The Iowa Hospital Association says it has figures to show money spent on healthcare is invested well. I-H-A president Kirk Norris admits in the last two decades the cost of healthcare has gone up 100-percent. Norris says the flip-side of that coin is getting a return on that investment, and he says we get a high return. Norris says they can now show the return on the healthcare increases. He says for every dollar invested over those 20 years, Norris says there’s been a return between two dollars and 40 cents, and three dollars. Norris says that return is partly measured in public health: the fitness and longer lives of people served by healthcare institutions that were improved by the investment made in them. Norris names specific illnesses like heart attack, diabetes, cancer and stroke and says the incidence and the death rate from such illnesses have been reduced in the last twenty years. Norris says in addition to offering better care and treatment, there’s a payoff in valuable data from big investments in technology. You’re going to have better information on the population you’re serving as well as clinical trials that have proved which kind of treatment techniques and program work best so you can decide which to use. Norris says Iowa Hospital Association figures on the value of healthcare jive with national studies.
