Analyzing Policy & Management in Healthcare in the United States

This essay examines the influence of policy and effective management on healthcare in the United States, highlighting the evolution of the system due to factors like population growth, technological advancements, rising costs, and workforce challenges. It discusses how lifestyle disorders, increased life expectancy, and workforce shortages have affected healthcare policies and management strategies. The essay also explores different approaches to management and policy formulation, including the systems approach, critical approach, and public interest approach, emphasizing the importance of these tools in improving healthcare quality and service delivery. The document is available on Desklib, a platform offering study resources for students.

Running head: health care management practices 1
Health care management practices
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Health care management practices 2
According to Bauer, Briss, Goodman, & Bowman, (2014) health care policies refers to
set rules and guidelines that details the nature of practice and service delivery in the healthcare
environment. On the other hand, effective management requires the effective organization of the
various inputs to receive the desired output. The main work of policies and management in the
healthcare institutions is to improve the quality of services, the overall health of the society and
safety assurance. This paper focuses on the influence of policy and effective management in
healthcare in the United States.
Health care in the United States have been evolving over the years. Effective
management and policy has contributed greatly to the evolution of health care in the United
States. Some of the key influences in the health policies include; rapid population growth,
technological advancements in healthcare, increased cost of living and rising costs of drugs and
overall healthcare, increase in the number of healthcare professions and presence of many
malpractices in the field which resulted in court settlements and malpractice insurance which
influences the policy and management of health care institutions. In addition, the discovery of
new management techniques have also led to advancement of managerial skills in the health field
(Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, 2018). .
Over the past few years, some challenges specific to the American population that have
affected the health care policies and management strategies. According to Boulware, Cooper,
Ratner, LaVeist, & Powe, (2016), these challenges include the increase in lifestyle disorders due
to sedentary and exercise free lifestyles by most people and consumption of junk food.
Advancement in health technology has also increased life expectancy which has in turn increased
the number of senior citizens in the population. The elderly have increased the epidemiological
burden for the American government as they are more dependent on health care services due to

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polypharmacy and higher dependency due to various chronic and lifestyle disorders. Workforce
shortages have also been a serious concern as many nurses are retiring and not as many are
joining the profession.
The solution of these problems can be found in good policies and management practices
that focus their attention towards optimization of health through prevention of diseases, high
standardization of care to improve on quality and reducing overutilization of unnecessary
treatment procedures and therapy. Some of the most common approaches to managers and policy
formulating bodies are the systems, the critical and public interest approaches.
The system approach focuses on human body as a system where each system has multiple
organs. The system has various elements such as inputs, processes, outputs and feedback which
helps to evaluate the other factors. The critical approach focuses on the challenges and ways in
which challenges can be addressed while the public interest approach focuses on incorporating
public values in the health care systems to reflect results that are acceptable to consumers of the
service which is the public (Cherry, & Jacob, 2016).
In conclusion, it is important to point out that policy formulation and quality management
are the most essential tools of improving quality of health care and service delivery systems. It is
also necessary to point out that the main approaches to addressing challenges in the health care
system are the systems approach, the critical approach and public interest approach.

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REFERENCES
Bauer, U. E., Briss, P. A., Goodman, R. A., & Bowman, B. A. (2014). Prevention of chronic
disease in the 21st century: elimination of the leading preventable causes of premature
death and disability in the USA. The Lancet, 384(9937), 45-52.
Boulware, L. E., Cooper, L. A., Ratner, L. E., LaVeist, T. A., & Powe, N. R. (2016). Race and
trust in the health care system. Public health reports.
Cherry, B., & Jacob, S. R. (2016). Contemporary nursing: Issues, trends, & management.
Elsevier Health Sciences.
Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J., & Swayne, L. E. (2018). The strategic management of health care
organizations. John Wiley & Sons.