IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aph/ajpbhl/10.2105-ajph.2005.064444_6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Improving the effectiveness of health care and public health: A multiscale complex systems analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Bar-Yam, Y.

Abstract

The US health care system is struggling with a mismatch between the large, simple (low-information) financial flow and the complex (high-information) treatment of individual patients. Efforts to implement cost controls and industrial efficiency that are appropriate for repetitive tasks but not high-complexity tasks lead to poor quality of care. Multiscale complex systems analysis suggests that an important step toward relieving this structural problem is a separation of responsibility for 2 distinct types of tasks: medical care of individual patients and prevention/population health. These distinct tasks require qualitatively different organizational structures. The current use of care providers and organizations for both purposes leads to compromises in organizational process that adversely affect the ability of health care organizations to provide either individual or prevention/population services. Thus, the overall system can be dramatically improved by establishing 2 separate but linked systems with distinct organizational forms: (a) a high-efficiency system performing large-scale repetitive tasks such as screening tests, inoculations, and generic health care, and (b) a high-complexity system treating complex medical problems of individual patients.

Suggested Citation

  • Bar-Yam, Y., 2006. "Improving the effectiveness of health care and public health: A multiscale complex systems analysis," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 96(3), pages 459-466.
  • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2005.064444_6
    DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2005.064444
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2005.064444
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2105/AJPH.2005.064444?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Özge Karanfil & Yaman Barlas, 2008. "A Dynamic Simulator for the Management of Disorders of the Body Water Homeostasis," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 56(6), pages 1474-1492, December.
    2. Andrzej Bielecki & Sylwia Nieszporska, 2019. "Analysis of Healthcare Systems by Using Systemic Approach," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2019, pages 1-12, April.
    3. Viana, J. & Brailsford, S.C. & Harindra, V. & Harper, P.R., 2014. "Combining discrete-event simulation and system dynamics in a healthcare setting: A composite model for Chlamydia infection," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 237(1), pages 196-206.
    4. Sharon Friel & Melanie Pescud & Eleanor Malbon & Amanda Lee & Robert Carter & Joanne Greenfield & Megan Cobcroft & Jane Potter & Lucie Rychetnik & Beth Meertens, 2017. "Using systems science to understand the determinants of inequities in healthy eating," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(11), pages 1-18, November.
    5. Qian Wang & Yuejia Kong & Jiyao Sun & Yue Zhang & Linlin Yuan & Jian Wang, 2019. "What Are the Challenges Faced by Village Doctors in Provision of Basic Public Health Services in Shandong, China? A Qualitative Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(14), pages 1-18, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2005.064444_6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.apha.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.