Health Care Background

Today Sora Tanjasiri-Park gave us a brief background of functions & the structure of the Health Care System. I was amazed to see how far along the GDP has grown from the 1900s until today (3.9% to 16% GDP). A significant period in the formation of health care was the “Age of Medicine.” This period was during WWII & many of the surgeons were forced to prioritize the severity of the injured soldiers (This was the foundation of the Emergency Rooms of today).
A lot of the research & development of United States Health Care was because of the HMO Act in 1965 to create Medicare (worked 10+years in US & 65+) & Medi-Caid (low income families MUST qualify on an annual basis). The amount of money that each consumer spends on health care/insurance has increased substantially due to the advancement of technology & the growth of income for each household.
Based on statistics and data, United States has the highest per capita health care spending compared to 8 different 1st world countries (i.e. Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Ireland, Norway, Sweden & the United Kingdom). Since the United States obviously has the highest per capita for health insurance, one would expect the United States Health care plan to be compensated with exceptional coverage right? WRONG. According to the PowerPoint, Infant mortality is the highest and Life expectancy is the lowest compared to all eight 1st world countries.
The United State has one of the most complex Health Care Systems. The Delivery of this coverage is divided into 3 categories: Public health, medical & long term practice. The main focus of the public health practice is to educate, inform and motivate individuals. These are usually health agencies, social services, schools & business. For the Medical Practice, it can be divided into 3 categories: Primary, secondary & tertiary. Now the primary medical care is the most important section of the Health Care Delivery because it goes into detail about what is in the medical care. This section provides education, immunization, prevention & control of endemic diseases, treatments & drugs. These settings are usually provider offices & outpatient clinics. Out of all three systems, the Primary medical care is the “basic care” and is the least costly. The second & Tertiary medical cares are both very specialized care. These settings are usually specialized hospitals (i.e. Saint Josephs: Cancer specialized) or an academic health center (i.e. UCI medical Center, UCLA medical Center). These cares can be very costly and expensive for the specialized care for the patients.

After orientation we met Alek Sripipatana. Alek was going to work with us 1st hand training in the field of surveys. Alek is a recent PHD graduate from UCLA (Sorry bro.. its all about them TROJANS!!!)
lol.. We had a chance to tell him about our backgrounds and how we became a part of the pipeline program. To see another Pacific Islander (Hawaiian/Tahitian) doing the work & have the degree to add validation to his work is remarkable. I was looking forward to this whole experience.

By the end of the day.. my brain was fried from researching the different type of health care issues & the history. At the same time I came to the realization that.. damn.. I'M DOING WORK for MY people! It felt good to really see that the movement of progress is alive and heading in the right direction. By educating myself to “Speak” the language of corporate America and Health companies, I can better represent the Pacific Islander Community. Its Amazing.