Introduction
The article “U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective” by the Commonwealth Fund provides the reader with the information on the research of cross-national comparison in the health care system including such countries as Australia, France, Germany, New Zealand, United Kingdom, the United States, and some others.
A Statement of the Research Problem
The research question asked was the following: what are key areas of strength and weakness, in other words, factors that may delay or speed up the enhancement of the health care system in the United States. The tendency of the issue is that government spends more and more money; however, people still are having poor health outcomes that are expressed in chronic diseases and shorter life duration. Among results of the research, one might note the following aspects compared with other high-income countries:
- in recent years, the US spending on health service surpassed;
- the mortality rates from cancer and other fatal diseases are poor;
- health care prices are greatly higher;
- the United States have less hospitals and clinics, however, they use specific medical technologies like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines more;
- Americans have less therapeutic programs and physician visits;
- all in all, the US spends more money on health care (The Commonwealth Fund, n.d.).
To deliver a proper health care to the population in a timely manner, it is necessary to provide certain investigations making the situation clear (Rebar & Gersch, 2014). Moreover, the globalized world people live in requires comparing existing conditions in different countries. However, they should be chosen on the grounds of some matching like income level or territorial similarity, for example. Therefore, the research was initiated to improve health care service and evolution of nursing as well. Authors discuss the question of high spending that contradicts dissatisfaction with the health care. The answer lays in the utilization of expensive services rather than often visits to the doctor. In my opinion, new additional measures and, perhaps, researches should be undertaken to deepen the issue and find out a correct solution.
A Description of Research Procedures
The data was collected mainly from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The targeted number of countries was 13. It is the last research in series of those conducted in 2015 by the Commonwealth Fund. Authors use a quantitative method of the research procedure to prove their point of view. They present a systematic description of what happened to health care system during 2013-2015 years by means of credible tables and statistics.
Advantages of the Procedural Design
Speaking of the procedural design advantages, the thing worth turning one’s attention to is the presence of illustrative material such as tables, diagrams, and drawings. It is a convincing argument that the article comprises some proven data or statistics organized in graphs.
Analysis of the Data
The analysis of the data that was made by authors can be proved. It could not be easily argued and denied, as there is evidence of it being taken from credible sources. Therefore, the information presented in the article appears to be accurate and trustworthy.
Limited and Justifiable Conclusions
In the conclusion, authors pointed out the main trends and changes that are connected to the US health care system in comparison with different high-income countries all over the world. Consequently, one may conclude that the goal desired by the authors was achieved because they provided a reader with the useful and comprehensible information. However, results of this study might be generalized only to the high-income countries, where the health care system stands on a high level.
References
Rebar, C. R., & Gersch, C. J. (2014). Understanding research for evidence-based practice. New York: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
The Commonwealth Fund. (n.d.). U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective. Web.