Question

1.What are the most important epidemiologic and demographic issues that face health systems and what are the implications of those issues for health care costs?

2. What are some of the most important steps that can be taken to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of weaker health systems? What is the role of the health care sector in improving the delivery of health care?

Answer 1

Epidemiology is the study of the distribution of disease and its determinant. It helps in the control of health problems^. Epidemiological methods help to describe the health needs in a populations. Epidemiologic issues revolve around the epidemiological triad that is host,agent,environment .

Epidemiologic issues

• health transition of community
• new emerging infectious diseases
• epidemiological studies time consuming
• sometimes health information incomplete and inaccurate
• lack of robust evidence related to new disease
• lack of epidemiological research
• environmental changes -globalization and related issues.
• economic and financial problems
• economic burden of chronic disease
• issues in allocation of funds for chronic disease and infectious diseases
• chronic disease new challenge burden of non communicable disease such as diabetes and hypertension

Demographic issues

Demographic issues in terms of gender,age group,size of population , Race, ethnicity, health indicators such as fertility rate and mortality rate all affect health care.The health care needs, diseases,budget,services vary based on demographic changes.Transition in demographyis more elderly population.So demand of health care services is varied.

Implications in health care cost

• allocation of resources depends on epidemiological and demographic trends
• need of financial resources high as costs of health care increased
• financial feasibility of imparting efficient and effective health services
• difficulty in meeting the health care demands of chronic diseases
• huge health care cost involved.emergence of new diseases have great impact on unsettled existing chronic diseases.
• high cost invested in treatment and rehabilition also training and building manpower
• the priiiiority or focus changes,challenges in health planning

Inefficient and ineffective healthsystem and improvement aspects

inefficiencies	how to address
high intervention cost, overuse of procedures,investigation	clearcut guidelines willl prevent this
underuse and overpricing,irrational use of medicine	improvement in guidelines
poor qualty of care,medication errors	auditing and improving standards
less number of hospital beds	adequate number of beds to be increased
prolonged hospitalization periiod	stringent guidelines and policies
corruption and malpractice	efficient governance and management needed
inefficient use of work force	efficient use of manpower

Role of the health care sector in improving the delivery of health care

• The healthcare sector provides quality  curative, preventive, and rehabilitative  care.
• Services should be rendered bsed on the health needs of the populations
• It should be made accessible to all groups at all times
• training professionals and paraprofessionals to meet health need populations.
• engage in needbased research activities
• new strategies for early detection and prevention of disease rather than investing more on diagnosis ,treatment,and rehabilitation
• new model of allocation of resources based on epidemiological trends
• providing health services based on quality standards
• provide relevant information to public in rural areas also
• availability of competent health professionals