Cultural Differences In The Healthcare Industry

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The healthcare industry is complex and the increasing costs of healthcare have been known to exist for years now. Consequently, healthcare consists of three types of care primary, secondary, and tertiary (Bodenheimer & Grumbach, 2012). Therefore, there is a variety of healthcare providers available to individuals, which include providers in hospitals, ambulatory care, and long-term care facilities. As a result, one of the key tasks of a healthcare organization despite the healthcare services offered is the ability to assure that the correct patient receives the correct service at the correct place and time (Bodenheimer & Grumbach, 2012). Overall, the traditional healthcare in the United Stated tends to be fragmented at all levels local,…show more content…
In addition, hospitals have a variety of other demographic characteristics such as the type of ownership statues for-profit, not-for-profit, government, public, or private (Kang & Hasnain-Wynia, 2011). Furthermore, some hospitals have higher levels of community involvement, offer a variety of language assistance for minorities, serve a ethnically diverse population, and have implemented electronic health records (Kang & Hasnain-Wynia, 2011). Consequently, hospitals can offer array of services to its patients aside from emergency department services. In addition, some hospitals are teaching hospitals where medical students sign up to complete their residency requirements. As well as, hospitals can vary among the number of full-time nurses employed per patient days (Kang & Hasnain-Wynia, 2011). Furthermore, hospitals are able to meet requirements and/or standards to obtain the Joint Commission accreditation status (Diana et al., 2014). Overall, studies have shown that some specific characteristics of hospitals tend to be associated with higher quality of care (Kang & Hasnain-Wynia,…show more content…
However, if an individual does not want or need services from the hospital then the individual must seek ambulatory care providers such as physicians, ambulances, clinics, and community health centers to name a few types. Therefore, some characteristics of ambulatory care are the physician specialty such as internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine, or gynecology, and many others. In addition, characteristics of ambulatory care consists of the hours of operation, types of insurance accepted, whether or not new patients are accepted, electronic medical records, and how easily patients are able to be referred to a specialist, if necessary (Shi, Lebrun, Tsai, & Zhu, 2010). Furthermore, the location of ambulatory care services should also be an important characteristic for individuals to consider. As a result, individuals should determine if the type of ambulatory care services needed are accessible and/or within a decent location from their residence. Finally, other characteristics are the type of healthcare services available to the community. Therefore, healthcare services may consist of disease management and prevention programs, primary care services, health education provided to patients, laboratory testing, and the length of time for a scheduled appointment or length of the actual visit (Shi et al., 2010). Overall, the

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