America and Canada are one of the most progressive industrialized countries of the world, which boast of good social services for their citizens, including healthcare. However, recently, the trend has made America and Canada to fall in to the world’s lower ranking in terms of healthcare quality and satisfaction, with the rise of many countries which may not be so powerful, but are sure giving good health plans.
The recent and repeated efforts of increasing annual expenditures on health and carrying out short term strategies are failing drastically, leading to a universal approval that both the countries would need a major change in their strategies if the healthcare systems are to survive. Who Has Better Healthcare System: The USA or Canada? The race for claiming the best healthcare system in the world continues till today. The supremacy in healthcare has been considered the hallmark of achievement and provision of health care has been one way to express it.
Not only comparison has helped in identifying the best healthcare systems around the world. But it has also helped in identifying what the problems and deficiencies are in context of these systems and the provision of good healthcare. Whether it is medicine or dentistry or nursing, all fields are interconnected with one purpose, to provide good healthcare. Therefore, a good healthcare system will not only work in progression of all these fields, but will also aim to correlate and enhance them to achieve the best health care force.
But all discussions aside, it is the patients who are the main determinants of a satisfactory healthcare system. Where in the past the patients were excluded from the internal processes of medicine, now their active and increasing role is appreciated for the valuable insights they can provide in the provision of healthcare. No doubt, by studying many examples, it is not so difficult to see that the most successful healthcare systems are those where the patients are satisfied with the services given.
So how to define what constitutes a good healthcare system? The paper aims to outline the factors that constitute a good healthcare system. It will also identify what factors lead to patient satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and what have been the trends in the global healthcare system regarding above mentioned. The paper will then focus on two countries healthcare systems: the United States of America and Canada. It will individually look at the different aspects of each healthcare system and its strengths and weaknesses.
The paper will look at some of the other countries and compare them with the two countries so as to ascertain the USA and Canada’s positions. It will briefly overlook the trends that have been taking place in both the countries over the years. The above mentioned discussion will help in reaching the conclusion about what country provides better patient satisfaction with respect to healthcare. The conclusions will help in identifying the changes that can be introduced in both the countries to improve healthcare satisfaction.
The whole paper is aimed at focusing at the patient’s satisfaction levels, patient’s concerns and issues and what helps in deciding the quality of healthcare care provision. For this purpose, many of the eminent researches and articles have been included for referencing. These journals mainly belong to American and Canadian countries, but international journals are also included. What Constitutes A Good Healthcare System? The global changes in the economic front have led to many problems in areas of human services, and healthcare is one of these.
With more and more problems surfacing in the system, the countries are now focusing on changing tactics and strategies to better meet the needs of the current and future healthcare systems. (Hohman, 2006) By looking at the different aspects of the international healthcare systems, it will be easier to draw perspectives on the problems and the current situations in them around the world. The healthcare systems have been broadly classified as the public and private healthcare systems.
Another classification which may overlap with the private and public classification includes three broad categories, the National Health Service model, the entrepreneurial model, and a mandated insurance model. National Health Service model is predominantly present in countries like the United Kingdom and Spain. The entrepreneurial model is mainly seen in the United States and the mandated insurance model is working in countries like Canada and Sweden. We will mainly focus on the latter two models, as they are relevant to our topic of discussion. (Hohman, 2006)
Very briefly, the entrepreneurial system of healthcare is mainly a private domain getting its financial aid from both private and public sources. This is a voluntary insurance buying where the people revert to the insurance plan given to them by their employment companies or buy them as individuals. The mandated insurance system can be described as an in between of the other two systems. This system, common in Canada, makes healthcare coverage compulsory and is publicly financed. The healthcare delivery is carried out by both the private and the public healthcare services.
Of the two types that further classify the system, Canada follows the national health insurance/single payer model, where as the multi-payer health insurance model is followed by countries like Germany and France. (Hohman, 2006) A good healthcare system these days would require an affordable system open to all in the country. This system would be responsible to guarantee the equal level of care to all, and make financial transactions easier and more patients friendly. Such system would also need to include the various components of the healthcare system and base its policies and strategies by asking for their opinions.
Most of all, a good healthcare system should be able to provide quality care to the patient with satisfaction and ensure the productivity and provision of needs of all those who contribute in the making of the health care system. No healthcare system can survive if it ignored the environmental factors and the societal norms in which it is functioning. Addition and understanding of these factors and implementation of such knowledge will prove beneficial in the long run in the healthcare system, and will give positive results in all aspect of the healthcare delivery system.