the health premiums (Frize, 2014). The German healthcare systems are almost same as the United States because of employee groups, general insurers and providers reach health system agreements without the intervention of the government.

Health care policies, social impact of health care delivery to Indigenous populations

Research done by Eren & Webster (2016), shows that the black and the minority communities have always experienced poor health care services and have barriers in accessing them. In Australia and countries like the United Kingdom, there is the growth of different ethnic communities with linguistic groups who have different cultural traits which present a challenge to healthcare. In the United States, one out of three people are members of a particular ethnicity group. Research done by Rubin (2016) shows that significant health inconsistencies with groups such as the black Americans, Americans Indians and other immigrant communities like the Asians and Hispanics have challenges in assessing health benefits and care.

In the United Kingdom, ethnic disparities are recognized by bodies like the department of health and professional association. However, there are implications which were decided like the race relation amendment act 2002. The health and professional organization commanded all healthcare facilities to record data relating to the ethnic origin of all patients. Although there have been improvements, the levels of completions remain low making disparities in health care difficult to monitor in the United Kingdom (Moon & Galea, 2016).

Strengths and Weaknesses of both Health Care Systems

Delivering of high-quality health system for a reasonable cost sounds very simple, but in real sense it’s not. However, the medical database varies due to the quality and the scope of the system. Data generated from Australia’s database shows that most hospitals and pharmaceuticals will provide subsidized drugs at lower price levels (Duckett & Willcox, 2015). The system allows monitoring of the effectiveness of health care systems. Administrative databases cover care received by multiple health providers. Therefore, patients may return to a physician in case they are not satisfied by the services rendered and claim for better services. Therefore the physicians have a system wide follow up were estimate the positive aspect of their treatment (Kominski, 2014).

Administrative health care data gives permission to a collection of fixed amount of information covered by the insurance program. Therefore the physicians are responsible for the questions which may develop like why some patients have received treatment while others have not yet received and the reason behind (Wexler, 2015). The administrative health care system have structural limitations which can only be outcome through restructuring the records and the limitations. In Germany, the procedures and diagnosis have different systems with different codes which are used to describe the same event. Therefore one physician or the insurer may prefer a particular system while the others use different systems hence bringing confusion amongst themselves (Maioni, 2015). Again the timing of any diagnosis during hospitalization cannot be measured through the discharge summary alone. Therefore, conditions which may develop in the midst of the treatment cannot be distinguished from comorbid conditions.

Preventive Health Care Program

The preventive health care program in Australia is to prevent diseases and reduce disease amongst the population to attain a healthy population for as long as possible. Prevention has been an advocacy in the public health institutions and making it a core focus on health (Chapin, 2015). Some years ago the biggest challenge was the prevention of infectious diseases, the high cost of improvement of maternal and child health which would create a safer environment. The national government tried to control sanitation and developed a system of communicable disease surveillance, immunization as a preventive measure, healthy workplace environments and ensuring better food and safe water control to prevent any diseases. The prevention of has now created a sharp focus on chronic diseases hence relieving some social and economic burdens in Australia.