Formalized Information Feedback as a Substitute for Fee Collection in a Military Health Care Delivery System: A Conceptual Underpinning for Program Development.

摘要

From the analysis made and the studies cited, an approach to improve the health care delivery system in a military setting is deduced. The paper provides the rationale, and the theoretical and empirical justification for proceeding with the construction of a specific plan for program development in the area of health care delivery in a socialized medicine context. The thesis is advanced that social approval and health care services are exchanged in a manner analogous to the exchange of economic goods. In general, the approach would be to develop means for acquiring 'evaluative' information from health care recipients on the nature/quality of services received. This information would be fed back to the health care providers on a rapid, continuous, systematic basis. Such information processing and distribution would, in effect, become a partial substitute for, and serve many of the same functions as, fee payment and fee collection in the private medicine model. In so doing, formalized information feedback could be expected to have balancing and stabilizing effects upon the exchange processes which occur within the health care delivery system, and, simultaneously, improve the quality of the services rendered.