Regulatory Agencies In Health Care

Regulatory agencies play a very important role in the healthcare industry. They make sure that hospitals and healthcare practitioners follow the appropriate regulations and policies. Regulatory agencies work in federal, state and local level. Majority of the regulatory agencies are government agencies, but they are a few private regulatory agencies for example the joint commission. Regulatory agencies work and collaborate to enhance the outcome of the United States healthcare. Their number one priority is to increase safety of the healthcare system, improve quality, decrease disparities, educate healthcare providers, conduct research and gather data. There are many government and private healthcare regulatory agencies such as, center for disease
This program contained methods and guidelines that will prevent healthcare associated infections. The Comprehensive unit based program focus on improving safety culture, teamwork, and communication among healthcare provider with checklist of proving practices for preventing health-associated infections. This new program was implemented in many hospitals across the United States to prevent those infections. It was implemented in more than 1000 US intensive care units (ahrq.gov, 2016). According to the department of Health and Human Services, since this program took place, it reduced blood stream infections by 41% and prevented over 2100 CLABSI, which saved more that 500 lives and also saved $36 million in cost (ahrq.gov, 2016 pg. 2). Furthermore, the AHRQ collaborated with the department of defense and developed STEPPS, which is a training program designed for healthcare professionals to enhance patient’s safety, communication and teamwork skills (ahrq.gov, 2016. Pg.3), and since then AHRQ trained about 1500 organizations. They also provide nation wide free trainings for healthcare providers. Furthermore, they partnered up with CMS to expand the training of the healthcare providers in order to improve the quality of healthcare across the United
AHRQ is governed and financed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS gets it’s funding from the federal government. The amount of funding that the AHRQ gets differs every year. The AHRQ was given $479 million in 2016, while in 2015; they were given $465 million (HHS.gov, 2016). The funding of AHRQ comes from different federal entities. $88 million comes from public health services and evaluation funds, $276 million comes from discretionary budget authority and $116 million from the Patient Centered Outcome Research Trust Fund (HHS.gov,