Compared with six other industrialized nations, the United States ranks last when it comes to many measures of quality health care, a new report concludes.
Despite having the costliest health care system in the world, the United States is last or next-to-last in quality, efficiency, access to care, equity and the ability of its citizens to lead long, healthy, productive lives, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based private foundation focused on improving health care.
According to 2007 data included in the report, the U.S. spends the most on health care, at $7,290 per capita per year. That's almost twice the amount spent in Canada and nearly three times the rate of New Zealand, which spends the least. The Netherlands, which has the highest-ranked health care system on the Commonwealth Fund list, spends only $3,837 per capita. Overall, the Netherlands came in first on the list, followed by the United Kingdom and Australia. Canada and the United States ranked sixth and seventh.
Commonwealth Fund also pointed out that in 2008, 14 percent of U.S. patients with chronic conditions had been given the wrong medication or the wrong dose. That's twice the error rate observed in Germany and the Netherlands. As a result we rank last in safety and do poorly on several dimensions of quality. There are too many duplicate tests, too much paperwork, high administrative costs and too many patients using emergency rooms as doctor's offices. In addition, poverty appears to be a big factor in whether Americans have access to care, the report found. The United States also performed worst in terms of the number of people who die early, in levels of infant mortality, and for healthy life expectancy among older adults.
Source: http://consumer.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=640404
Dr. David P. Chen
Chiropractor in Laurel, MD
Laurel Regional Chiropractic
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