Patients Need of Healthcare by Strategic Management

The deliberative model in healthcare is expected to meet quite a few of the needs of the American public regarding the general area of healthcare. Of the many areas that may decide to look at this problem, an attempt is made here to look at two specific problems. One is the need of patients taking medicine properly and the other is the needs of patient care among all Americans. The problems in taking medication have been taken up on the issue of individual needs of patients for education on medicine taking. The education needs of patients in this area are not being met by healthcare providers. It may be worthwhile to take up a study to develop medication taking instructions for patients which can be used by healthcare providers in the long run. The aim should be to reach an approach which will be based on the view of patients regarding their needs of taking medicine and at the same time, also taking into account the concerned theories for health and education. The problem has been accentuated by the development of new medicines for the treatment of problems in diseases.

This is clear when one notices that in Canada itself, 167 new drugs were introduced in the period from 1997 to 2001. This has led to the total number of drugs in the market reaching a figure of over 3,000. This shows that there is no shortage of drugs, yet a large number of patients are not being able to get the benefits that the medicines are expected to give. In one study it was seen that about 12% of the cases of hospitalization that are taking place now could be avoided if the condition of the patient was properly managed when the patient was undergoing treatment at home. They could have been cared for by family physicians, nurses, and pharmacists. This is further accentuated with the knowledge given by another study that 43% of these avoidable admissions were in the area of some chronic diseases like asthma, diabetes or heart failure. These diseases require patients to use medicines over a long term. This shows clearly that patients with chronic diseases are being hospitalized regularly when they could have been cared for in the home by doctors working outside the hospitals. (Bajcar, 2003).

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When the patients are put on medicines, they should receive the maximum benefits from their medicines. For this purpose, the first point is the correct procedure for prescribing the medicine for the patient along with the dosing requirements. The second part is that these medicines have to be taken and this has to be done properly. This is generally decided by the patient. It has been seen in many instances that the process of preparing the prescriptions is not linked correctly to the process of taking the medicines. This often leads to the future hospitalization of the patient. During an analysis that was done recently, it was seen that pf the total number of admissions to hospitals in recent times, 7.1% were directly caused by the medicines that were taken by the patient or the failure of the medicines to act or the medicines were not taken properly by the patients. Further, it was seen that 59% of these admissions could have been avoided as the causes were due to inappropriate care or errors in medication. In medical terms, the adverse effects on patients are called drug-related morbidity and mortality. The cost of drug-related morbidity and mortality in the United States from 1995 to the healthcare system was $76.6 billion. These costs have been rising at a very fast rate and the costs in 2000 went to a figure above the $177 billion mark. This also showed that hospital admissions related to drug-related morbidity and mortality were now above 70% of the total costs. (Bajcar, 2003).

The major cause behind this problem is the shortcoming in patient education as felt by the patients, though the groups of healthcare professionals at different levels are trying to give a lot of importance to it.