Question

when did the liability protections that hospitals enjoyed for many years begin to change most significantly?

Answer 1

For Americans to enjoy optimal health—as individuals and as a population—they must have the benefit of high-quality health care services that are effectively coordinated within a strong public health system. In considering the role of the health care sector in assuring the nation's health, the committee took as its starting point one of the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report . Adequate population health cannot be achieved without making comprehensive and affordable health care available to every person residing in the United States. It is the responsibility of the federal government to lead a national effort to examine the options available to achieve stable health care coverage of individuals and families and to assure the implementation of plans to achieve that result. The health care delivery system and the governmental public health agencies interfacein certain areas and these areas include the regulatory and quality monitoring functions performed by governmental agencies, disease surveillance and reporting by health care providers, and the provision of safety-net services. Although assurance is a core function of public health, governmental public health agencies often do more than assure that people can access health care services; public health departments may become providers of last resort in areas where no other services are available for low-income, uninsured populations and when managed care services to Medicaid and uninsured populations are discontinued. These circumstances force public health departments to provide personal health care services instead of using their resources and population-level approaches to guide and support community efforts to change the conditions for health. Closer collaboration and integration between governmental public health agencies and the health care delivery system may enhance the capacities of both to improve population health and may support the efforts of other public health system actors.