Running Head: HEALTH CARE SYSTEM f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f 1
3-3 Short Paper
HRM 630
SNHU
HEALTH CARE SYSTEM f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f 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).
Although 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 several 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) and managing the
HEALTH CARE SYSTEM f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f 3
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. f
Implications for current and future health care administrators
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 relating to the promotion of
HEALTH CARE SYSTEM f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f 4
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. 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. f
References
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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
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