Introduction
The current healthcare system in the US requires a joint effort to become available and quality-assured. The large territory, along with the impressive gap in the incomes of the US residents, makes it complicated to establish proper and equate healthcare patterns. For this reason, various committees were found in order to be able to respond to changes almost immediately. Dialysis treatment, with its costs and wide-spreading influence, has become one of the major issues of today’s US healthcare system. Governors and state healthcare representatives are quite concerned about this issue, so they try to take steps towards the problem solution through the shared governance in the context of healthcare committee meetings. Researchers in the medical field claim that the formula of shared governance implies the collaboration of healthcare system management along with the professional medical representatives (Clavelle, Weston, O’Grady, & Verran, 2016). In fact, such a model of collaboration seems to be the most effective in today’s US government structure.
Dyalisis Treatment
Speaking of the issue of dialysis treatment, North Carolina residents are now suffering to a great extent from what is happening in the field of disease treatment. Reportedly, the state residents are now obliged to pay for the dialysis up to 18,000 dollars, which is the highest cost in the US after New York. The income rate of North Carolina residents, however, does not correspond to the healthcare system demands of the state. For that reason, in 2019, the North Carolina General Assembly organized the committee meeting concerning the issue. The attendants of the meeting included the chair of the Healthcare Senate Standing Committee, Sen. Krawiec, members of the committee, and various medical representatives. The primary purpose of the meeting was to discuss the roots of such unjustifiably high treatment costs as well as to establish possible ways of the cost reduction.
According to Krawiec, the major problem within the dialysis treatment is the fact that the state has one of the most restrictive implications of the CON, or Certificate of Needs, law. This law implies that every clinic that is to be opened on the state territory has to prove that the state residents require the establishment. Thus, the overall healthcare system does not feel the pressure of competition and hence, does not have the need to reduce or recalculate costs for its procedures.
After the arguments voiced by the chair, medical representatives were able to speak about the dissonance doctors experience when they have to advocate the needs of patients, and properly use resources provided by the state. Some researchers believe these situations to be one of the most serious drawbacks of shared governance (Butler, Mehrotra, Tonelli, & Lam, 2016). After the hearing, members of the meeting came to the conclusion that various pharmacy companies have to start negotiations to establish the lowest costs possible for the medications necessary for the dialysis. They have also encouraged medical representatives to avoid high drug costs even if they do not have to reduce prices due to competition.
Conclusion
To sum everything up, the healthcare committee meeting held in North Carolina is a vivid example of a shared governance model. Such a model is effective due to the direct communication of legislative and executive representatives of the US healthcare system. However, it will only be beneficial if the decisions and recommendations discussed during such meetings are implemented not only in the meeting transcripts but in real life as well.
References
Butler, C. R., Mehrotra, R., Tonelli, M.R., Lam, D. Y. (2016). The evolving ethics of dialysis in the United States: A principlist bioethics approach. CJASN, 11(4), 704-709.
Clavelle, J. T., Weston, M. J., O’Grady, T. P., Verran, J. A. (2016). Evolution of structural empowerment: Moving from shared to professional governance. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 46(6), 308-312.