Once again, we find ourselves approaching Thanksgiving, the time of year when we reflect on all our blessings. We do, indeed have much for which to be thankful. Here are just a few ideas. Please feel free to post other “thankfuls” in the comments below!
Dedicated, highly skilled healthcare workers.
Last year, we started our list with gratitude to the doctors, nurses, technicians, pharmacists, engineers, housekeepers, administrators, and all the other workers in healthcare who spend their lives taking care of others. Their caring and hard work make a difference to us all.
Increased use of electronic health records continues to improve providers’ ability to deliver timely and accurate treatment.
Although the rapid shift from paper to electronic record keeping has been stressful for some providers, a national study published in the February 2014 issue of Health Services Research found that a whopping 78% of providers reported that using electronic records enhances the care they provide, especially in the areas of alerting them to critical lab results and warning of possible adverse medication interactions.
In addition, the same study found that the longer a provider had used electronic records, the more like she was to find it beneficial, suggesting that as more providers become accustomed to the new systems, the number reporting positive effects will increase. From the patient’s perspective, this means increased safety and reliability in their healthcare experience.
The U.S. has the greatest number per capita of advanced medical technology.
Patient empowerment is improving.
As transparency measures continue to advance in hospitals and, increasingly, in other healthcare settings, patients have more access to information that allows them to make educated decisions when choosing healthcare providers and hospitals. Furthermore, when things do go wrong, patients have a greater ability to find out exactly what happened and to help their providers find ways to prevent future occurrences of similar events.
America leads the way in healthcare innovation.
Americans have early access to cutting edge treatments and newly developed information. According to statistics reported by the Cato Institute, the U.S. consistently out-performs the E.U., Australia, and Japan in developing healthcare innovations as measured by Nobel Awards in Medicine per capita and as measured by country of origin of major medical technologies.