Assignment Prompt & Instructions
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– ## Mix12.docx
– ## Q2.Sguide.pdf
**## Mix12.docx**
Q1. Part II: Unit I introduces you to the roles of managerial finance and major areas of opportunities in managerial finance. Discuss the following questions:
· Why is managerial finance important in health care?
· If you were to work in managerial finance, in what role would you be most comfortable, and why? Which would make you the least comfortable, and why?
Q.2. Part II: What are your own personal experiences in health care in the United States? Specifically, discuss the context from the patient's experience. Based on your readings in Unit I, what are the medical, social, and economic characteristics of the patient, and how do they influence the health care system?
**## Q2.Sguide.pdf**
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 1
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit I
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
1. Examine factors that influence health care in specified countries.
1.1 Identify global health diseases.
2. Summarize basic factors influencing the use of health services and systems.
2.1 Discuss health system characterizations.
Required Unit Resources
Chapter 1: Introduction to Health Systems
Chapter 2: Global Health and Disease
Unit Lesson
Introduction
Welcome! Over the next eight units, we will examine the structure of the major health care systems in the
United States in a comparative analysis with other countries, focusing on financing, reimbursement, delivery
systems, and adoption of new technologies. You will study the relative roles of private sector and public
sector insurance and providers; the effect of system design on cost, quality, efficiency, access to primary and
specialty care; and equity of medical services.
In the United States, it is difficult for most Americans to comprehend being denied access to medical care.
When we are sick, we want to see a physician, promptly receive a diagnosis, and get the necessary treatment
that will restore us to our previous level of health. The concept of waiting for several days to see a physician
or not receiving the care we believe we need seems barbaric at best. Yet, people all over the world face this
reality every day, and the possibility of that happening in the United States is more real today than any time
since the reorganization of medicine in the 1930s following the Great Depression.
Lovett-Scott and Prather (2014) define true access as more than health care services being made available.
They include three additional qualifications: 1) being able to get to and from services (transportation), 2)
having the ability to pay for the services, and 3) getting your needs met by the service. This definition builds
on your previous learning and is appropriate for most any health care setting. Most health care administrators
spend a large portion of their day determining access to care and problem-solving issues and obstacles to
receiving adequate health care. One place where this is pivotal is in the appointment line. This is where
patients call to schedule an appointment. Although we would like to provide everyone an appointment within
24 hours of their request, it is virtually impossible in most settings.
This first unit focuses on an introduction to health systems and global health to help you build a strong
foundation for future units that will compare health care systems on a global scale. You will also learn about
variations in health systems, social determinants, Healthy People 2020, challenges that health care systems
face, the burden of disease, and noncommunicable and infectious diseases. Let’s first start with identifying
some key terms that you will be learning in a health context.
Key Terms in a Health Context
UNIT I STUDY GUIDE
Introduction to Health Systems and
Global Health
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 2
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Health The condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit
System Interdependent group of items forming a unified whole
Inputs Information fed into a data processing system or computer
Disease
• A condition of the living animal or plant body with impairment of normal functioning
• Manifested by distinguishing symptoms
Communicable
disease
• Examples include cholera, hepatitis, influenza, malaria, or measles
• Transmissible by contact with infected people or their bodily fluids, such as
respiratory droplets, semen, or blood
• Transmissible by contact with contaminated surfaces or objects
• Transmissible by ingestion of contaminated food or water
• Transmissible by direct or indirect contact with disease vectors such as mosquitoes,
fleas, or mice
Infectious
disease
• Examples include influenza, malaria, meningitis, rabies, or tetanus.
• Caused by the entrance into the body of pathogenic agents or microorganisms such
as bacteria, viruses, protozoans, or fungi
• The agents or microorganisms grow and multiply there
Public Health
• The art and science of dealing with the protection and improvement of community
health by organized community effort
• Included preventive medicine and sanitary and social science
(Adapted from Merriam-Webster, n.d.)
Health Systems
According to Johnson et al. (2018), a health system is all the health care institutions and resources, who aim
to improve health. The characteristics of a health care system include:
• A structure that is defined by its parts and processes.
• Generalizations of reality.
• A tendency to function in the same way, involving the inputs (materials, human resources, finances,
etc.) and outputs (products and services) that are then processed, causing them to change in some
way.
• A system’s various parts, which have functional as well as structural relationships. (Johnson et al.,
2018, p. 3)
Patients are the inputs to any health system. A patient arrives at a health care organization and presents with
symptoms and injuries. Further, health systems arise from a social, political, economic, and cultural content.
There are considerable differences in scope, size, form, structure, outcomes, and processes.
Health care systems work on disease prevention and primary, secondary, and tertiary treatment (Johnson et
al., 2018). In order to understand health systems globally, one needs to understand the environment
described by Johnson et al. (2018) in the seven terms below:
• Social and culture beliefs and behaviors
• Physical environment
• Political climate
• Design for financing health care and the distribution of health resources
• Economic development
• Social structures
• Types of diseases (p. 21)
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 3
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Health systems have some common elements that allow them to function. They are made of several building
blocks that help us understand these systems and outline opportunities for improvement. These critical
success factors are identified in the image below:
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 4
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
One way that these factors are measured is through the lens of cost, quality, access, and innovation.
Burden of Disease
There are many ways to measure disease. Disease can be measured by prevalence, incidence, disease-
specific mortality, case fatality rate, or mortality rate (Johnson et al., 2018). When discussing the burden of
disease there are a few ways in which it is reported as well, and they are:
• Disability-adjusted life years
• Quality-adjusted life years
• Health expectancy
• Healthy life years
• Application of cost-benefit analyses
Noncommunicable Disease
Noncommunicable disease accounts for about 70% (about 41 million) lives annually (UNICEF, n.d.). The risk
factors for noncommunicable disease are frequently preventable through the correct health interventions
throughout life (UNICEF, n.d.). According to UNICEF (n.d.), the main risk factors include:
• tobacco use,
• unhealthy diet,
• harmful use of alcohol,
• air pollution, and
• physical inactivity.
The main types of noncommunicable disease include (UNICEF, n.d.):
• cardiovascular disease,
• diabetes,
• preventable cancers,
• chronic respiratory diseases,
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 5
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
• mental health conditions, and
• injuries.
According to Johnson et al. (2018), these are the 10 leading causes of death:
Infectious Disease
Infectious diseases enter the body by microorganisms like viruses, bacteria, fungi, or protozoa. They can be
vector-borne or waterborne diseases, respiratory diseases, sexually transmitted diseases, or zoonotic
infections. Below is a chart explaining these diseases and infections.
Vector-borne diseases
• They have existed for thousands of years
• Hosts of vector-borne diseases include fleas, ticks, or mosquitos.
• They are spread by bite from vector
• They are classified by the type of pathogen
• Vector-borne infectious diseases include malaria, dengue fever, and zika virus.
Waterborne diseases
• The United States has one of the safest supplies of drinking water globally.
• Around 7.2 million Americans get sick annually from waterborne diseases
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC],n.d.).
• Examples of waterborne diseases include diarrheal disease and cholera.
Respiratory infections
• Respiratory infections include tuberculosis, influenza, and COVID-19.
• There are two categories of respiratory infections: upper and lower.
• Examples of lower respiratory infections include bronchitis, bronchiolitis, and
pneumonia.
• Most lower respiratory infections are caused by bacteria or a virus.
• Examples of upper respiratory infections include the common cold, sinusitis,
pharyngitis, epiglottitis and laryngotracheitis.
• Most upper respiratory infections are caused by a virus (Dasaraju & Liu, 1996).
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 6
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Sexually transmitted
diseases
• They are usually contracted by sexual contact
• They can be spread from person to person through semen, blood, or other bodily
fluids (Mayo Clinic, n.d.)
• Organisms that cause sexually transmitted diseases include bacteria, viruses, or
parasites.
• Examples of sexually transmitted diseases include HIV/AIDS and syphilis.
Zoonotic infections
• They are transmitted under natural conditions from vertebrate animals to humans.
• They are common in the United States and globally (CDC, n.d.).
• They may be caused by harmful organisms like bacterial, viruses, parasites, and
fungi.
• The harmful organisms may cause different types of illness in animals and people.
• Sometimes, animals appear healthy while still carrying the infections that can
make people sick.
• Examples of zoonotic infections include salmonella, hantavirus disease,
hemorrhagic disease like avian influenza, or Ebola virus.
Challenges of Infectious Disease
There are several challenges that affect the future of infectious disease. They include:
• Climate change: These impacts countries globally. For example, a flood can increase water levels
and the breeding area for disease vectors.
• Violence and war: This uses valuable resources.
• Population migration: Populations coming together introduce new disease. For example, migrants
living in close quarters.
• Rapid global communication and transportation and globalization: Because of rapid transportation,
infectious disease has spread worldwide. For examples, Ebola, Zika, and West Nile virus all spread to
the United States from other countries.
• Declining infrastructure and poverty: Poorer people who live in poverty globally experience lower
health status than wealthier counterparts. When removed from poverty, a person’s health status
improves.
• Antibiotic resistance and viral and bacterial mutations: Drug-resistant agents are rising. For example,
there are antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Viruses are mutating into new strains. For example, coronavirus
(Delta, Lambda, Omicron, etc.)
• Lack of infrastructure: Globally, many countries lack the infrastructure necessary to decrease
infectious diseases.
Conclusion
Again, welcome to Comparative Health Systems! This unit provided a foundation for the course with an
introduction to health systems and noncommunicable and infectious diseases. To learn more about these
topics, please consult your textbook.
Now that you have completed the readings and study guide, it is time to venture to this week’s assignments.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Zoonotic disease. U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/zoonotic-diseases.html
Dasaraju, P. V., & Liu, C. (1996). Infections of the respiratory system. In S. Baron (Ed.), Medical microbiology
(4th ed.). University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK8142/
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 7
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Johnson, J. A., Stoskopf, C. H., & Shi, L. (Eds.). (2018). Comparative health systems: A global perspective
(2nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781284145038
Lovett-Scott, M., & Prather, F. (2014). Global health systems: Comparing strategies for delivering health
services. Jones & Bartlett Learning. https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781284088854
Mayo Clinic. (n.d.). Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
conditions/sexually-transmitted-diseases-stds/symptoms-causes/syc-20351240
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Retrieved September 13, 2021, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
UNICEF. (n.d.). Non-communicable diseases. https://www.unicef.org/health/non-communicable-diseases
– Course Learning Outcomes for Unit I
– Required Unit Resources
– Unit Lesson
– Introduction
– Key Terms in a Health Context
– Health Systems
– Burden of Disease
– Noncommunicable Disease
– Infectious Disease
– Challenges of Infectious Disease
– Conclusion
– References
**## Q2.Sguide.pdf**
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 1
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit I
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
1. Examine factors that influence health care in specified countries.
1.1 Identify global health diseases.
2. Summarize basic factors influencing the use of health services and systems.
2.1 Discuss health system characterizations.
Required Unit Resources
Chapter 1: Introduction to Health Systems
Chapter 2: Global Health and Disease
Unit Lesson
Introduction
Welcome! Over the next eight units, we will examine the structure of the major health care systems in the
United States in a comparative analysis with other countries, focusing on financing, reimbursement, delivery
systems, and adoption of new technologies. You will study the relative roles of private sector and public
sector insurance and providers; the effect of system design on cost, quality, efficiency, access to primary and
specialty care; and equity of medical services.
In the United States, it is difficult for most Americans to comprehend being denied access to medical care.
When we are sick, we want to see a physician, promptly receive a diagnosis, and get the necessary treatment
that will restore us to our previous level of health. The concept of waiting for several days to see a physician
or not receiving the care we believe we need seems barbaric at best. Yet, people all over the world face this
reality every day, and the possibility of that happening in the United States is more real today than any time
since the reorganization of medicine in the 1930s following the Great Depression.
Lovett-Scott and Prather (2014) define true access as more than health care services being made available.
They include three additional qualifications: 1) being able to get to and from services (transportation), 2)
having the ability to pay for the services, and 3) getting your needs met by the service. This definition builds
on your previous learning and is appropriate for most any health care setting. Most health care administrators
spend a large portion of their day determining access to care and problem-solving issues and obstacles to
receiving adequate health care. One place where this is pivotal is in the appointment line. This is where
patients call to schedule an appointment. Although we would like to provide everyone an appointment within
24 hours of their request, it is virtually impossible in most settings.
This first unit focuses on an introduction to health systems and global health to help you build a strong
foundation for future units that will compare health care systems on a global scale. You will also learn about
variations in health systems, social determinants, Healthy People 2020, challenges that health care systems
face, the burden of disease, and noncommunicable and infectious diseases. Let’s first start with identifying
some key terms that you will be learning in a health context.
Key Terms in a Health Context
UNIT I STUDY GUIDE
Introduction to Health Systems and
Global Health
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 2
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Health The condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit
System Interdependent group of items forming a unified whole
Inputs Information fed into a data processing system or computer
Disease
• A condition of the living animal or plant body with impairment of normal functioning
• Manifested by distinguishing symptoms
Communicable
disease
• Examples include cholera, hepatitis, influenza, malaria, or measles
• Transmissible by contact with infected people or their bodily fluids, such as
respiratory droplets, semen, or blood
• Transmissible by contact with contaminated surfaces or objects
• Transmissible by ingestion of contaminated food or water
• Transmissible by direct or indirect contact with disease vectors such as mosquitoes,
fleas, or mice
Infectious
disease
• Examples include influenza, malaria, meningitis, rabies, or tetanus.
• Caused by the entrance into the body of pathogenic agents or microorganisms such
as bacteria, viruses, protozoans, or fungi
• The agents or microorganisms grow and multiply there
Public Health
• The art and science of dealing with the protection and improvement of community
health by organized community effort
• Included preventive medicine and sanitary and social science
(Adapted from Merriam-Webster, n.d.)
Health Systems
According to Johnson et al. (2018), a health system is all the health care institutions and resources, who aim
to improve health. The characteristics of a health care system include:
• A structure that is defined by its parts and processes.
• Generalizations of reality.
• A tendency to function in the same way, involving the inputs (materials, human resources, finances,
etc.) and outputs (products and services) that are then processed, causing them to change in some
way.
• A system’s various parts, which have functional as well as structural relationships. (Johnson et al.,
2018, p. 3)
Patients are the inputs to any health system. A patient arrives at a health care organization and presents with
symptoms and injuries. Further, health systems arise from a social, political, economic, and cultural content.
There are considerable differences in scope, size, form, structure, outcomes, and processes.
Health care systems work on disease prevention and primary, secondary, and tertiary treatment (Johnson et
al., 2018). In order to understand health systems globally, one needs to understand the environment
described by Johnson et al. (2018) in the seven terms below:
• Social and culture beliefs and behaviors
• Physical environment
• Political climate
• Design for financing health care and the distribution of health resources
• Economic development
• Social structures
• Types of diseases (p. 21)
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 3
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Health systems have some common elements that allow them to function. They are made of several building
blocks that help us understand these systems and outline opportunities for improvement. These critical
success factors are identified in the image below:
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 4
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
One way that these factors are measured is through the lens of cost, quality, access, and innovation.
Burden of Disease
There are many ways to measure disease. Disease can be measured by prevalence, incidence, disease-
specific mortality, case fatality rate, or mortality rate (Johnson et al., 2018). When discussing the burden of
disease there are a few ways in which it is reported as well, and they are:
• Disability-adjusted life years
• Quality-adjusted life years
• Health expectancy
• Healthy life years
• Application of cost-benefit analyses
Noncommunicable Disease
Noncommunicable disease accounts for about 70% (about 41 million) lives annually (UNICEF, n.d.). The risk
factors for noncommunicable disease are frequently preventable through the correct health interventions
throughout life (UNICEF, n.d.). According to UNICEF (n.d.), the main risk factors include:
• tobacco use,
• unhealthy diet,
• harmful use of alcohol,
• air pollution, and
• physical inactivity.
The main types of noncommunicable disease include (UNICEF, n.d.):
• cardiovascular disease,
• diabetes,
• preventable cancers,
• chronic respiratory diseases,
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 5
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
• mental health conditions, and
• injuries.
According to Johnson et al. (2018), these are the 10 leading causes of death:
Infectious Disease
Infectious diseases enter the body by microorganisms like viruses, bacteria, fungi, or protozoa. They can be
vector-borne or waterborne diseases, respiratory diseases, sexually transmitted diseases, or zoonotic
infections. Below is a chart explaining these diseases and infections.
Vector-borne diseases
• They have existed for thousands of years
• Hosts of vector-borne diseases include fleas, ticks, or mosquitos.
• They are spread by bite from vector
• They are classified by the type of pathogen
• Vector-borne infectious diseases include malaria, dengue fever, and zika virus.
Waterborne diseases
• The United States has one of the safest supplies of drinking water globally.
• Around 7.2 million Americans get sick annually from waterborne diseases
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC],n.d.).
• Examples of waterborne diseases include diarrheal disease and cholera.
Respiratory infections
• Respiratory infections include tuberculosis, influenza, and COVID-19.
• There are two categories of respiratory infections: upper and lower.
• Examples of lower respiratory infections include bronchitis, bronchiolitis, and
pneumonia.
• Most lower respiratory infections are caused by bacteria or a virus.
• Examples of upper respiratory infections include the common cold, sinusitis,
pharyngitis, epiglottitis and laryngotracheitis.
• Most upper respiratory infections are caused by a virus (Dasaraju & Liu, 1996).
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 6
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Sexually transmitted
diseases
• They are usually contracted by sexual contact
• They can be spread from person to person through semen, blood, or other bodily
fluids (Mayo Clinic, n.d.)
• Organisms that cause sexually transmitted diseases include bacteria, viruses, or
parasites.
• Examples of sexually transmitted diseases include HIV/AIDS and syphilis.
Zoonotic infections
• They are transmitted under natural conditions from vertebrate animals to humans.
• They are common in the United States and globally (CDC, n.d.).
• They may be caused by harmful organisms like bacterial, viruses, parasites, and
fungi.
• The harmful organisms may cause different types of illness in animals and people.
• Sometimes, animals appear healthy while still carrying the infections that can
make people sick.
• Examples of zoonotic infections include salmonella, hantavirus disease,
hemorrhagic disease like avian influenza, or Ebola virus.
Challenges of Infectious Disease
There are several challenges that affect the future of infectious disease. They include:
• Climate change: These impacts countries globally. For example, a flood can increase water levels
and the breeding area for disease vectors.
• Violence and war: This uses valuable resources.
• Population migration: Populations coming together introduce new disease. For example, migrants
living in close quarters.
• Rapid global communication and transportation and globalization: Because of rapid transportation,
infectious disease has spread worldwide. For examples, Ebola, Zika, and West Nile virus all spread to
the United States from other countries.
• Declining infrastructure and poverty: Poorer people who live in poverty globally experience lower
health status than wealthier counterparts. When removed from poverty, a person’s health status
improves.
• Antibiotic resistance and viral and bacterial mutations: Drug-resistant agents are rising. For example,
there are antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Viruses are mutating into new strains. For example, coronavirus
(Delta, Lambda, Omicron, etc.)
• Lack of infrastructure: Globally, many countries lack the infrastructure necessary to decrease
infectious diseases.
Conclusion
Again, welcome to Comparative Health Systems! This unit provided a foundation for the course with an
introduction to health systems and noncommunicable and infectious diseases. To learn more about these
topics, please consult your textbook.
Now that you have completed the readings and study guide, it is time to venture to this week’s assignments.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Zoonotic disease. U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/zoonotic-diseases.html
Dasaraju, P. V., & Liu, C. (1996). Infections of the respiratory system. In S. Baron (Ed.), Medical microbiology
(4th ed.). University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK8142/
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 7
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Johnson, J. A., Stoskopf, C. H., & Shi, L. (Eds.). (2018). Comparative health systems: A global perspective
(2nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781284145038
Lovett-Scott, M., & Prather, F. (2014). Global health systems: Comparing strategies for delivering health
services. Jones & Bartlett Learning. https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781284088854
Mayo Clinic. (n.d.). Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
conditions/sexually-transmitted-diseases-stds/symptoms-causes/syc-20351240
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Retrieved September 13, 2021, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
UNICEF. (n.d.). Non-communicable diseases. https://www.unicef.org/health/non-communicable-diseases
– Course Learning Outcomes for Unit I
– Required Unit Resources
– Unit Lesson
– Introduction
– Key Terms in a Health Context
– Health Systems
– Burden of Disease
– Noncommunicable Disease
– Infectious Disease
– Challenges of Infectious Disease
– Conclusion
– References
**## Mix12.docx**
Q1. Part II: Unit I introduces you to the roles of managerial finance and major areas of opportunities in managerial finance. Discuss the following questions:
· Why is managerial finance important in health care?
· If you were to work in managerial finance, in what role would you be most comfortable, and why? Which would make you the least comfortable, and why?
Q.2. Part II: What are your own personal experiences in health care in the United States? Specifically, discuss the context from the patient's experience. Based on your readings in Unit I, what are the medical, social, and economic characteristics of the patient, and how do they influence the health care system?
**## Q2.Sguide.pdf**
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 1
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit I
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
1. Examine factors that influence health care in specified countries.
1.1 Identify global health diseases.
2. Summarize basic factors influencing the use of health services and systems.
2.1 Discuss health system characterizations.
Required Unit Resources
Chapter 1: Introduction to Health Systems
Chapter 2: Global Health and Disease
Unit Lesson
Introduction
Welcome! Over the next eight units, we will examine the structure of the major health care systems in the
United States in a comparative analysis with other countries, focusing on financing, reimbursement, delivery
systems, and adoption of new technologies. You will study the relative roles of private sector and public
sector insurance and providers; the effect of system design on cost, quality, efficiency, access to primary and
specialty care; and equity of medical services.
In the United States, it is difficult for most Americans to comprehend being denied access to medical care.
When we are sick, we want to see a physician, promptly receive a diagnosis, and get the necessary treatment
that will restore us to our previous level of health. The concept of waiting for several days to see a physician
or not receiving the care we believe we need seems barbaric at best. Yet, people all over the world face this
reality every day, and the possibility of that happening in the United States is more real today than any time
since the reorganization of medicine in the 1930s following the Great Depression.
Lovett-Scott and Prather (2014) define true access as more than health care services being made available.
They include three additional qualifications: 1) being able to get to and from services (transportation), 2)
having the ability to pay for the services, and 3) getting your needs met by the service. This definition builds
on your previous learning and is appropriate for most any health care setting. Most health care administrators
spend a large portion of their day determining access to care and problem-solving issues and obstacles to
receiving adequate health care. One place where this is pivotal is in the appointment line. This is where
patients call to schedule an appointment. Although we would like to provide everyone an appointment within
24 hours of their request, it is virtually impossible in most settings.
This first unit focuses on an introduction to health systems and global health to help you build a strong
foundation for future units that will compare health care systems on a global scale. You will also learn about
variations in health systems, social determinants, Healthy People 2020, challenges that health care systems
face, the burden of disease, and noncommunicable and infectious diseases. Let’s first start with identifying
some key terms that you will be learning in a health context.
Key Terms in a Health Context
UNIT I STUDY GUIDE
Introduction to Health Systems and
Global Health
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 2
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Health The condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit
System Interdependent group of items forming a unified whole
Inputs Information fed into a data processing system or computer
Disease
• A condition of the living animal or plant body with impairment of normal functioning
• Manifested by distinguishing symptoms
Communicable
disease
• Examples include cholera, hepatitis, influenza, malaria, or measles
• Transmissible by contact with infected people or their bodily fluids, such as
respiratory droplets, semen, or blood
• Transmissible by contact with contaminated surfaces or objects
• Transmissible by ingestion of contaminated food or water
• Transmissible by direct or indirect contact with disease vectors such as mosquitoes,
fleas, or mice
Infectious
disease
• Examples include influenza, malaria, meningitis, rabies, or tetanus.
• Caused by the entrance into the body of pathogenic agents or microorganisms such
as bacteria, viruses, protozoans, or fungi
• The agents or microorganisms grow and multiply there
Public Health
• The art and science of dealing with the protection and improvement of community
health by organized community effort
• Included preventive medicine and sanitary and social science
(Adapted from Merriam-Webster, n.d.)
Health Systems
According to Johnson et al. (2018), a health system is all the health care institutions and resources, who aim
to improve health. The characteristics of a health care system include:
• A structure that is defined by its parts and processes.
• Generalizations of reality.
• A tendency to function in the same way, involving the inputs (materials, human resources, finances,
etc.) and outputs (products and services) that are then processed, causing them to change in some
way.
• A system’s various parts, which have functional as well as structural relationships. (Johnson et al.,
2018, p. 3)
Patients are the inputs to any health system. A patient arrives at a health care organization and presents with
symptoms and injuries. Further, health systems arise from a social, political, economic, and cultural content.
There are considerable differences in scope, size, form, structure, outcomes, and processes.
Health care systems work on disease prevention and primary, secondary, and tertiary treatment (Johnson et
al., 2018). In order to understand health systems globally, one needs to understand the environment
described by Johnson et al. (2018) in the seven terms below:
• Social and culture beliefs and behaviors
• Physical environment
• Political climate
• Design for financing health care and the distribution of health resources
• Economic development
• Social structures
• Types of diseases (p. 21)
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 3
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Health systems have some common elements that allow them to function. They are made of several building
blocks that help us understand these systems and outline opportunities for improvement. These critical
success factors are identified in the image below:
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 4
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
One way that these factors are measured is through the lens of cost, quality, access, and innovation.
Burden of Disease
There are many ways to measure disease. Disease can be measured by prevalence, incidence, disease-
specific mortality, case fatality rate, or mortality rate (Johnson et al., 2018). When discussing the burden of
disease there are a few ways in which it is reported as well, and they are:
• Disability-adjusted life years
• Quality-adjusted life years
• Health expectancy
• Healthy life years
• Application of cost-benefit analyses
Noncommunicable Disease
Noncommunicable disease accounts for about 70% (about 41 million) lives annually (UNICEF, n.d.). The risk
factors for noncommunicable disease are frequently preventable through the correct health interventions
throughout life (UNICEF, n.d.). According to UNICEF (n.d.), the main risk factors include:
• tobacco use,
• unhealthy diet,
• harmful use of alcohol,
• air pollution, and
• physical inactivity.
The main types of noncommunicable disease include (UNICEF, n.d.):
• cardiovascular disease,
• diabetes,
• preventable cancers,
• chronic respiratory diseases,
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 5
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
• mental health conditions, and
• injuries.
According to Johnson et al. (2018), these are the 10 leading causes of death:
Infectious Disease
Infectious diseases enter the body by microorganisms like viruses, bacteria, fungi, or protozoa. They can be
vector-borne or waterborne diseases, respiratory diseases, sexually transmitted diseases, or zoonotic
infections. Below is a chart explaining these diseases and infections.
Vector-borne diseases
• They have existed for thousands of years
• Hosts of vector-borne diseases include fleas, ticks, or mosquitos.
• They are spread by bite from vector
• They are classified by the type of pathogen
• Vector-borne infectious diseases include malaria, dengue fever, and zika virus.
Waterborne diseases
• The United States has one of the safest supplies of drinking water globally.
• Around 7.2 million Americans get sick annually from waterborne diseases
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC],n.d.).
• Examples of waterborne diseases include diarrheal disease and cholera.
Respiratory infections
• Respiratory infections include tuberculosis, influenza, and COVID-19.
• There are two categories of respiratory infections: upper and lower.
• Examples of lower respiratory infections include bronchitis, bronchiolitis, and
pneumonia.
• Most lower respiratory infections are caused by bacteria or a virus.
• Examples of upper respiratory infections include the common cold, sinusitis,
pharyngitis, epiglottitis and laryngotracheitis.
• Most upper respiratory infections are caused by a virus (Dasaraju & Liu, 1996).
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 6
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Sexually transmitted
diseases
• They are usually contracted by sexual contact
• They can be spread from person to person through semen, blood, or other bodily
fluids (Mayo Clinic, n.d.)
• Organisms that cause sexually transmitted diseases include bacteria, viruses, or
parasites.
• Examples of sexually transmitted diseases include HIV/AIDS and syphilis.
Zoonotic infections
• They are transmitted under natural conditions from vertebrate animals to humans.
• They are common in the United States and globally (CDC, n.d.).
• They may be caused by harmful organisms like bacterial, viruses, parasites, and
fungi.
• The harmful organisms may cause different types of illness in animals and people.
• Sometimes, animals appear healthy while still carrying the infections that can
make people sick.
• Examples of zoonotic infections include salmonella, hantavirus disease,
hemorrhagic disease like avian influenza, or Ebola virus.
Challenges of Infectious Disease
There are several challenges that affect the future of infectious disease. They include:
• Climate change: These impacts countries globally. For example, a flood can increase water levels
and the breeding area for disease vectors.
• Violence and war: This uses valuable resources.
• Population migration: Populations coming together introduce new disease. For example, migrants
living in close quarters.
• Rapid global communication and transportation and globalization: Because of rapid transportation,
infectious disease has spread worldwide. For examples, Ebola, Zika, and West Nile virus all spread to
the United States from other countries.
• Declining infrastructure and poverty: Poorer people who live in poverty globally experience lower
health status than wealthier counterparts. When removed from poverty, a person’s health status
improves.
• Antibiotic resistance and viral and bacterial mutations: Drug-resistant agents are rising. For example,
there are antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Viruses are mutating into new strains. For example, coronavirus
(Delta, Lambda, Omicron, etc.)
• Lack of infrastructure: Globally, many countries lack the infrastructure necessary to decrease
infectious diseases.
Conclusion
Again, welcome to Comparative Health Systems! This unit provided a foundation for the course with an
introduction to health systems and noncommunicable and infectious diseases. To learn more about these
topics, please consult your textbook.
Now that you have completed the readings and study guide, it is time to venture to this week’s assignments.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Zoonotic disease. U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/zoonotic-diseases.html
Dasaraju, P. V., & Liu, C. (1996). Infections of the respiratory system. In S. Baron (Ed.), Medical microbiology
(4th ed.). University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK8142/
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 7
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Johnson, J. A., Stoskopf, C. H., & Shi, L. (Eds.). (2018). Comparative health systems: A global perspective
(2nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781284145038
Lovett-Scott, M., & Prather, F. (2014). Global health systems: Comparing strategies for delivering health
services. Jones & Bartlett Learning. https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781284088854
Mayo Clinic. (n.d.). Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
conditions/sexually-transmitted-diseases-stds/symptoms-causes/syc-20351240
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Retrieved September 13, 2021, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
UNICEF. (n.d.). Non-communicable diseases. https://www.unicef.org/health/non-communicable-diseases
– Course Learning Outcomes for Unit I
– Required Unit Resources
– Unit Lesson
– Introduction
– Key Terms in a Health Context
– Health Systems
– Burden of Disease
– Noncommunicable Disease
– Infectious Disease
– Challenges of Infectious Disease
– Conclusion
– References
**## Mix12.docx**
Q1. Part II: Unit I introduces you to the roles of managerial finance and major areas of opportunities in managerial finance. Discuss the following questions:
· Why is managerial finance important in health care?
· If you were to work in managerial finance, in what role would you be most comfortable, and why? Which would make you the least comfortable, and why?
Q.2. Part II: What are your own personal experiences in health care in the United States? Specifically, discuss the context from the patient's experience. Based on your readings in Unit I, what are the medical, social, and economic characteristics of the patient, and how do they influence the health care system?
**## Q2.Sguide.pdf**
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 1
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit I
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
1. Examine factors that influence health care in specified countries.
1.1 Identify global health diseases.
2. Summarize basic factors influencing the use of health services and systems.
2.1 Discuss health system characterizations.
Required Unit Resources
Chapter 1: Introduction to Health Systems
Chapter 2: Global Health and Disease
Unit Lesson
Introduction
Welcome! Over the next eight units, we will examine the structure of the major health care systems in the
United States in a comparative analysis with other countries, focusing on financing, reimbursement, delivery
systems, and adoption of new technologies. You will study the relative roles of private sector and public
sector insurance and providers; the effect of system design on cost, quality, efficiency, access to primary and
specialty care; and equity of medical services.
In the United States, it is difficult for most Americans to comprehend being denied access to medical care.
When we are sick, we want to see a physician, promptly receive a diagnosis, and get the necessary treatment
that will restore us to our previous level of health. The concept of waiting for several days to see a physician
or not receiving the care we believe we need seems barbaric at best. Yet, people all over the world face this
reality every day, and the possibility of that happening in the United States is more real today than any time
since the reorganization of medicine in the 1930s following the Great Depression.
Lovett-Scott and Prather (2014) define true access as more than health care services being made available.
They include three additional qualifications: 1) being able to get to and from services (transportation), 2)
having the ability to pay for the services, and 3) getting your needs met by the service. This definition builds
on your previous learning and is appropriate for most any health care setting. Most health care administrators
spend a large portion of their day determining access to care and problem-solving issues and obstacles to
receiving adequate health care. One place where this is pivotal is in the appointment line. This is where
patients call to schedule an appointment. Although we would like to provide everyone an appointment within
24 hours of their request, it is virtually impossible in most settings.
This first unit focuses on an introduction to health systems and global health to help you build a strong
foundation for future units that will compare health care systems on a global scale. You will also learn about
variations in health systems, social determinants, Healthy People 2020, challenges that health care systems
face, the burden of disease, and noncommunicable and infectious diseases. Let’s first start with identifying
some key terms that you will be learning in a health context.
Key Terms in a Health Context
UNIT I STUDY GUIDE
Introduction to Health Systems and
Global Health
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 2
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Health The condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit
System Interdependent group of items forming a unified whole
Inputs Information fed into a data processing system or computer
Disease
• A condition of the living animal or plant body with impairment of normal functioning
• Manifested by distinguishing symptoms
Communicable
disease
• Examples include cholera, hepatitis, influenza, malaria, or measles
• Transmissible by contact with infected people or their bodily fluids, such as
respiratory droplets, semen, or blood
• Transmissible by contact with contaminated surfaces or objects
• Transmissible by ingestion of contaminated food or water
• Transmissible by direct or indirect contact with disease vectors such as mosquitoes,
fleas, or mice
Infectious
disease
• Examples include influenza, malaria, meningitis, rabies, or tetanus.
• Caused by the entrance into the body of pathogenic agents or microorganisms such
as bacteria, viruses, protozoans, or fungi
• The agents or microorganisms grow and multiply there
Public Health
• The art and science of dealing with the protection and improvement of community
health by organized community effort
• Included preventive medicine and sanitary and social science
(Adapted from Merriam-Webster, n.d.)
Health Systems
According to Johnson et al. (2018), a health system is all the health care institutions and resources, who aim
to improve health. The characteristics of a health care system include:
• A structure that is defined by its parts and processes.
• Generalizations of reality.
• A tendency to function in the same way, involving the inputs (materials, human resources, finances,
etc.) and outputs (products and services) that are then processed, causing them to change in some
way.
• A system’s various parts, which have functional as well as structural relationships. (Johnson et al.,
2018, p. 3)
Patients are the inputs to any health system. A patient arrives at a health care organization and presents with
symptoms and injuries. Further, health systems arise from a social, political, economic, and cultural content.
There are considerable differences in scope, size, form, structure, outcomes, and processes.
Health care systems work on disease prevention and primary, secondary, and tertiary treatment (Johnson et
al., 2018). In order to understand health systems globally, one needs to understand the environment
described by Johnson et al. (2018) in the seven terms below:
• Social and culture beliefs and behaviors
• Physical environment
• Political climate
• Design for financing health care and the distribution of health resources
• Economic development
• Social structures
• Types of diseases (p. 21)
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 3
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Health systems have some common elements that allow them to function. They are made of several building
blocks that help us understand these systems and outline opportunities for improvement. These critical
success factors are identified in the image below:
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 4
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
One way that these factors are measured is through the lens of cost, quality, access, and innovation.
Burden of Disease
There are many ways to measure disease. Disease can be measured by prevalence, incidence, disease-
specific mortality, case fatality rate, or mortality rate (Johnson et al., 2018). When discussing the burden of
disease there are a few ways in which it is reported as well, and they are:
• Disability-adjusted life years
• Quality-adjusted life years
• Health expectancy
• Healthy life years
• Application of cost-benefit analyses
Noncommunicable Disease
Noncommunicable disease accounts for about 70% (about 41 million) lives annually (UNICEF, n.d.). The risk
factors for noncommunicable disease are frequently preventable through the correct health interventions
throughout life (UNICEF, n.d.). According to UNICEF (n.d.), the main risk factors include:
• tobacco use,
• unhealthy diet,
• harmful use of alcohol,
• air pollution, and
• physical inactivity.
The main types of noncommunicable disease include (UNICEF, n.d.):
• cardiovascular disease,
• diabetes,
• preventable cancers,
• chronic respiratory diseases,
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 5
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
• mental health conditions, and
• injuries.
According to Johnson et al. (2018), these are the 10 leading causes of death:
Infectious Disease
Infectious diseases enter the body by microorganisms like viruses, bacteria, fungi, or protozoa. They can be
vector-borne or waterborne diseases, respiratory diseases, sexually transmitted diseases, or zoonotic
infections. Below is a chart explaining these diseases and infections.
Vector-borne diseases
• They have existed for thousands of years
• Hosts of vector-borne diseases include fleas, ticks, or mosquitos.
• They are spread by bite from vector
• They are classified by the type of pathogen
• Vector-borne infectious diseases include malaria, dengue fever, and zika virus.
Waterborne diseases
• The United States has one of the safest supplies of drinking water globally.
• Around 7.2 million Americans get sick annually from waterborne diseases
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC],n.d.).
• Examples of waterborne diseases include diarrheal disease and cholera.
Respiratory infections
• Respiratory infections include tuberculosis, influenza, and COVID-19.
• There are two categories of respiratory infections: upper and lower.
• Examples of lower respiratory infections include bronchitis, bronchiolitis, and
pneumonia.
• Most lower respiratory infections are caused by bacteria or a virus.
• Examples of upper respiratory infections include the common cold, sinusitis,
pharyngitis, epiglottitis and laryngotracheitis.
• Most upper respiratory infections are caused by a virus (Dasaraju & Liu, 1996).
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 6
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Sexually transmitted
diseases
• They are usually contracted by sexual contact
• They can be spread from person to person through semen, blood, or other bodily
fluids (Mayo Clinic, n.d.)
• Organisms that cause sexually transmitted diseases include bacteria, viruses, or
parasites.
• Examples of sexually transmitted diseases include HIV/AIDS and syphilis.
Zoonotic infections
• They are transmitted under natural conditions from vertebrate animals to humans.
• They are common in the United States and globally (CDC, n.d.).
• They may be caused by harmful organisms like bacterial, viruses, parasites, and
fungi.
• The harmful organisms may cause different types of illness in animals and people.
• Sometimes, animals appear healthy while still carrying the infections that can
make people sick.
• Examples of zoonotic infections include salmonella, hantavirus disease,
hemorrhagic disease like avian influenza, or Ebola virus.
Challenges of Infectious Disease
There are several challenges that affect the future of infectious disease. They include:
• Climate change: These impacts countries globally. For example, a flood can increase water levels
and the breeding area for disease vectors.
• Violence and war: This uses valuable resources.
• Population migration: Populations coming together introduce new disease. For example, migrants
living in close quarters.
• Rapid global communication and transportation and globalization: Because of rapid transportation,
infectious disease has spread worldwide. For examples, Ebola, Zika, and West Nile virus all spread to
the United States from other countries.
• Declining infrastructure and poverty: Poorer people who live in poverty globally experience lower
health status than wealthier counterparts. When removed from poverty, a person’s health status
improves.
• Antibiotic resistance and viral and bacterial mutations: Drug-resistant agents are rising. For example,
there are antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Viruses are mutating into new strains. For example, coronavirus
(Delta, Lambda, Omicron, etc.)
• Lack of infrastructure: Globally, many countries lack the infrastructure necessary to decrease
infectious diseases.
Conclusion
Again, welcome to Comparative Health Systems! This unit provided a foundation for the course with an
introduction to health systems and noncommunicable and infectious diseases. To learn more about these
topics, please consult your textbook.
Now that you have completed the readings and study guide, it is time to venture to this week’s assignments.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Zoonotic disease. U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/zoonotic-diseases.html
Dasaraju, P. V., & Liu, C. (1996). Infections of the respiratory system. In S. Baron (Ed.), Medical microbiology
(4th ed.). University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK8142/
HCA 4303, Comparative Health Systems 7
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Johnson, J. A., Stoskopf, C. H., & Shi, L. (Eds.). (2018). Comparative health systems: A global perspective
(2nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781284145038
Lovett-Scott, M., & Prather, F. (2014). Global health systems: Comparing strategies for delivering health
services. Jones & Bartlett Learning. https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781284088854
Mayo Clinic. (n.d.). Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
conditions/sexually-transmitted-diseases-stds/symptoms-causes/syc-20351240
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Retrieved September 13, 2021, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
UNICEF. (n.d.). Non-communicable diseases. https://www.unicef.org/health/non-communicable-diseases
– Course Learning Outcomes for Unit I
– Required Unit Resources
– Unit Lesson
– Introduction
– Key Terms in a Health Context
– Health Systems
– Burden of Disease
– Noncommunicable Disease
– Infectious Disease
– Challenges of Infectious Disease
– Conclusion
– References