Health Care

By Jeanne Kirkton

The biggest problems in health care are a lack of access and a fragmented health care delivery system. 47 million Americans are without health insurance and that number rises every day. In Missouri, over 700,000 are uninsured of which 121,000 are children. Why? It's because our health care delivery system is perfectly designed to get those results.

Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dieticians... all health care providers... hospitals, insurance companies and patients all have to contend with an uncoordinated and inefficient health care delivery system that contributes to medical errors, duplication of service, costly administrative expense and an imbalance in health care manpower that has resulted in a shortage of nurses and general care doctors.

The solution is a comprehensive health care system that prioritizes and sets goals and allocates resources where they will be most effectively utilized. It is a system that incorporates a comprehensive, quality improvement system that analyzes data and takes necessary action to improve care and reduce waste.

A standardized, electronic medical record system will reduce medical errors, improve continuity of care between providers, reduce duplication of services and save lives and billions of dollars. An efficient delivery system would provide cost savings that could be applied to actual medical care.

It's up to elected officials to take leadership and enact a functional and unified health care delivery system that focuses on preventative care, immunizations and early treatment of disease and most importantly, alleviating human pain and suffering.

Providing universal health care to all citizens, beginning with children and young adults and reversing Governor Blunt's health care cuts, will provide us with a system designed to give the best results possible.