What Could Be
The Beveridge model allows the participation of the government where it acts as the single-payer of health services using the revenue accumulated from tax payments. Funding healthcare facilitates health promotion as many people will be encouraged to seek subsidized healthcare services (Hoctor, 2021).
The Beveridge model postulates that healthcare can be funded similarly to the police service or other public services, offsetting the burden of medical bills.
Since the government is the one funding healthcare services, the model offers a centralized health system, preventing corruption or competitiveness among firms (Hoctor, 2021).
Free healthcare at the point of service reduces the burden of patients needing to have money before visiting the hospital, meaning these patients’ health access is improved.
Government spending on healthcare services can ensure all people gain universal coverage which would ensure everyone receives quality health services and possibly protect the citizens from being impoverished by diseases.
The healthcare subsidies provided by the government cut down costs thus keeping healthcare costs low.
Beveridge Model can help patients avoid extra expenditure on things like medications and therapies (Ahmed, 2019).
This model includes the private sector in the administration of health as private hospitals get their money from the government after they deliver care to the patients.
Nationalization of the healthcare sector excludes the challenge of hospitals competing with one another which often adversely affects the quality of care as empathy and communication with the patient are compromised.
Benefits of the Beveridge Model
Since the Beveridge model allows government funding, people of all calibers, including all races, ages, sexes, and ethnicities can access healthcare as the taxes are paid by each individual present in the country.
The model allows patients to undergo diagnostic and laboratory tests without paying a penny which means the patient experiences a better prognosis due to a lack of financial stress.
The government is the sole funding source meaning healthcare costs are regulated and are kept at a point where the general public can afford them. If the funding is left to the public sector like in the case of the Bismarck model, medical costs would be prone to costs fluctuations due lack of a central regulator like the government (Hoctor, 2021).
While ensuring the costs are a law for both private and public healthcare centers, the private sector collects its fees from the government, showing that the government is still the sole funding source.
The model operates under the ideology that health is a human right. This ideation often encourages patients to seek care given that the costs have already been covered by the government and do not need to pay out of their own pockets. Along with seeking care, the ideology reduces mortality rates among the poor who might fear seeking health services due to the inability to pay for the care (Olatomiwa et al., 2018).
The Beveridge model spends a similar amount of money as those who are uninsured under the Bismarck model. However, the privatization present in the Bismarck model can cause fluctuation in medical costs making the uninsured suffer high medical costs.
Government funding of health services helps the country to regulate health-based organizations such as those manufacturing drugs or offering hospital equipment.
Re-configuring Barriers to Quality and Safe Care
Patients often lack quality and safe care due to a lack of communication and cooperation among medical professionals. This limited cooperation could translate to medical errors that ultimately lead to injuries or even death.
Reduced monitoring and regulation of healthcare facilities increase medical errors as nurses, doctors, and other medical practitioners neglect patient safety (Olatomiwa et al., 2018).
In some healthcare organizations, executives evade accountability by blaming some errors on others, deflecting from the hospital error subject and even ignoring legislative texts sent to them.
While competition can subserve the role of reducing costs, it also makes healthcare providers deviate from showing empathy and giving quality care to patients.
Some patients fail to participate in the treatment procedure as they feel that they are not knowledgeable enough like the medical practitioner, giving room for hospital errors.
There are some people who only depend on the family physician for them to receive healthcare services, meaning any other medical personnel who is might offer themselves to offer care cannot treat them. This over-reliance predisposes individuals to medical errors in the event that their family physician is incompetent.
Those patients suffering from acute or emergent illnesses lack enough time to assess whether the medical practitioner is offering quality care.
There is no distinctive systemic analysis system that has been implemented to evaluate the mistakes that doctors or nurses do. This absence increases the chances of medical errors happening and going unreported (Olatomiwa et al., 2018).
Open Access to Healthcare For All
Open access to healthcare for all people means that everyone can access any care from any medical care setting at any time without paying for anything.
Open healthcare access also integrates services such as mental and reproductive health treatments and also gives maternal care. Universal coverage can help patients who are suffering from both communicable and non-communicable diseases access health. The underlying model can facilitate open health access especially due to the fact that hospitals are funded by the government thus patients do not have to pay large amounts of money to cater for their medical bills.
Open healthcare access integrates various stakeholders which might include patients, medical practitioners, policymakers, and payors. All of them have a role in ensuring that all patients can seek and find health services easily (Olatomiwa et al., 2018).
Lastly, open healthcare access needs to be quality and patient since in most cases healthcare practitioners tend to be ignorant of the patients as they focus on their compensations, especially in those organizations that pay nurses and doctors based on the number of their services.
Beveridge Model and Open Access to Healthcare For All
The Beveridge model is the driving force of open access to healthcare for all due to government participation. The model allows the government to pay for every service that the customer gets in a hospital setting starting with diagnosis to medications. This payment excludes big medical bills that patients may have based on their medical conditions.
Open access to healthcare for all means that hospitals need to lower the cost of their services which would predispose them to become bankrupt. The Beveridge model offers a solution in that the government chips in money collected from taxes into the operations of the hospital (Hoctor, 2021).
For medical conditions that cannot be fully funded by tax funds, the government gives subsidies to a tune that can allow patients to pay the remaining amount. This case applies to those complex and expensive surgeries such as heart transplants.
Positive Changes That Can Be Made for Future
There is a need to shift from hospital settings to ambulatory settings for the purpose of allowing physicians actively manage serious illnesses, and chronic conditions and even improve a country’s population health.
Future health organizations need to embrace merging and consolidations as the newly formed organizations will come with benefits such as increased coordination of care, cost savings, and even earning the health firm market power.
Patients need to have a consumer mindset where they perform research on their diagnosis online prior to visiting the hospital. This mindset gives them a hint of what to expect and also increases their probability of asking their healthcare provider questions regarding their diagnosis and even treatment (Al Shamsi et al., 2020).
Healthcare organizations need to emphasize the need of preventing illnesses rather than treating them. Diseases such as HIV/AIDS is untreatable but preventable thus adopting a strategy that prevents diseases would save the country from the burden of caring for patients of HIV/AID and other such diseases which is expensive.
Stakeholders and Initiatives of Future Health Quality Improvement
Caregivers such as nurses can facilitate quality care by employing effective communication and a person-centered approach which improves the interaction between the nurse and the patient. An improved relationship could mean effective diagnosis and treatment of the patient.
Patients suffering from sepsis should be identified as early as possible and put into treatment to avoid relapse of the disease.
Lowering the number of catheter infections through means of sterilization could translate to quality improvements as fewer patients will be admitted to the hospital due to catheter-related problems (Haque, 2019).
Reducing hospital readmissions means that nosocomial infections will be lowered thus the quality of health delivery will be improved.
Medical practitioners should give proper prescriptions to avoid treatment of an illness or toxification of the body.
Electronic medical records are essential as they will facilitate reduced errors due to the maintenance of patients’ health records.
What Quality Healthcare Could Mean
Quality care reduces the risk of patients developing complications during their prognosis period as it offsets medical errors which are common in theater rooms or even in the wards such as those that host mothers.
With quality care, the number of deaths is lowered as the patient receives care when they need it in a safe and effective manner (Olatomiwa et al., 2018).
Quality care promotes healing since the therapy administered toward a particular illness is specific for it thus performing its intended function. Additionally, quality care involves giving medicine in the correct proportion, thus chances of drug toxification among the patients are lowered.
Quality care improves family-doctor relationships as it involves proper communication between the two groups, promoting quick healing for the patient.
Miscellaneous Thoughts and Ideas
Healthcare consumerization can be a solution to the straining healthcare systems such as that of the US as it minimizes the pressure placed on financial and human resources. Consequently, to pressure reduction, patients can manage the high costs of health services, especially for those who are yet to be insured.
Along with reduced pressure on resources quality healthcare and increased healthcare access will soar as most patients will assume a consumer’s mind, meaning they will expect quality medical care similar to the way they expect quality goods in the market (Ahmed, 2019).
One of the insights gained from this presentation is the negative impact of competitiveness at the sight of its pros. Competitiveness ruins patient-centered care as physicians tend to lose empathy and proper communication with their patients as they focus on the competing firms.
Quality care is primarily spearheaded by the medical personnel as they are in direct contact with the patient.
Key Takeaways
Inconclusively, the Beveridge model is a centralized model that places the government center on funding people’s healthcare needs. The government funds people’s health needs by paying their medical bills using taxes, making everyone afford healthcare services. This funding ultimately increases healthcare access.
Quality and safety are the current biggest concerns in the healthcare system. Needing various initiatives that incorporate stakeholders such as payors, policymakers, patients, and even physicians to achieve them (Ahmed, 2019).
Open healthcare access should be pioneered which could be through ways such as private innovation and investment, voluntary spending and also limiting the quality gaps.
Initiatives such as evidence-based, organized, and patient-centered care should be implemented to promote quality in treatment.
References
Ahmed, S. (2019). Integrating DMAIC approach of Lean Six Sigma and theory of constraintstoward quality improvement in healthcare. Reviews on environmental health, 34(4), 427-434.
Al Shamsi, H., Almutairi, A. G., Al Mashrafi, S., & Al Kalbani, T. (2020). Implications of language barriers for healthcare: a systematic review. Oman medical journal, 35(2), e122.
Haque, M. (2019). Importance of empathy among medical doctors to ensure high-quality healthcare level. Advances in Human Biology, 9(2), 104.
Hoctor, T. (2021). Beveridge or Bismarck? Choosing the Nordic model in British healthcare policy 1997–c. 2015. In The Making and Circulation of Nordic Models, Ideas and Images (pp. 209-228). Routledge.
Olatomiwa, L., Blanchard, R., Mekhilef, S., & Akinyele, D. (2018). Hybrid renewable energy supply for rural healthcare facilities: An approach to quality healthcare delivery. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments, 30, 121-138.
