| Show Section Utah Health Care Costs Access and Quality Compiled by Anthony Cooke Access Quality and Cost are components used in diagnosing the delivery of health care in the United States As data on access and quality have been limited in the past policy makers have traditionally concentrated on the cost of treatment as the major factor in evaluating the Nationhealth care delivery system Recently access and quality measures have become more readly available and policy makers are beginning to balance cost against access and quality in an effort to establishmore efficient and effective delivery system providing the best possible care to the most individuals at the least cost Access The Institute of Medicine defines Access as the timely use of personal health services to achieve the best possible health outcome Yet access to health care has traditionally been defined as having health insurance coverage or sufficient health services ingiven region Policy makers continue to use the rate of uninsured to diagnose the access problem The percentage of uninsured individuals in Utah increased from6 in 1997 to 11in 2000 Table 95 This is slightly lower than theS average which declined from 16in 1997 to 155 in 1999 Low income families in theS and Utah are at an increased risk of having poor access to health care An estimated 41percent of low-income families annual household income equal to or less than 18 000 had Quality Quality remains an area of concem for costs healthcare rising combating throughout the nation Increased quality of care may result in decreased healthcare Measures of quality have expenditures traditionally concentrated on hospital discharge data frequency of retum patient visits cost per patient by treatment and average length of hospitalization by disease These data are difficult to compare regionally as costs and economics between regional areas and the nation differ so significantly The American Medical Association the National Center for Healthcare Quality Improvement and numerous other governmental agencies are working injoint effort to standardize the measures of quality in healthcare Cost Healthcare expenditure has becomemajor political and public health issue within the last two decades Advances in medical technology and an aging population have contibuted torise in healthcare expenditure to 13 percent of the national GDP Tables 98 through106 compare Utahhealthcare expenditures with that of the Rocky Mountain States and the Nation On average Utah spends less per capita on healthcare expenses than both the Rocky Mountain States and theS no health insurance in 1999 Institute of Medicine 1993 Access to health care in America Washington C National Academy Press Utah Issues Center for Poverty and Action March 2001 Poverty in Utah 2000 Salt Lake City Utah Digital image 2005 Marriott Library University of Utah Al rights reserved |
