Due to the fragmented nature of the U.S. healthcare system, I do not
believe the government should be in a central position to issue physician
practice guidelines based on cost and efficiency. Physician practice
guidelines have shown the ability to improve patient health outcomes by
recommending evidence-based treatment options. These evidence-based
treatment options are often at a lower cost than alternative more
experimental treatment options. Another benefit of physician practice
guidelines is that they improve the consistency of the healthcare being
delivered to avoid issues such as health inequity.
With, government issued physician practice guidelines could simply end up
being wrong. There could be oversights and it would be incredibly difficult
for the government to involve all of the proper system matter experts
needed to issue an overarching set of physician practice guidelines. Also,
physician practice guidelines based on cost and efficiency alone may lead to
worse patient outcomes as necessary treatments may not be recommended if
the government deems them to be high-cost or inefficient. The government
issued physician practice guidelines may also limit the research and
development of new treatment options that may cure chronic diseases. The
government also has a variety of agencies such as Centres for Medicare &
Medicaid Services, the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, and the
National Institutes of Health just to name a few. With so many different
government agencies who would be responsible for maintaining and
updating a government issued set of physician practice guidelines?
I feel that the government would be in a great position to offer
recommendations for physician practice guidelines and to intervene if a
particular organization's physician practice guidelines are leading to
malpractice. What would be a better approach in my opinion would be to
allow the many different healthcare organizations and hospitals to create
their own physician practice guidelines acknowledging the government's
regulations. This would allow each healthcare centre and hospital the
opportunity to find the most effective set of guidelines that leads to a
reduction in cost, and an increase in efficiency and quality care for their
specific patient population. Best practices will emerge which can be
implemented in the government's recommendations for physician practice
guidelines
References:
Lee, T. H., & Robert S. Kaplan and Michael E. Porter. (2015, September
14). The strategy that Will Fix Health Care. Harvard Business Review.
Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2013/10/the-strategy-that-will-fix-health-
care
Shi, L. (2018). Essentials of the U.S. Health Care System (5th Edition).
Jones & Bartlett Learning.
https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9781284174144
Steven H. Woolf, M. D. (1990, September 1). Practice guidelines: A new
reality in medicine. Archives of Internal Medicine. Retrieved from
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-
abstract/613805
Woolf, S. H., Grol, R., Hutchinson, A., Eccles, M., & Grimshaw, J. (1999,
February 20). Clinical guidelines: Potential benefits,
limitations, and harms of clinical guidelines. BMJ (Clinical research ed.).
Retrieved from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1114973/
