Government Healthcare Policy, Business and Technology

The results of a new 11-nation study of healthcare consumers are shedding new light on challenges—and opportunities

Healthcare Informatics: At a time of massive changes in the U.S. healthcare delivery system, and also at a time of potentially major healthcare policy changes coming with the new year, it might be good to step back a bit and look at the U.S. healthcare system from an international perspective—and to consider some aspects of healthcare IT in that context as well.

The good news, according to a just-released Commonwealth Fund study, is that, as the online introduction to the study notes, “A new survey of adults in the U.S. and 10 other high-income countries finds that fewer Americans are reporting that cost is a barrier to getting care. In 2016, 33 percent of U.S. adults said they did not fill a prescription, see a doctor when sick, or get recommended care because of the cost, down from 37 percent in 2013. Adults with incomes of less than $25,000 per year saw a particularly large decline of 8 percentage points. These findings align with other national studies showing that the rate of cost-related access problems has been falling, particularly for lower-income Americans, since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).” (The full study can be accessed here.)

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