Health Care That Increases Longevity
Health care can be defined as the act of diagnosing, treatment as well as the diagnosis of an illness, injury or a disease (Peloso, 2002). This also includes other mental and physical impairments in the human species. Health care cannot be practiced by just anyone, as it requires skills that can only be acquired through proper education in the profession. Therefore, our society has practitioners who can deliver this health care in different medical disciplines. These practitioners are in disciplines like; dentistry, allied health, nursing, medicine, pharmacy, optometry, midwifery-obstetrics and in other care providing experts. Therefore, health care primarily refers to work done in providing primary care, secondary care, public health and any form of tertiary care (Wexler, 2013). This case study seeks to adopt the means used in health care research, to investigate on the care provided to different people around the world in order to increase their longevity.
It is essentially important to note that health care access varies in the world, mostly across, individuals, countries or groups. This is also acknowledging that health care access is significantly influenced by economic the socio-economic conditions together with the health policies implemented within a locality. Therefore, this health care research will also compare and contrast care measures implemented in different countries, with a common aim of increasing longevity. Therefore, in defining health care research, one can say that it is the act of investigating the access, the quality of the care given and the cost of health care. The definition of health care has evolved extensively recently, but three aspects of care still stand out: access, quality and the cost of the care offered. The main purpose of any health care research is to find out the best means of financing, managing, organizing and delivering high quality patients care (Pope & Mays, 2000). This is more so focusing on reducing medical errors, so as to improve patients’ safety. Therefore, one can say that health care research mainly focuses on access to health care and its delivery. This is contrary to medical research which mainly focuses on evaluation as well as development of clinical treatments.
In carrying out effective health care research in any topic, there are a few things that an investigator should put in mind. For starters, health care research may produce different possible outcomes to the health care industry and also to the researcher. Since a researcher has to go the grass-root levels to do the research, and make sure that his/her results would not be biased, he/she may encounter some scenarios that may even be of shock. In fact, in most rural areas, it is hard to offer the best health care services. Therefore, researchers may find themselves in situations where patients have wanting health care access (Wexler, 2013). Others have even found themselves in locations where there is not enough personnel to offer the health care services needed by the people. There have been reports of researchers who end up expanding their research period so that they volunteer to help some extremely needy people in various locations in the world. Therefore, such a researcher will feel obliged to assist where they can and also try to get the authorities in that region involved and offer their people more assistance. On the health care industry, health care research helps in finding out whether its main purpose has been achieved, and also on what could be done in achieving the same. That is; finding out whether people have enough access to health care, whether it is properly managed, financed and also on the quality of the services offered. After a successful research on health care, the industry can try figuring out of making sure that patients get access to enough care, and at the right quantities.
Since this research is all about health care that increases longevity, one should also define what the terminology itself means. Longevity can be said to be the typical length of a life (Starr, 2011). Life expectancy also adopts longevity as a synonym, more so when it comes to authenticating the longest known human life here on earth. There are a couple of factors that dictate the time a human being spends here on earth. These factors could be hereditary, lifestyle related or health care related. Scientific studies say that the period a human being spends here on earth is 20 to 30 percent determined by the genes one carries (Gopee, 2010). Te rest is determined by life style choices, and the kind of medical care they receive. These scientists even argue that health care can also be incorporated in the life style choices that one makes.
Before industrialization, there were many deaths that were witnessed at young ages, and even many children never grew past their infancy periods. Scientists argue that this was not because of hereditary factors because if this were the case, we could also be witnessing a lot of infancy deaths. However, since civilization and industrialization, many mothers have lived to see their young ones taken care of through different methods of health care to become responsible people in the society (Sweet & Dougall, 2008). Therefore, one can argue that the pre-industrial children deaths were as a result of environmental factors other than genetic ones. It is these environmental factors such as malnutrition, accidents, disease that caused these deaths. In fact, most of these young deaths were attributed to disease that had no cure or immunization developments in the field of medicine. Therefore, whenever a child would come down with an illness like polio or measles, they would succumb to these illnesses and die.
The same kind of environmental factors, more so untreatable diseases, also took away the lives of the mature men and women in the society. As a result, the life expectancy of any human being was around 70 years. In fact, it was very rare to find a grown human being of above 75 years in the preindustrial period (Greener, 2009). For instance, a research carried in the United Kingdom in the year 1871, a grown male life expectation was rated 44 years of age. However, those individuals who were favored by the above mentioned environmental factors grew to see the age of 75 years at the maximum. However, due to undisputable developments in health care in this country, life expectation of males has been averaged to ab0ut 79 years of age while that of female has been averaged at 82 (Greener, 2009). The same increase in human life expectation has also been witnessed in every other country in the world, including the United States of America where the average life expectancy of males stand at 74 years of age while that of female is at 80 years of age.
There have been many scientific explanations speculating on why women live longer than men. There are those who argue it is because are not mostly involved in dangerous activities on a daily basis and do not drink as much alcohol as their male counterparts. There have also been other theories trying to explain that since female bodies are relatively smaller than their male counterparts, their hearts experience little stress rates. There have also been other theories arguing that women tend to have a stronger immune system in them, since there are hormones found in men that tend to be immunosuppressant; For example, testosterone (Gibson & Singh, 2011). However, within all these controversies, there are a few points that almost all the scientists tend to agree on. One of them is the fact that an individual has to lead a healthy and social family life. On top of that, one has to put aside practices like smoking, and excessive drinking. In return, a person could adopt practices like; engaging frequently in physical activities, eating legumes and nuts frequently, and also having plant-based diets on a regular basis (Garwood et al, 2005). In fact, there was a research that showed that the above practices can account to a difference of up to ten years in longevity.
However, in longevity, the most important factor contributing to increased life expectancy is health care (Pattison, 2010). The care that a patient gets from a medical practitioner determines whether he would recover or not. This care also determines whether such a patient would recover with complications or without any that would put his life in danger. As a result, there are many health care practices that are being adopted in various countries all over the world, to make sure that no patient would succumb to illnesses that are treatable or manageable with time (Okma, 2009). For instance, there are disease like aids and cancer that are still challenging medical practitioner as well as other scientists to come up with cures. However, this does not mean that the diseases are not manageable. As result, we have witnessed a lot of resources being committed to these two diseases as well as many others that have proven to be a menace in the life expectancy of human beings. A disease like Hiv/Aids continues to take away so many human lives on a daily basis. In managing the disease, medical practitioners have come up with antiretroviral drugs to try and manage the disease as well as increase the longevity of individuals who have contracted the disease as the search for the cure continues.
Therefore, different countries all over the world have come together to try and eradicate the disease among many others in the society through numerous health care practices for example, in the United Kingdom, any permanent resident can get access to any form of health care for free at the point of use (Pattison, 2010). The charge would later be deducted from ones general taxation. This is a policy of the National Health Service in the UK, which is the governmental body responsible for ensuring that every permanent UK resident gets quality health care, at the right cost and at the right quantities. There are other private health care organizations that offer complementary as well as alternative treatments for persons willing to pay for private care. However, the National Health Services in the UK seeks to see that every permanent resident in the United Kingdom gets access to the right health services for free and at the right time (Greener, 2009). I believe that this is a very essential service to every United Kingdom citizens knowing that they can just walk up to a public health institution and get good quality health care and at the right prizes for free. Although the cost of this care would later be deducted from one’s taxes, at least no one would not die because of not having money to pay for the services.
This means that it would not be the fault of the government if their citizens succumbed to illness for not having been attended to. In efforts of ensuring that the health care that patients get in the United Kingdom hospitals is undisputable, the UK government has properly equipped their hospitals with up to date machinery needed in detection, analysation and treatment of various illnesses (Greener, 2009). On top of that, the United Kingdom government has seen to the foundation of many institutions including colleges and universities that doing research in numerous diseases in the world. This is in attempt to discover cures or immunization drugs in to diseases that trouble mankind on a daily basis. As if that was no enough, the United Kingdom government has commissioned a number of health care related programs in these ;learning institution, that are supposed to provide students with the right skills necessary in dealing with numerous diseases that trouble mankind. These skills are achieved in several programs which include; public health, medical laboratory sciences, medicine, nursing, pharmacy and many other health related programs. These programs give students who pursue them numerous skills to deal with health care issues that may arise in the society.
In fact, due to this system where every permanent resident can get free health care service, the life expectancy in the United Kingdom has continued to rise despite obesity concerns and other health problems (Pattison, 2010). In fact, Britons average life expectance has risen to around 80 years. There have been many factors that have been accredited for this increase in life expectancy, but control of cardiovascular disease, and reduction in smoking, frequent regular activities stood out. In fact, researchers now argue that the life expectancy in the US has been overtaken by that of the United Kingdom (Pattison, 2010). The rise in life expectancy has also been witnessed in other parts of Europe especially after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, in the year 1989. As a result, scientists argue that the rise in human life longevity can also be accredited to improved political, social and economic factors. As a matter of fact, scientists say that the stress that comes from instability in the above factors can lead to low life expectations as they may even lead to cardiovascular disease (Greener, 2009). To drive their point home, they highlight the life expectancy which is on the rise in countries like Russia especially after the fall of communism and adoption of democracy. Therefore, scientists argue that reduced chaos and stress can lead to better lifestyles, hence higher life expectancies.
Netherlands is also another country whose life expectancy has been on the rise for the last couple of decades. This also accredited to practices the Dutch government has put in place to ensure that all of the Dutch population receive first hand care. That is through education enough personnel in the higher institutions of learning and equipping them with skills needed in health care. On top of that, the Dutch government embarked on practices that saw the elderly in the society taken good care of through a couple of encouraging programs (Okma, 2009). For instance, the elderly started seeing medical specialists without fearing that if admitted they would die in the hospitals. The government also started giving influenza vaccinations, which is was one of the killer disease of the elderly in this country (Okma, 2009). On top of that, the elderly also started accepting to be admitted in hospitals as well as using prescribed medicine.
These results were brought about by improvement of different health sectors in the country from around 2000 and by the year 2005, the life expectancy in this country had shot up as from 73.5 to 80 years. The Netherlands government improved its health sector through investing on its health care system. This saw increment on government expenditure per person which witnessed growth in nominal prices by more than 40 percent (Mens & Wagenaar, 2010). This was between the years of 1999 and the year 2003. As a result, there were many changes that were witnessed in the health care sector. For instance, there were many elderly people who started receiving stroke treatment at a little cost. This disease was managed through newly introduced stroke units in all health care facilities within this country. As a result, elderly people got a reason to live as they would get proper medicine that would relieve them of the struggles that come with old age. This meant that suicide incidents among the elderly, euthanasia and other practices like withdrawal or withholding from drug became less common (Mens & Wagenaar, 2010). This is the reason why life expectancy shot up in this country within a very short time.
From the above two cases one can see that there is undisputable evidence that advancements in the field of medicine has led to the increase in life expectancy of many people in the world (Sweet & Dougall, 2008). However, there is fear from scientists who feel that the means the health sector is adopting in order to increase longevity may bankrupt Medicare in the long run. This is more so connected to a myth that has been witnessed in the world, where persons argue that development in Medicare and other areas of technology are doomed by their very own successes. Their arguments are based on the perceptions that Medicare costs may explode with time to uncontrollable levels. This is because, human beings immune system becomes weak with age, and by the time a person hits the age of 65, he becomes over dependent on drugs for existence (Starr, 2011). As a result, these scientists argue that with the increased efforts to increase longevity, soon there will be so many elderly people above the age of 65, and they will all be looking up to Medicare for survival. However, there are other scientists who disagree with this perception. They say that just because today’s elderly persons are living longer because of the Medicare they are receiving, it does not mean that there has to be higher costs in Medicare since better drugs, maybe which might even be of a lower cost, or not even need to be taken on a daily basis.
Turning our attention to the United States of America, the administration of this country has also embarked improving the health care system. The most remarkable is the recently adopted Obama Care program through the Patient Protection and Health Care Act (Gibson & Singh, 2011). The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Act is-a federal statute in the United States-was signed in by President Obama on March 23rd 2010. It has since been known simply as the Affordable Care act or “Obamacare.” The act, coupled with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act make up what would perhaps be the biggest change in the United States healthcare system since 1965 when Medicaid and Medicare were signed in. the act was signed in with the aim of expanding insurance coverage, reducing the cost of healthcare and increasing the affordability and the quality of healthcare to the American people (Gibson & Singh, 2011). The bill plans to achieve this through a number of mechanisms that it plans to introduce. Such include; subsidies mandates and insurance exchanges. On 28th June 2012, the Court made a ruling that states could not be forced to participate in the acts’ Medicaid expansion. This meant that states could opt not to expand their Medicaid coverage and therefore fewer people were eligible for Obamacare.
The overall aim of the Affordable Care Act is to afford better quality health care to the people of America and at a lower cost. In states that opted to expand their Medicaid, the low earning families will spend less on healthcare. Since expanding the Medicaid in a state means more people become legible for coverage, the number of uninsured in the U.S that get cushioned as pertains to the cost of medical care is larger.The quality of healthcare is also projected to increase. This is to be achieved by offering of incentives and by competition. As the government will be offering subsidies, this will attract investment in healthcare. Because of this, competition will increase and so will the quality of healthcare availed to the uninsured. The fact that there will be more healthcare facilities and that more people will be afforded quality healthcare should imply that healthcare will be move available following implementation of the act (Starr, 2011). Therefore, judging from this information we can say that the Obama Care does not only look at providing the best quality of healthcare to all American citizens, it also aims at increasing the life expectancy of all American citizens. This is because, with improved health care comes good health and with good health comes more years in the life of an individual.
Other than Obama Care, there have also been numerous training projects in the country that seek to train people on health care matters. For starters, we need to understand that there are many advantages that come with training and development in healthcare. This is more so in any organization or industry, where the healthcare aspects directly and indirectly influences the consecutive success of the organization in question (Wall, 2000). Since this aspect is critical in the everyday running of an organization, there is need to train all the employees involved, since the health care industry is changeable. Therefore, training and educating employees is necessary, in order to make sure that their input would be of quality, something which would reflect well on the success of any organization (Leathard, 2000). As a result, there is need to educate and train the employees so that they can end up making sound decision that would not come back to haunt them, or their organization when they are supposed to be working. For example, the World Health Organization is sensitizing the world the need of having clean hands. The organization is spearheading campaigns all over the world, and especially in third world countries where poor health is one of the major hindrances to their development. If these countries embraced the need of fighting germs, then there would be fewer diseases, saving them some funds which can be put in other use. This is the same context that each organization needs to adopt. They need to understand that good health in an organization, which is achievable through training and educating if employees are vital for the right output (Wall, 2000). From this information, we can argue that healthcare development and training is vital in any organization as it provides employees with sound skills that improve their professional practices.
On top of these training, there are other practices that the American medical practitioners are asking the American people to observe. These are some of the aspects that influence life expectancy, as they have positive health effects to an individual. They include; diet, exercise, religion, healthy relationships, social activities, cultural factors, regular medical checkups and independence. Each one of these factors dictates the kind of life an American citizen would live. For instance, looking at exercise, this aspect has many contributions including keeping ones mind as well as heart muscles in shape (Gopee, 2010). An individual exercising regular reduces risk of injuries as he becomes flexible, and also increases tendons, ligaments and muscular endurance.
When it comes to healthy diet, this factor also increases one’s life expectance as it decreases cancer, diabetes, obesity and hypertension contraction chances (Gopee, 2010). Most these diseases have been primary factors causing sudden and premature deaths in the society. However, scientific research shows that healthy diets help in controlling these diseases together with exercises. On top of that, there is also the fact that visiting a physician for regular checkups helps maintain ones health in shape. This is because; a physician is in a position to recommend some activities an individual could install on a regular basis. Random checkups also help in early detection of diseases or pathogens that might affect ones health.
There is also the fact that healthy relationships contribute to increased life expectancy. This is more so because when people are together and one of them falls ill, the other one feels obliged to step up and care about the health of his/her partner. This factor more so has been cited as one important way of curbing skin diseases and other rashes (Garwood et al, 2005). When an individual notices a skin condition on his/her partners, they pressurize them to seek medical attention on the same. Staying involved in what is happening in one’s community also helps in increasing ones longevity. This is because ones feels surrounded with love, and they also keep active in the community. This would also guarantee assistance even from the neighbors’ during tragic times that may decrease ones longevity. This point brings in the next factor which if faith and religion. During trying times, religion gives a person hope of getting through the hurdles, keeping the away from evil thought like suicide or revenge, and this increases longevity (Gibson & Singh, 2011). There are other practices that the United States government is trying to teach to its citizens in efforts to increase their longevity. For instance, both statutory and federal governments have embark on creating numerous rehabilitation facilities in the country, to help individual who would like to kick bad habits like; alcoholism, tobacco use, and other forms of drug abuse.
In conclusion, the above information showcases how the United Kingdom, Netherlands and the United States are trying to improve life expectancy of their citizens. They may all be using different means, but their primary goal remains the same; provision of health care that increases longevity.
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