Role of U.S. in Healthcare Leadership vs. That of Nigeria
The roles of the United States and Nigeria in healthcare leadership are distinctly different. Although the United States is a far wealthier nation with ample resources at its disposal and the nation achieved a ranking of 37 on the World Health Organization's global ranking of healthcare systems compared with Nigeria's ranking of 187, in many ways the U.S. healthcare system provides is lacking in efficacy (Coutsoukis, 2007). Neither country appears on Evans, Tandon, Murray, and Lauer's (2001) table of the best and worst of 191 national health systems. Two reports that the U.S. Congress requested of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)-a National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR) and a National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR)-indicate that "high healthcare quality is not a given and that disparities are pervasive through the US healthcare system," with the most apparent disparities occurring in the area of preventive care (Kelley, 2005, p. I-3). In their study of 2,522 healthcare employees across 312 departments, Angermeier, Dunford, Boss, and Boss (2009, p. 127) found that some of the greatest challenges in the healthcare industry included customer service, medical errors, burnout, and turnover intentions.
Nigeria's system suffers from poverty and a lack of resources; its maternal and child health outcomes are among the worst worldwide as a result of poor health facilities, lack of transportation to hospitals, patients' inability to pay, and resistance to modern medicine (Doctor et al., 2011, p. 11). Nigeria's rate of maternal mortality is 1,100 deaths per 100,000 live births, which results in a lifetime risk of maternal death of 1 in 18 (Doctor et al., 2011, p. 11). Moreover, when compared with maternal deaths worldwide, the figures are even more stunning; of every 9 maternal deaths around the world, one of them occurs in Nigeria ...