2. In the article below, CDC has expressed concern with over prescription of ant

Question

2. In the article below, CDC has expressed concern with over prescription of antibiotics. Using economic model(s) discuss the implication of overused antibiotics on medical care services. Primary Care 01.18.2016 0 Comments CDC: Half of Antibiotic Prescriptions are Unnecessary ACP, CDC remind doctors to be cautious about antibiotic prescribing by Kristina Fiore Staff Writer, MedPage Today Two doctor groups are reminding physicians to use antibiotics sparingly this cold and flu season. The American College of Physicians and the CDC urged doctors not to dole out antibiotics for colds, sore throats, bronchitis, and sinus infections that aren't complicated, according to guidance published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. "Reducing overuse of antibiotics for acute respiratory tract infections in adults is a clinical priority and a high-value-care way to improve quality of care, lower healthcare costs, and slow or prevent the continued rise in antibiotic resistance," Wayne Riley, MD, MPH, president of ACP, said in a statement. Antibiotics are prescribed at more than 100 million adult ambulatory care visits every year, and 41% of these prescriptions are for respiratory conditions, the guidance states. Antibiotic overuse contributes to the spread of antibiotic-resistant infections; in the U.S., there are 2 million antibiotic-resistant illnesses and 23,000 related deaths each year -- costing the healthcare system some $30 billion. Data from the CDC suggest that about 50% of antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary or inappropriate, equating to more than $3 billion in excess healthcare costs, the guidance states. And antibiotics aren't without side effects. Indeed, they are responsible for the largest number of medication-related adverse events, implicated in 1 of every 5 emergency department visits for adverse drug reactions, the researchers said. To remind physicians about good antibiotic stewardship, ACP and CDC focused on four conditions that most likely will resolve on their own: the common cold, uncomplicated bronchitis, sore throats, and uncomplicated sinus infection. For uncomplicated bronchitis, physicians shouldn't conduct any tests, and should refrain from prescribing antibiotics, unless pneumonia is suspected. Patients can have cough suppressants, expectorants, antihistamines, decongestants, and beta agonists instead. A sore throat should get analgesic therapy such as aspirin, acetaminophen, NSAIDs, or throat lozenges -- although testing can be done in patients with symptoms of group A streptococcal pharyngitis. That's the only case in which antibiotics would be warranted, the authors said. An uncomplicated sinus infection usually resolves without antibiotics, even in patients with a bacterial cause, the guidance states. Patients can have anaglesics for pain and antipyretics for fever. Antibiotics should be reserved for patients with symptoms lasting more than 10 days, if they start to develop severe symptoms or signs of a high fever (above 39°C/ 102.2°F), or if they have nasal discharge or facial pain that lasts three consecutive days. The authors disclosed no financial conflicts of interest 1. Clearly and without reservation identify the good or service that is at the heart of the question. 2. Decide if the question is a demand-side or supply-side or both type of issue. 3. Establish the initial market condition in terms demand and supply curves and initial equilibrium prices and quantity exchanged in the market. 4. Make certain that you incorporate Elasticities of demand and supply in the initial model if applicable. 5. Work into the model dynamic of the issue… that is how consumer demand or producer supply curve changes due to some exogenous forces. 6. Identify the conclusions reached after dynamic of the issue is incorporated into the model 7. Label your model clearly and carefully. 8. Finally, AVOID restating or rephrasing the content of the article as a way of analyzing the issue. You should take the real world scenario discussed in the article and use the economic tools, concepts, theories and models to unravel the content.

Explanation / Answer

An understanding of economics isn't seen to be as vital as, say, balancing a household budget or learning to drive a car. However, economics has an impact on every moment of our lives because, at its heart, it is a study of choices and why and how we make them. In this article, we'll look at some basic economic concepts that everyone should understand. (The concept of elasticity of demand is part of every purchase you make.

Scarcity
you implicitly understand scarcity, whether you are aware of it or not. It is the most basic concept in economics, and is more of a solid fact than any abstraction. Simply put, the world has limited means to meet unlimited wants, so there is always a choice to be made. For example, there is only so much wheat grown every year. Some people want bread; some people want cereal; some people want beer, and so on. Only so much of any one product can made because of the scarcity of wheat. How do we decide how much flour should be made for bread? Or, more importantly, how much beer to make? One answer is a market system.

Everything Is in the Incentives
Incentives are part of costs and benefits and rational expectations, but they are so important that they are worth further examination. Incentives make the world go round, and sometimes go wrong. If you are a parent, a boss, a teacher or anyone with the responsibility of oversight, and things are going horribly awry, the chances are very good that your incentives are out of alignment with what you want to achieve.

We'll take a safe example, however, of – you guessed it – a brewery. This particular brewery has two sizes of bottle: one 500ml bottle and a 1L bottle for couples. The owner wants to increase production, so he offers a bonus to the shift that produces the most bottles of beer in a day. Within a couple days, he sees production numbers shoot up from 10,000 bottles a day to 15,000. However, he is soon deluged with calls from suppliers wondering when the shipments of the 1L bottles are going to come. The problem, of course, is that his incentive focused on the wrong thing – the number of the bottles rather than the volume of beer – and made it "beneficial" for the competing shifts to cheat by only using the smaller bottles.

When incentives are aligned with organizational goals, however, the benefits can be exceptional. Some incentives have been proven so effective that they are common practice at many firms, such as profit sharing, performance bonuses and employee shareholding. However, even these incentives can turn disastrous if the criteria for the incentives falls out of alignment with the original goal. Poorly structured performance bonuses, for example, have driven many a CEO to take temporary measures to juice the financial results enough to get the bonus – measures that often turn out to be detrimental in the longer term.

Costs and Benefit
The concept of costs and benefits encompass a large area of economics that has to do with rational expectations and rational choices. In any situation, people are likely to make the choice that has the most benefit to them, with the least cost, or, put another way, the choice that provides more in benefits than it costs. Going back to beer, the breweries of the world will hire more employees to make more beer, only if the price of beer and the sales volume justifies the additional costs to the payroll and the materials needed to brew more. Similarly, the consumer will buy the best beer he or she can afford, not, perhaps, the best tasting beer in the store.

This extends far beyond financial transactions. University students perform cost benefit analysis on a daily basis, by focusing on certain courses that they believe will be more important for them, while cutting the time spent studying or even attending courses that they see as less necessary.

Of course, everyone knows someone who has seemingly made a poor life choice. Although people are generally rational, there are many, many factors that can throw our internal accountant out the window. Advertising is one that everyone is familiar with. Commercials tweak emotional centers of our brain and do other clever tricks to fool us into overestimating the benefits of a given item. Some of these same techniques are used quite adeptly by the lottery, showing a couple sailing a yacht and enjoying a carefree life. This image and its emotional message ("this could be you") overwhelm the rational part of your brain that can run the very, very long odds of actually winning. Cost and benefits may not rule your mind all the time, but they are in charge more than you think - especially when it comes to the next concept. (This free thinker promoted free trade at a time when governments controlled most commercial interests.

Supply and Demand
The market system is driven by supply and demand. Take beer again. Let's say people want more beer, meaning the demand for beer is high. This demand means you can charge more for beer, so you can make more money on average by changing wheat into beer than grounding that same wheat into flour. More people start making beer and, after a few production cycles, there is so much beer on the market that prices plummet. Meanwhile, the price of flour has been increasing as the supply shrinks, so more producers buy up wheat for the purpose of making flour - and on, and on.

This extreme and simplified example does encapsulate the wonderful balancing act that is supply and demand. The market is generally much more responsive in real life, and true supply shocks are rare – at least ones caused by the market are rare. On a basic level, supply and demand helps explain why last year's hit product is half the price the following year.

Putting It All Together
Scarcity is the overarching theme of all economics. It sounds negative, and it is one of the reasons economics is referred to as the dismal science, but it simply means that choices have to be made. These choices are decided by the costs and benefits that impact the choice, leading to a dynamic market system where choices are played out through supply and demand. On a personal level, scarcity means that we have to make choices based on the incentives we are given and the cost and benefits of different courses of action. This is a very broad look at what is, believe it or not, a very compelling subject. These concepts feed into others, like comparative advantage, entrepreneurial spirit, marginal benefit and so on. The world is wide with choices, so the field of economics is wide with theories, laws and concepts that explore those choices.

Conclusion
these concepts aren't powerful laws that force human interactions into preset patterns. Rather, they are a recognition of the patterns that emerge from hundreds, thousands, millions and billions of individuals making choices with the information they are given. While knowing these concepts may not allow you to fundamentally change the world, it will help explain a lot.

Economic Tools and Concepts
Healthcare uses Economic concepts and tools to regulate the ease of access and availability of health care to society. Economic tools are essential to govern health care quality and healthcare services that are available to a diverse population. Numerous stakeholders including the government hold important responsibilities in deciding the type of healthcare services offered at private and public organizations.
Healthcare is limited in the United States and one of the chief reasons is the lack of available healthcare providers particularly registered nurses. Economic concepts and tools including Supply and demand curves, marginal analysis and elasticity will be explored to evaluate the current nursing shortage.
Demand and supply curves are important when finding a balance between the quantities of registered nurses available to provide services to all individuals in need of healthcare services. The amount of registered nurses has decreased significantly over the past few years and the supply of registered nurses is expected to continue to decline. This limited supply of nurses has caused an increased demand for nurses leading to an increase in cost.
A National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses in 2004, revealed the number of nurses was estimated in 2,909,357, this signifies the major population in healthcare (Health Resources and Services Administration, 2006). “The scarcity of registered nurses is an important challenge in the United States, as it is estimated that 500,000 registered nurse positions are unfilled, while the individuals who require nursing services keeps on increasing leading to the conclusion that the demand for nurses is greater than the supply .Studies have shown that the population of the United States predicted to grow by 18%, while those in the 65 and older age group is expected.

Economic Theories

Macro and Micro Economics

Macro Economics may be defined as that branch of economic analysis which studies the behavior of not one particular unit, but of all the units combined together. Macroeconomics is a study of aggregates. It is the study of the economic system as a whole total production, total consumption, total savings and total investment.

The following are the fields covered by macroeconomics:

The study of macroeconomics is indispensable as it is the main agent for formulation and successful execution of government economic policies. It is also indispensable for the formulation of microeconomic models.

Microeconomics may be defined as that branch of economic analysis, which studies the economic behavior of the individual unit, maybe a person, a particular household, or a particular firm. It is a study of one particular unit rather than all the units combined together. In microeconomics, we study the various units of the economy, how they function and how they reach their equilibrium. An important tool used in that of microeconomics is that of Marginal Analysis. In fact, it is an indispensable tool used in microeconomics. Some of the important laws and principles of microeconomics have been derived directly from marginal analysis.

The following are the fields covered by microeconomics:

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