Community health care centers are vital in the continuous care of patients at the community level. Community healthcare centers play an invaluable role in patient care. Factors such as accessibility, lowered or no cost to patients are what make them appealing in a society where private practices have become dominant. I will discuss the importance of community healthcare centers in determining the social factors that cause disease, their role in continued and comprehensive patient care as well as their ease of access to patients.
Patients are more inclined to visit their community healthcare center versus going to a hospital because of ease of access. Most communities have at least one healthcare facility which makes them more convenient.
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When doctors notice a rise in a particular illness or disease they start their investigating first by questing persons in the community. These community-based health professionals are then able to report to the center for disease control in their country for more investigation to be conducted. (Ndiaye, Quick, Sanda, Niandou, 2003) found that "In a community-based system, community members receive basic education or more extensive training to motivate and enable them to notify health care staff about possible cases of disease in a timely fashion". There are often social factors that are causing diseases and community health professionals are in the best position to identify those factors as they are in continuous contact with members of the same …show more content…
Community healthcare centers have very important roles to play. Key among their roles are creating a healthier nation through ease of access, continued and comprehensive care as well as helping to discover the social factors that cause disease. The community has a part to play in the overall health of the nation.
References:
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Health Nursing. Journal of Community Health Nursing, 20(2), 119-132. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3427937
Serigne M. Ndiaye, Linda Quick, Ousmane Sanda, Seydou Niandou; The value of community participation in disease surveillance: a case study from Niger, Health Promotion International, Volume 18, Issue 2, 1 June 2003, Pages 89–98. Retrieved from
The Community Health Systems (CHS) is one of the largest healthcare group in the United States with over 135 hospitals in 29 states and in England [1], with approximately 20,000 beds [2]. CHS serves more than 55% of the market with most affiliated hospitals being the only healthcare provider. While closing the accounts on 31st December 2012, the company had under its belt 162 hospitals out of which there were 156 general, acute care hospitals, 5 psychiatric hospitals and one rehabilitation center with 41,198 beds. CHS also operates 112 surgical centers Most of the centers provides high end services with well trained medical staff [3].
The Crowded Clinic: Critical Analysis The Crowded Clinic Case Study (Colorado State University - Global, n.d.) discusses the issues of practice management as they apply to access to care. Access to care may be as inconvenient as lengthy patient wait times to issues far more serious that may have a profound effect on the health and well-being of a single patient or an entire cohort. In order to properly address the issue and look for a remedy, it is necessary to understand the underlying conditions that create the problem before creating the means to manage the change required to correct the problem. The Crowded Clinic has multiple issues, including social and operational, which are creating the associated inaccessibility to services.
Health care providers not knowing their surrounding community impacts the way they provide health care to a patient. I hope to use my background in community work with underrepresented populations and the qualities I gained to hopefully reduce and someday diminish the concern that health care isn’t keeping up with the demographics of the surrounding community. The third health care concern I will talk about is another near and dear to me which is the severely low quality health care women in developing countries receive.
The Community South Medical Center, a large urban profit-based health center, is equipped to deal with many comprehensive health care issues. Although the medical center has an excellent reputation, analysis has shown that they are now lacking in shortage of clinical staff, non-interfacing technologies, outdated infrastructures, abatement of JCAHO conformity, and fluctuation in demographics. In addition, many of the local high paying businesses have left the area. This could be due to competitive issues or since the demographics changed, they no longer had the consumer advantage for the services that they offered.
During one of my undergraduate courses, “Community and Population Health”, I completed a paper on my community and access to healthcare. During the research and community outreach performed to meet the goals of the paper, my eyes were opened to the plight of small communities in regards to access to quality healthcare. This plight has become my passion, and has formed the basis for my vision of the Family Nurse Practitioner role.
The purpose of this paper is to illuminate and discuss healthcare vulnerabilities of the elderly rural population in Baker County, Florida and describe how the nursing profession can address these problems. Rural health has been a complex and multifaceted challenge for government and healthcare practitioners. The elderly who live alone in the county suffer from low socioeconomic status, low health literacy rates, declining cognitive and physical health and lack of healthcare facilities. The health status of this vulnerable group is impacted by rural culture and social values, healthcare policy and funding affecting rural healthcare facilities, distance and lack of transportation, and health literacy.
Houde, S., & Melillo, K. (2009). Caring for an aging population. Journal Of Gerontological Nursing, 35(12), 9-13. doi:10.3928/00989134-20091103-04
African American senior citizens face a health care crisis too. They have worked all of their lives to secure retirement, but their retirement has been threatened because of the rising cost of long-term medical care. Insurance companies have failed to provide affordable long-term care, protection that most senior citizens need. This lack of long term care and affordability has been a serious problem for the health care system. In some cities, the shortage of hospital beds is so serious that it is common for patients to stay in emergency rooms before they can be admitted to an inpatient room (Drake 109). More than one thousand hospital beds are occupied by people who could be better care for in nursing homes or through home health care (Drake 110). Of the disabled elderly 1.3 million reside in nursing homes (Drake 10). These patients are unable to perform two or more of the basic activities of daily living without assistance.
Health status of an individual is influenced by the person himself his environment. Community based programs will make health education available outside traditional health care setting which is able to influence various units of the community including an individual , family or the community as a whole. An educational program organized in a community based setting such as school, worksite, health care facilities and the community it...
Low income earners, in the neighborhood, continuously face dwindling health care resources. This is a great concern that has to be addressed and mitigated, failure to which they will continue to get poor quality health care and will also be reluctant to seek health care services over and over again. The poor and the disable within the community are economically unstable which makes them unable to access the existing insurance plan. It is of importance to note that they are the most vulnerable and the marginalized groups of people in the society. They lack economic capacity to access the existing plan making them lack better care as they require (Huntingto...
A community can be defined as a group of people, who live, learn, work and play in an environment at a given time. (Yiu, 2012, p.213) There are many factors that may influence the community’s development and health status. These can include resources available, accessibility, transportation, safety, community needs etc… These influences may combine together to form community strengths and as well as community challenges or weaknesses. As a community health care nurse, it is significant for us to assess and identify these strengths and challenges within the community in order for us to intervene and provide the appropriate needed health care services for the community members. This individual scholarly paper will explore and focus on one challenge issue identified from our group community assessment.
Improving health care services depends in part on ensuring that people have a usual and ongoing source of care. Not having a usual place to go to when sick or in need of health advice delays necessary care which leads to an increased risk. People with a usual source of care are more likely to go in for routine checkups and screenings, and are more likely to know where to go for treatmen...
The purpose of this community profile is to discuss a particular health improvement issue within a chosen community. A community can be defined using many different terms. You can belong to a community through religious beliefs. Through shared experiences or interests. You can belong to a political community where all involved share the same political interests. A community can also be defined as ‘a family’ a small village where many have lived most of their lives who share the same desire to belong to that community.
Caring for the elderly is an activity that requires patience, willingness, due diligence and effective co-ordination of resources in order to optimally benefit the recipients. Community services and programs is one such avenue that caters for the elderly by providing for their mental, physical, social and emotional well-being, and by extension promotes a greater quality of life. Community services help meet the needs of the elderly and attract older people who face barriers to active living. One strong advocate of community based services and a program for the elderly is the American Association of Retired People (AARP) who relentlessly seeks to promote a healthy lifestyle for people 50 years and over.
...mmunity involvement and knowledge about the entire population with personal clinical understandings of the health and illness experiences of individuals and families within the population. Community and public health nurses focus on the avoidance of illness, injury or disability, the sponsorship of health and maintenance of the health of the populations, they work with communities, target health promotion and disease prevention, they act as teachers, counselors and play an vital role in preventing wide spread illness and disease. They also endorse, protect, and maintain the health of populations through the delivery of personal health services to individuals, families and defend the community as a whole. In low-income and rural communities, these nurses also provide important health care services. They are able to distinguish and respond to potential health crises.