In my opinion, health care is a combination of services to maintain and restore human health by offering appropriate treatment interventions. In addition, health care should prevent and examine diseases and help people understand what might affect their health positively and negatively. However, I cannot ignore various disparities, namely gender, race, and age, that continue to challenge the healthcare system. I want to believe that today, the government and all stakeholders try to do their best to provide the population with high-quality services.
After watching the offered video, I got a chance to examine the current achievements in the healthcare sector and compare my definitions with the ideas and examples Rebecca Onie gave. The speaker underlines that health care is a system based on a set of choices people make to keep the population healthy (Onie, 2014). Her purpose is not only to improve service quality or increase the number of healthcare experts who might help and cooperate with patients but to reduce the number of patients, meaning to predict diseases (Onie, 2014). Thus, I would like to make several changes to my initial definition of health care and focus on preventing health problems and supporting people in their intention to protect their health.
One of the main ideas in Onie’s speech is to pay more attention to the quality of life and living conditions through the prism of financial aspects and available resources. If traditional healthcare services were to recognize the impact of socioeconomics and eliminate health disparities, most health delivery models could be changed. Instead of prescribing antibiotics to treat an infection as a primary care step, the healthcare provider should check if there is food at home so the child’s system can handle the impact of medication. Another example of how health delivery models may be adjusted if socioeconomic concerns are solved is the nature of investments. Rather than being interested in technological advancement or pharmacological progress to cure disease, healthcare providers would focus on preventive interventions and ideas.
Reference
Onie, R. (2014). What if our health care system kept us healthy [Video]? TED. Web.