Running Head: HEALTH CARE SYSTEM 1
3-3 Short Paper
HRM 630
January 22,2022
SNHU
HEALTH CARE SYSTEM 2
The health care setting has undergone a considerable change in the past few decades.
In the present day, the health system has made a shift from the reactive focus to a preventive
focus. Waldman has argued that in the former times therapeutic paradigms mainly relied on
interventions that helped in mitigating symptoms of diseases and medical conditions
(Waldman & Terzic, 2019). Thus the approach mainly focused on reacting to a situation or
health need and adopting suitable strategies and interventions to address the health problem
of individuals. However, in the prevailing health care landscape, the approach that is adopted
by health care practitioners and professionals has undergone a revolutionary change. In
current times, the focus is being laid on preventive and proactive health strategies that can be
adopted for maximizing the returns for the society by giving rise to greater benefits for a
larger number of people (Waldman & Terzic, 2019).
Vilhelmsson (2017) has also identified that the gradual shift from reactive to
preventive health care is evident at diverse levels. For example, physicians have been
working on innovative and new kinds of diagnosis tests that can help them to understand how
effectively a patient can respond to a treatment for a specific health condition (Vilhelmsson,
2017). In the current times, since individuals have diverse health needs, a gradual move is
being made towards the preventive health concept so that the promotion of health span of
people can be facilitated (Sagner et al., 2017).
In spite of the fact that the reactive focus is being replaced by proactive focus in the
health care setting, the progress is very gradual and slow. According to Levine, even though
health care professionals have realized the importance of a preventive approach as compared
to the conventional reactive approach, the application of preventive services is low (Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). Over the years a number of clinical preventive
strategies have come into existence such as intervention before a disease occurs (primary
prevention), detection and treatment of diseases at the initial stage (secondary prevention)
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and managing the medical condition for slowing or ceasing its progression (tertiary
prevention). Even though such preventive measures have come into existence, they are being
underutilized despite the high economic and human burden of diverse medical conditions
(Levine et al., 2019). For instance, in the year 2015, only 8 % of adults in the United States of
America aged over 35 years received all the necessary and recommended high-priority
clinical interventions. ON the other hand 5 % did not receive such preventive services
(Borsky et al., 2018). The figure shows that even though the health system has been making
progress towards preventive approach from reactive approach, the speed at which the shift is
taking place is extremely slow. In fact, even though several years have passed, the strategic
use of preventive measures and interventions in the health domain is restricted which
ultimately has an adverse impact on the health outcome of the people.
Implications for current and future health care administrators
In order to increase the progress from the reactive approach to preventive and
proactive in the health care setting, the current and future health care administrators need to
play a proactive role. They need to make use of their authoritative power and position to
ensure that preventive interventions and measures are adopted while engaging with patients
on a frequent basis. Sorensen has identified in his research study that the onus of adopting a
preventive approach does not lie on physicians and patients alone. Instead health care
administrators are one of the most important actors that can ensure that preventive efforts are
being made for addressing the health needs of the people (Sorensen et al., 2019). The current
administrators can try to promote the progression of preventive health care approach by
eliminating barriers and supporting preventive activities such as sharing guidelines on
primary prevention techniques. For example, for helping people to manage healthy weight
and minimize the risk relating to obesity the health care administrators can provide guidelines
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relating to the promotion of healthy and active lifestyle (Sorensen et al., 2019). They can
serve as agents of change by supporting and accelerating the move towards preventive care.
The health care administrators can also play an instrumental role to encourage the application
of technology and innovation to make constructive progress towards better and more
effective preventive measures. They can provide a sense of direction and guidance to diverse
participants that operate in the health care setting so that the level of awareness of preventive
focus can be expanded and more initiatives can be made to prevent health complexities from
getting worse. The current administrators in the health care domain need to support initiatives
that can help in the advancement of preventive care in the society by focusing on areas such
as education, advocacy as well as resource utilization (About preventive medicine. ACPM,
2021). The current health care administrators can set examples for future administrators so
that they can also play a proactive role to accelerate the shift from reactive focus to
preventive focus in the health domain.
Even though in the past decades there has been a significant shift from the reactive
path to the preventive path, the progression had been slow. In order to bring about a radical
shift in the approach, the health care administrators need to take initiative to support
preventive activities and processes. They can provide direction to diverse stakeholders that
operate in the health care practice such as physicians, nurses, researchers and other
professionals so that they can comprehensively work together to advance towards the
preventive health care approach.
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References
About preventive medicine. ACPM. (2021). Retrieved January 21, 2022, from
https://www.acpm.org/about-acpm/what-is-preventive-medicine/
Borsky, A., Zhan, C., Miller, T., Ngo-Metzger, Q., Bierman, A. S., & Meyers, D. (2018).
Few Americans receive all high-priority, appropriate clinical preventive
services.DHealth Affairs,D37(6), 925-928.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019, March 14). Health Care Industry
Insights: Why the use of Preventive Services is still low. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention. Retrieved January 21, 2022, from
https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2019/18_0625.htm
Levine, S., Malone, E., Lekiachvili, A., & Briss, P. (2019). Health care industry insights: why
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Sagner, M., McNeil, A., Puska, P., Auffray, C., Price, N. D., Hood, L., ... & Arena, R. (2017).
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