The cost of healthcare is on the rise in the United States. Some things are contributing towards the increased cost of healthcare (Johnson, 2012). In my clinical area, there has been a marked increase in the cost of healthcare. Some things have contributed towards the wasting of the health care dollars. Some of these things include; improper usage of the advanced technology. Some of our staffs are wasting a lot of dollars due to their inability to handle technology being introduced in the clinical area. Our clinical area is also wasting a lot of dollars as a result of the patient not being involved in the decision-making process regarding their health. In our clinical area, there are huge amounts of costs being used for the administrative purpose. It has led to wastage of high amounts of dollars that could have been used for the improvement of patient's wellbeing. The clinical area of late has been faced with an increase in the number of elderly patients as opposed to young patients. In most cases, the hospital ends up taking care of the management of these patients hence increasing the total amount of expenditure being utilized on the patients (Hagberg & Lindholm, 2006).

Continued wastage of the health care dollars should be avoided and stopped at all cost. Utilizing the dollars in the right manner will enhance optimum healthcare service delivery. To improve the utilization of health care dollar, there is a need to correlate the expenditure being utilized on healthcare with the quality of services being provided with an aim of improving health outcomes. To effectively achieve cost reduction of healthcare expenditure, there is a need to have an understanding of the benefits associated with low health care cost. There is also a need to identify the major drivers of the health care cost as well as identify some of the most potential and workable means of saving on the healthcare (Shen & Ellis, 2002).

References

Hagberg, L. a, &Lindholm, L. (2006). Cost-effectiveness of healthcare-based interventions aimed at improving physical activity. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 34(6), 641–653.

Johnson, T. (2012).Healthcare Costs and U.S. Competitiveness.Council on Foreign Relations.

Shen, Y., & Ellis, R. P. (2002).Cost-minimizing risk adjustment. Journal of Health Economics, 21, 515–530.