Importance of Consumerism in Healthcare

Consumerism in Healthcare
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Abstract
The concept of consumerism is a concept which is fast gaining importance, popularity, and use in healthcare systems in the world today. With consumerism, the interest of the health care consumers is well taken care of, which in overall terms helps to better the standards of healthcare services. Due to the importance of the consumerism, more researchers have delved themselves into more research in the subfield so as to find more inventions and concepts which can be used to make the general concept of consumerism to be even more effective. Consumerism is a trend which is gaining large popularity in health facilities and in general medical practice. This paper will provide a discussion of the perception of customers regarding the healthcare in the last 5 years, the significance of consumerism in health care, the forecasted aspects in terms of future trends in consumerism Healthcare among other minor details which are in relation to the subject of discussion. The research will use the collected data, which will be qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed to provide more information on the effectiveness of data. The main aim of the research paper is to facilitate a proper decision making and view on the importance of consumerism in healthcare provision.
Introduction and Summary
Consumerism can be defined as the promotion of the interest of health care consumers. In this case, the consumers refer to all the people who seek healthcare i.e. the patients and any other stakeholder (Burns, Bradley, & Weiner, 2011). In broader terms it means that there should be there a closer relationship between the health care provider and the patients in terms of how they communicate and the general cooperation between them, fostering of healthy lifestyle and habits of patients, imparting of patients wellness awareness to the patients among many other key roles of consumerism.
According to the research by Deloitte, (which is meant to provide a comprehensive set of views of the consumers, regarding health care in the last 5 years), generally, the consumers in the market do feel that the costs of healthcare have increased and are becoming unsustainable (Burns, Bradley, & Weiner, 2011). Secondly, the general population feels that the quality of health care has tremendously improved due to significant allocations of money to healthcare coupled with the growth of medical insurance in the country on annual basis. Elsewhere, a section of the population feels that various economic, political and behavioral aspects/ variable have a huge impact on the insurance coverage in the medical field and therefore they feel that such should be well taken care of, in order to foster the positive and quick growth of medical insurance.
From the above definition, consumerism facilitates the rise and growth of empowered consumers in healthcare (Sturgeon, 2017). The reality is that the healthcare system in the country is well developed and very complex despite the fact that in addition to that, it is growing on a yearly basis. Consumerism is meant to foster more timely, convenient, and quality care to the patients as well as to ensure a positive patient experience.
Going by th...