Reference no: EM133249796

The healthcare system in the US is definitely overused. According to the Health Affairs article titled "When Less Is More: Issues Of Overuse In Health Care" by Shannon Brownlee, Vikas Saint and Christine K. Cassel, reveal that the American healthcare spends an enormous amount of money on procedures that are not helpful and services being delivered in the hospitals. This view is also shared by the New York Times article on "The Huge Waste in the U.S.Health System" by Austin Frakt who estimates the "waste" at 760 billion dollars per year. An example of where there is this kind of overuse which leads to such a huge waste is in the overuse or simply, misuse of antibiotics where in primary healthcare, antibiotics are still prescribed for upper respiratory infections caused by viruses, which may lead to future complications of antibiotic resistance. As we all know patients with uncomplicated acute lower back pain are still referred for MRI imaging tests. There is also increasing attention being paid to rates of misdiagnosis and over diagnosis from screening tests such as the PSA test and calcium imaging, which pick up lesions or condition that would not have caused symptoms had they been left undetected, or detect lesions that are not necessarily abnormal but lead to further complications. This leads to a lot of resources being spent in unnecessary treatment and complicates the lives of the individuals, putting them and their families with unnecessary stress and tension. Changes are necessary to remedy these situations, for example, clinicians should advice clients who presents with symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections caused by viruses to use non pharmacological therapies and provide assurance to such clients to ally anxiety without necessarily prescribing to them antibiotics which are useless in the treatment of viral infections. Additionally, physicians should avoid unnecessary tests and should only conduct these tests if there is a compelling reason to perform such test. Hospitals should have a policy which restrict unnecessary antibiotics use to prevent overuse and over prescription of such drugs. A shared decision making process should also be implemented where the physician explain to the clients the treatment options available and the benefits and risks or every procedure so that the client can make an informed decision before any procedure is attempted on them. These actions will greatly reduce the billions of dollars the government spends on unnecessary overuse of the healthcare system.