The field of public health is an ever-changing and evolving specialty. New threats and challenges occur on almost a daily basis. A public health professional must be diverse in his scope, and have the educated aptitude that is needed to overcome unique challenges. But my questions is are all public health professionals equal in education? Now days there may be a variance present between public health professionals that may hinder some from effectively carrying out their duties. Here in lies the importance of a credentialing body aimed at ensuring a sound foundation for public health professionals to build upon. A national standard or accreditation program is vital to the protection and improvement of the public’s health (CDC, 2010). Public health credentialing bodies are important in order to establish a set standard or core competencies that compose the scientific base of public health …show more content…
practice (NBPHE, 2007). These accrediting bodies determine common core competencies that public health professionals must obtain to earn their certification. By enforcing a set criteria competency becomes the standard and may be verified by a rigorous testing process that ensures a diverse knowledge and understanding has been achieved. When a public health professional is able to effectively demonstrate the core competencies a certification or accreditation maybe awarded. Credentialing bodies also offer the advantage of professional continuing education. A valid credentialing process requires periodic renewals that are generally associated with some form of continued professional learning (NBPHE, 2007). This renewal process ensures that public health professionals are best suited to handle dynamic and diverse public health threats that are continually emerging. In addition to, the public health workforce is quite vast. There are many specialties that work together side by side in order to obtain quality health outcomes. With this variety of professionals the same health outcomes may be achieved using different methods. Who is to say that their method is superior to another? Credentialing bodies provide a system that when used provides accountability and credibility (CDC, 2010). These credentialing bodies assist in the standardizing processes in order to ensure results are efficient and repeatable. They also provide information about past issues so other professionals may expand on what has already been accomplished (PHAB, 2013). In order to truly achieve an advantage there must be a competitive amount of accrediting organizations.
If a monopoly of organizations exists, ingenuity or improvements may be adversely impacted, by lack of independent thinking. Accrediting organizations must determine the middle ground between minimum and optimal standards in order to ensure measurable results. The success of an accrediting organization will also be impacted by stakeholders. Thus it is of vital importance for both short term and long term goals to be clear and concise (Norvick, Morrow, Mays, 2008). Overall, accreditation is important to the field of public health. Set standards must be established and enforced in order to maintain validity and relevance. Professional education is a key component to continued learning and will assist public health professionals with dealing with emerging public health threats. Lastly, public health credentialing organizations must continue to challenge each other in order to encourage ingenuity, diversity, and in order to create new ideas for solving old public health
issues.
I now that I have the knowledge to aspire to take up my role within one of the identified population foci. APRNs program developed my core competencies by allowing me to be more efficient adaptability with regards to newly emerging APRN roles or population focus. Furthermore, achieving my course objectives enable me to understand the specific APRN roles. For example, course objectives provide me with a better detail, and align my licensure goals with the responsibilities expected of each role. Licensure will provide me and my fellow APRN graduates with the full authority to practice. Also, certification is required to meet the highest possible standards as APRNs are expected to align knowledge, skills and experience with the standards of health care professionals. This field has very narrow margins for error, and it is therefore important, for APRNs to meet the highest and most stringent academic qualifications. In order to be a recognized as APRN graduate, one is required to complete formal education with a graduate degree or post-graduate certificate awarded by an academic institute and accredited by a recognized accrediting agency empowered by the relevant government education
The knowledge that I will obtain in the public health portion of the program will allow me to be better prepared to understand the social and environmental determinants of health that contribute to the development of diseases, and this will allow me to care for my patients more effectively. As these and other public health issues become more prominent, having a well-trained workforce that is equipped to address community-level health concerns is vital. As a profession, PAs are well educated as primary care clinicians and are able to handle a wide variety of common health care disorders. Adding a master’s degree in public health equips PAs with an expanded skill set which can be used to manage the health of entire communities, specifically those which are
Margaret E. O’Kane is the founder and president of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). NCQA is one of the nation’s leading advocates for improving healthcare through measurement, reporting, and accountability. NCQA is the foremost accrediting organization for health plans including HMOs, PPOs, and consumer directed plans. (Margaret) “Our goal is to increase the value of NCQA accreditation both to organizations pursuing accreditation and to the audiences who seek help in assessing the quality of health care provided by those organizations”. NCQA has developed, maintained, and expanded the nation’s most widely used health care quality tool, which is known as the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS). HEDIS is responsible for evaluating whether and how well
Patient Credentialing identifies people who have a certain diagnosis and have achieved certain levels of competency in understanding and managing their disease (Watson, Bluml, & Skoufalos, 2015). Patient Credentialing (PC) was developed to meet 3 core purposes: (1) enhance patient engagement by increasing personal accountability for health outcomes, (2) create a mass customization strategy for providers to deliver high-quality, patient centered collaborative care, and (3) provide payers with a foundation for properly aligning health benefit incentive (Watson et al., 2015). The goal is for patients to achieve a proficiency in managing their chronic conditions to promote chronic conditions competencies and self-management.
Merwin, E & Thornlow, D. (2009). Managing to improve quality: the relationship between accreditation standards, safety practices, and patient outcomes. Health Care Managment Review, 34(3), 262-272. DOI: 10.1097/HMR.0b013e3181a16bce
To gain accreditation, TJC sets rigorous safety and quality of care standards and evaluates organizations to see whether or not they meet their standards. After the survey, TJC provid...
According to Allender, Rector, and Warner (2014), public health is a combination of both an art and a science (2014). The mission of public health nursing is to promote health, prevent disease and ultimately prolong life (Allender et al., 2014). In order for this to occur an assessment must take place. An aggregate or community assessment begins with a collection of data. This includes: the community’s health needs, risks, environmental conditions, financial resources through local census data, and a windshield survey (Allender et al., 2014). Through public health nursing, communities can collectively come together to help promote an overall better health standing.
As the former president of Harvard University, Derek Bok wrote “The most obvious purpose of college education is to help students acquire information and knowledge by acquainting them with facts, theories, generalizations, principles, and the like. This purpose scarcely requires justification.” America needs educated citizens to help maintain the level of intelligence we have in society. Students need to be taught to their specific career and the knowledge needed in that career. Though education students are strengthened for their futures as good citizens. College is a more specialized form of the education they have received throughout their entire schooling and will need for their careers. College prepares students for the future by specializing
A college degree is one of the best educations that a person can get. It not only develops your mind, but it helps to develop you as a person as well. No matter what kind of degree you receive, whether it be a bachelors, associates, or masters you are more likely to get a better job than without it or with just a high school diploma. Workers with a college degree will earn much more and are much less likely to be unemployed than those with only a high school diploma. This paper will argue that with a college degree you are more likely to get a higher paying job than without a degree. I will support this argument with multiple scholarly articles and other valid sources to further convince you.
School is a process that takes time and a lot of dedication. When we finish high school we have to choose to go to college or not. Most people go to college without knowing what they want to do. The only thing we know is that we want a degree of some sort. Getting a college degree should be essential to everybody because without one you won’t be successful in life.
I have chosen Public Health as my career path because I have a passion for making a difference in people’s lives and helping others achieve their goals. Also, I chose healthcare as a career because health does not only focus on the physical aspects of wellness, but it applies to all areas of wellness, such as, intellectual, social, spiritual, financial, occupational, environmental and emotional wellness. Moreover, Public Health is a challenging, diverse and dynamic field. My philosophy of health is very simple, to prevent, improve and educate the lives of individuals, families, communities and the population. Besides, there is no safer way to touch people’s lives than through public
Many people dream of finishing college for the possibility of attaining a great career with wonderful wages. Nowadays, however, people are more concerned with the amount of debt they will gain after attending college. This money problem skews people 's opinion of going to college, and they try to avoid being in debt as much as possible. As a result, more people steer away from the college life and enter into the work force without a degree. These people, however, do not understand that the college experience, knowledge, and the degree they gain are worth any amounts of money. College education is priceless.
Both public health and clinical medicine is important and mutually dependent to increase individual and public health. Ready access to high quality health care services is a right of the population and a requirement of good public health. This requires the accessibility of high quality providers of clinical and preventive care.
Although many individuals can see the importance of quality education, there are some that see college education as simply waste of time, funds, or impossible due to their situation. In this paper I will explain how obtaining a quality education can impact an individual’s life and why it is vital. The necessity of a college education for employment goals, income expectations, personal accomplishment and quality of life will be explored.
Educating the public to recognize the signs and dangers of myocardial infarctions could lead to earlier interventions and prevent life endangering delays. Furthermore, the ability to afford medical procedures is a huge barrier for many of the patients. As a result, life threatening delays often occurred because of considerations for the cost of the procedures. It became clear that meeting the health needs of the public took more than education; it would also take an interdisciplinary effort to eliminate health inequities resulting from disparities in income, social status, education, employment, social and physical work environments. However, all I had were raw ideas. It was clear to me that I would need the formalization of a public health education to obtain the skills needed to actualize my