My manifesto for global health.

HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit VIII

Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

1. Prepare a personal manifesto by declaring beliefs, opinions, motives, and intentions toward
healthcare systems.

Reading Assignment

Chapters 16: Comparative Health Systems

Chapter 17: Conclusions and Future Leadership

Unit Lesson

As we conclude this class, it is important to draw some conclusions and determine how the information
presented has and will change your practice as a healthcare administrator. During the course, you have
examined Lovett-Scott and Prather’s (2014) eight factors assessing true access to health care (historical,
structural, financial, interventional, preventive, resources, major health issues, and disparities) in eight
countries (United States, Japan, India, Canada, United Kingdom, Ghana, France, and Cuba) and the mental
health delivery system in one developing and one developed country.

In Units I and II, we discussed the eight factors and differentiated between “access” and “true access” to care
by exploring the detailed concept of a patient’s ability to receive high quality care when needed. We noted
that just having healthcare insurance is not a guarantee of being seen by the appropriate medical professional
in a timely manner and being able to understand the information well enough to follow through with the
prescribed treatment. The authors introduced the concept of disparities and noted that there are often groups
within each culture—frequently women and minorities—that are less able to receive true access to care, and
then they expounded upon this point throughout the rest of the textbook.

In Unit III, we discussed the historical and structural aspects of access to health care in the United States and
Japan. We discussed the ongoing discussions around Eastern and Western approaches to medicine and
discovered that Japan found a place for both in delivering a holistic approach to wellness. If you review Table
16-7 on page 294 of Lovett-Scott and Prather (2014), you will note that actually only Japan would meet the
author’s criteria for true access to care. They clearly have something to teach the rest of the developed and
developing countries.

Unit IV focused on the financial and interventional aspects of the healthcare delivery system in India and
Canada. We found that each country had positive and negative aspects of their system and that there are no
guarantees to true access to care even when a country offers a national health plan to all citizens. In Unit V,
we discussed prevention and available resources in the United Kingdom and Ghana. We saw that the two
countries had many things in common, including sharing medical personnel. In Unit VI, we discussed the
major health issues and disparities faced by France and Cuba and learned