Why Children's Hospitals can better our Future

 Why Children’s Hospitals can better our Future

Natalie Oelstrom

The United States has been a global leader in the medical world for decades. The 2019 Bloomberg Healthiest Country Index states “The US ranks 35th out of 169 countries. Even though we are the 11th wealthiest country in the world.” Using the resources that we have we can change the future outlook and this starts with children's hospitals. By starting with hospitals we can create a healthier adult population starting at a young age to produce more helpful resources, create more jobs in hospitals, and overall make the future brighter.

Hospitals only get a glimpse of your life, they are unaware of your home life, education, food supply, employment, family, etc. Although many hospital figures try to help, they don’t know the full story. Evidence shows that addressing these problems before adulthood can actually lead to a better life. The Abecedarian Preschool project led by James Heckman, PhD, the Nobel prize-winning economist from the University of Chicago. During the experiment researchers divided children from birth to five into two groups. Half of the children received two meals per day and a healthy snack, along with periodic Medical check-ups, basic education and a healthy behavioral lifestyle for a five year old. The other group however was not as fortunate by only having accessibility to the same education.

Thirty years later, the researchers followed up with both groups of individuals. They found that the group that had access to more showed significantly less issues overall. For example, they were less likely to have high blood pressure, had no incidence of deadly metabolic syndrome, and had a markedly lower chance of obesity. Unfortunately, children who were not as fortunate did not graduate high school at the same rate the others did, they were more likely to be convicted of a crime or incarcerated and had a lower income rate to support themselves. Therefore, if Children's Hospital steps into this role of providing for a child then we can help more children build better lives for themselves. 

For example at Nemours, they are accomplishing this through intentional collaboration with their Community Partners in early childhood education, adult care, food pantries, and more. By doing so they can provide for students outside of the hospital walls. According to Becker's Hospital review “Beyond this, there are a few key strategies that are critical to success; creating a value Based Services organization to prepare neemors to be at full risk for the health of our patients. Adopting a population mindset to assume accountability for children in the service area, whether they seek medical care or not. In partnering with organizations in addressing social determinants of Health by applying each other's areas of expertise -  generating the cross-sector reward of improving child health and well-being.”

On top of this it will help the government create new jobs that will help in hospitals but this can also be expanded to other places with lots of kids like schools. expanding jobs in hospitals will also help our economy, as we just lost so many jobs to covid-19. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics indicates that “7.49 million people were employed with jobs in a hospital in 2019.” Just imagine increasing this number even higher by having social workers, psychotherapists, counselors, mental health therapists, youth coordinator, special needs coordinator, mental health counselors, and even head leaders from charities, organizations, and food and housing. 

Just by increasing this rate we could be looking at thousands of more jobs. Therefore, this could create jobs while helping kids and families inside and outside of the hospital walls. Looking at the graph you see the US is in the top 3. We have the power to change this number and make it beneficial for our community, economy, families in need, and our world.

After everything done in hospitals to make the outside world a better place the US should start as soon as possible to try to improve as many lives as possible.

Works Cited

How Children From Varying Economic Backgrounds Utilize Hospital Resources, www.childrenshospitals.org/Newsroom/Childrens-Hospitals-Today/Issue-Archive/Issues/Spring-2014/Articles/How-children-of-varying-economic-backgrounds-utilize-hospital-resources.

R. Lawrence Moss, MD. “Children's Hospitals Can Lead the Way in Transforming the Economy: The United States Has Long Been a Global Leader in Medical Research and Innovation, Yet We Rank Lower than 38 Other Countries on Measurements of Children's Survival, Health, Education and Nutrition, According to a Recent Report from the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund, Published in The Lancet.” Becker's Hospital Review, www.beckershospitalreview.com/strategy/children-s-hospitals-can-lead-the-way-in-transforming-the-economy.html.