Main Post
Although the concept of global health is frequently addressed, there is still no accurate definition of this phenomenon. It is often considered as a combination public health and international health activities, adhering to the common standards of medicine and health care delivery (Koplan et al., 2009, p. 1993). According to the definition provided by the American Institute of Medicine, this concept, which is also utilized by the U.S. health care system, often refers to the missions, organizational frameworks, substances, and goals of public health that seeks to carry out the societal interests.
With regard to this definition, the medical care in the United States has it certain peculiarities in terms of the above-mentioned aspects and, to conceive them properly, one should provide a comparative analysis of health care systems in the United States and other countries (Kovner, Kickman, and Jonas, 2008, p. 156). Particularly, there should be a comparative analysis of the US nursing practice and funding with the French one because these systems differ from each other in terms of financing, insurance, and delivery issues.
Discussion
The globalization process has contributed to widening experience among countries about common ethical, professional, and quality standard enabling the nurses around the world to think more over the advantages and disadvantage of particular health care systems. In this respect, it considerably influences and enhances the process of nursing migration to find much higher standards of nursing practice and organizational philosophies and policies (Koplan et al., 2009, p. 1994). Moreover, the process has also created a favorable ground for comparative analyses and improvements of the existing health care models.
While considering financing and insurance, it can be stated that the United States health care system fails to establish a balanced allocation of health care resources, despite the increasing level of funding (Kovner, Kickman, and Jonas, 2008, p. 163).
In particular, insufficient allocation of certain sectors is, first of all, predetermined by prioritizing attention to marketing and private needs. In addition, US health care model is more technology-oriented to handle data exchange and storage more carefully, but such a framework prevents the United States from establishing equal delivery of services to customers. In contrast, French medical system is much more advanced in terms of the overall efficiency because it manages to allocate resources more effectively and homogeneously to ensure high quality of services and patient safety (Kovner, Kickman, and Jonas, 2008, p. 166). In this respect, the United States private focus should be rearranged to direct sources to the least financed areas and introduce higher standards of quality.
France has much more respectable rates of quality of care delivery despite introducing less percentage of funding to the sectors compared to those in the United States. In particular, the country in interest has less level of health care insurance providing clients with a wider access to the nursing services (Kovner, Kickman, and Jonas, 2008, p. 167). According to Gapminder (2009), France has a relatively higher life expectancy rate (about 81 years) in comparison with the United States (79), although it has lower income levels, which creates a paradox in terms of economic welfare of population in its connection of to health care insurance and delivery in the United States.
In conclusion, it should be admitted that the health care system has certain shortcomings in terms of resources allocation and insurance systems. However, it does not mean that its quality and safety standard do not deserve diligent consideration in the world. In addition, US government introduces a number of activities that contribute to the improvement of the overall situation in the sphere of health care by emulating specific aspects presented in the models of other countries.
References
Gapminder. (2009) Gapminder World. Web.
Koplan, J. P., Band, T, C., Merson, M. H., Reddy, K. S., Rodriguez, M. H., Sewankambo, N. K., Wasser, J. W. (2009). Towards a Common Definition of Global Health. Lancet. 373, pp. 1993-95.
Kovner, A. R., Kickman, J., and Jonas, S. (2008). Comparative Analysis of Health Systems among Wealthy Nations. in Health Care Delivery in the United States. US: Springer.