Higher Price Better Healthcare?

Healthcare is one of the most talked about topics especially recently with Obama care being introduced. Most of us have yet to pay a medical bill but as we are closer to the real world we will be forced to start paying for it .If you were told that if you payed more for healthcare you would receive better quality what would you think? If you couldn’t afford it how would it make you feel to know that the wealthy would be more healthy than you? Most of us probably have never really thought about the link between cost and quality of healthcare.  Research was done on whether or not the link  existed.

healthcarePeter S. Hussey, PhD, from RAND Health, Arlington, Virginia, and colleagues conducted a systematic review of 61 studies and “found inconsistent evidence on both the direction and the magnitude of the association between health care costs and quality,” they write. “To our knowledge, there has been no previous systematic literature review of evidence on the cost–quality association in health care.” (McReady, 2012) The research  that was conducted included studies from bibliographies of selected papers, informal searches and consultations with experts. In order to assess the quality measures they used 5 categories such as structure, process, outcome, patient experience, and access. The measures of cost were put into 4 categories such as: accounting cost, charges expenditures, and a “care intensity index.

The results were that there was a link of higher cost and better quality of care. They did 61 studies and of them 21 said that their was a positive link between the two. Also, 18 of those studies showed a negative relationship and 22 showed no relationship at all. So we can assume that it is still somewhat unclear as to whether or not paying more money results in better healthcare. Still, more data is needed to come to this conclusion.

Some advice was given to physicians such as learning more about the cost and price of services that they provide.  The article also gives advice to “payers that they should reconsider the extent to which they shift financial risk onto provider organizations, and incentives for quality targets should be offered to promote processes of care that are well supported by evidence.” Lastly, the article states that everyone should participate in monitoring of care processes both  spending and clinical, as well as the patient experience and the outcomes that result for them.

Overall, this article was interesting because it allowed us to think of the results we are receiving from healthcare for how much we pay for it. I would be furious if the quality of healthcare was better if I payed more for it. Imagine all the families that can’t afford it, should we just leave them to receive less healthcare treatment? This would be horrible if it was a huge connection between the two.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/776951

Best Buy, Yahoo and Telecommuting: The Problem Isn’t Distance-It’s Management

Distance isn’t the problem-management is.

Is telecommuting a privilege or a right? Telecommuting has become one of the most recent and effective ways of doing business. However, many people have debated weather it is a privilege or a right.

Telecommuting can be more efficient at times, however that depends on management. Recently, Marissa Mayers (Yahoo CEO) added a new policy against telecommuting. Best Buy has also brought about talks regarding banning telecommuting.

Telecommuting can be environmentally friendly and preferred by employees, especially those that have a long distance for commute. Telecommuting can motivate employees to work from where they want to work. It can also be very inefficient if those that telecommute are not paying attention to the work they have to get done.

Management really needs to take more action especially since Telecommuting is fairly new. I am not saying management needs to be micro managing, but they do need to step it up if they see that those telecommuting are taking advantage.  It seems that in order for a company to be successful if they want to telecommute, they need to set of training on how to effectively improve communication/management.

Operation can take a huge toll in the way things are being ran especially if not much attention is put. Those that telecommute may find it distracting to work effectively once they are sitting at home with a laptop surfing the web, eating dinner, listening to music ect. However, operation can increase if those that work at home find those distractions to be necessary for their production. If they feel that at work they are being pressured and constantly watched on.  We discussed how managers should develop pride and joy in work and how that effects production. If managers effectively carry out with that, employees may feel better about doing their job wherever they are.

In today’s tech world, it almost feels that telecommuting is almost essential rather than being a privilege. For example, I have worked in a company where we telecommute and we do this because everyone is doing a marketing project where they feel that are more concentrated at home, or other employees commute is so long that if they worked from home they could get a lot more done during the time spent on the commute. Management is on a 24/7 contact basis and we have employees that work great communicating effectively and production is great. However, we also have some employees that do not communicate all the time and we find ourselves slowing down on production. I think that it depends on the type of company and task, in order to determine if  telecommuting is a privilege or a right.

Overall,  management is extremely important if companies do chose to allow employees to telecommute. Management really plays a huge roll because they have to effectively communicate with employees and allow them to do their work without making them feel they are being hounded to deliver work on time.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/03/07/best-buy-yahoo-and-telecommuting-the-problem-isnt-distance-its-management/