Transportation barrier to access health care services in rural population Transportation is one of critical social determinants of health and the availability of convenient transportation impacts individuals’ ability to access quality healthcare (Canadian Institutes of Health Research, 2011). One of the major challenges that rural Canadians face is the lack or limited of public transportation which results in delaying access to health-care services (Canadian Institutes of Health Research, 2011). Canadians who reside in rural communities or small towns generally have to travel long distance to get the health care they need. Transportation is a significant issue for access to health care services, particularly in rural and remote areas where …show more content…
Distance and available transportation go hand in hand when it comes to preventing the rural population from receiving the healthcare that they need especially for those who are vulnerable such as children, elderly, individuals with disabilities or special need, and low income individuals and family (Rural Assistance Center, 2015). People who live in rural areas have have limited access to transportation, making routine trips to attend medical visits in the nearest city can be very challenging in terms of financial burden and time (Canadian Institutes of Health Research, 2011). Mattson (2010) stated that “those who ride with a family member or friend were more likely to report difficulties with out-of-town trips, and those who ride with volunteer drivers were more likely to report difficulties for both out-of-town and in-town trips” (p. 26). People who need to rely on others for a ride are more likely to find it difficult to obtain transportation which will result in increasing risk for developing other health challenges. The research has shown that for those people who live in rural areas where do not have access to public transportation but relying on family members to attend medical visits would cause productivity lost and health problems for their loved ones (Classen, Eby, Molnar, Dobbs, & Winter, 2011). The study reported that the make-up transportation would …show more content…
Equal access to health services is a social justice issue and strategies to address access issues in rural communities should be an essential component of a healthcare system that strives for equality and universality (Health Research Unit Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University, 2013). As nurses, they should advocate for rural population and have their voices heard. In the meantime, nurses should actively engage in policy making to influence policy makers so transportation issues in rural areas can be shed light on and solved sooner. Nurses also can advocate for the modern technologies utilization such as taking advantage of telehealth to decrease the travel required for local patients to access specialty care. The telehealth service is not only expected to reduce the need for people to travel for a day or more in order to spend less than an hour with a specialist, but it also can reduce the cost associated with traveling. Nurses can also advocate for rural areas to attract more doctors and healthcare professionals to stay or have regular visits to improve the health of local
The Saskatchewan heath care system is made up of several provincial, regional and local organizations, which provide the people their basic right to reasonable health care (“Health Systems,” 2014). Not having enough health care providers seem to be a problem, which Canada as a whole has struggled with (“College of Family,” 2014). The shortages of medical providers have lead to major discrepancies in the level of patient care between major urban centers and rural areas (Howlett, 2013). In the case of Saskatchewan many communities are facing this challenge, not only rural areas but also the capital city of the province (“Saskatchewan ER,” 2013). Stats Canada has showed that the number of physicians is at a historic high, yet Saskatchewan still face shortages (Howlett, 2013).
People living in rural areas are experiencing highly limited excess to health care facilities either because they are not aware of the disease symptoms as a result of low education level or because the treatment is not available for them. In addition, rural population tend to smoke and drink more than others which has an extremely negative impact on their health status demonstrated by higher mortality and morbidity rates than that of the population living in the major cities (Beard et al., 2009). the mortality rate in regional areas of Australia are 1.05-1.15 times, and in remote areas 1.2-1.2 times those in major cities (Phillips, 2009).
Knight, K. E. (2011). Federally qualified health centers minimize the impact of loss of frequency and independence of movement in older adult patients through access to transportation services. Journal of Aging Research, 1-6. doi:10.4061/2011/898672
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.
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.
Mbemba, Gisèle, Gagnon, Marie-Pierre., Paré, Guy. & Côté, Jose (2013.) Interventions for supporting nurse retention in rural and remote areas: an umbrella review. Human resources for health. doi:10.1186/1478-4491-11-44. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3847170/pdf/1478-4491
For decades, individuals living in rural areas have been considered medically underserved. Access to healthcare is a problem that has been increasing for individuals in rural America due to aging populations, declining economies, rural hospital closures, rising healthcare costs, healthcare provider shortages and difficulties attracting and retaining healthcare personnel and physicians (Bauer, 2002). This population experience more health disparities than t...
The purpose of telemedicine is to remove distance as a barrier to health care. While telehealth is an accepted resource to bridge the gap between local and global health care, integrating telehealth into existing health infrastructures presents a challenge for both governments and policy makers (HRSA, 2011). Today there are policy barriers that prevent the expansion of telehealth, including reimbursement issues raised by Medicare and private payers, state licensure, and liability and privacy concerns.
Quality healthcare in the more rural areas of the United States is not only getting more difficult to obtain, but difficult to afford. American citizens living in rural areas have the highest rates of chronic disease, higher poverty populations, less health insurance, and there is less access to primary care physicians. When the economy is at its lowest point it causes an increase in a number of access and health issues that have already had prior problems in communities and in rural areas, therefore the main goal of the national health care tax of 2010 was to allow coverage to all residents of the United States, and also by transferring necessary health care to places that were farther away, such as the rustic areas of the United States (HealthReform.Gov, 2012).
Nurses and others in the medical field are overworked and understaffed because the government has made cutbacks to the health care system. We live in a country where our health care is a privilege to have, but getting ill becomes a problem if there are not adequate facilities and professionals to care for the sick.
Socioeconomic status can limit access to healthcare in many ways. Several Americans do not have the means to receive healthcare although it is readily available to the entire population. A person’s social status, urban community and financial background can all have an impact as to how access to healthcare is achieved. While there are many factors that limit access to healthcare, I will discuss how these particular factors play a role with accessing healthcare services. Why do low income individuals tend to have high risk factors that result in poor health outcomes? What are some of the factors that determine better health outcomes? These are some of the questions that come up when trying to understand the influence of health outcomes. An individual’s socioeconomic status can alter their healthcare choices and status based on education, income, surroundings and/or occupation levels.
Often the biggest barriers to accessing healthcare are cost and location. Lower income individuals just do not have the resources to have optimal healthcare, or cannot take the time away from employment to deal with health issues. One potential solution to help with these problems could be “telehealth.” Telehealth allows a lower level healthcare practitioner to communicate with a physician or specialists when necessary. Remote rural areas use a Physician Assistant or a Nurse Practitioner on location in remote areas. When procedures call for a physician, an internet or satellite link provides a teleconference with a physician who can prescribe appropriate treatment (Gangon, Duplantie, Fortin & Landry 2006). This could be implemented in lower income urban areas, allowing free clinics to lower costs, and require fewer physicians.
In general, access to healthcare describes how easily an individual can receive appropriate medical services. These include measures of access health insurance coverage, ability to see a physician and obtain needed medical attention, ease of obtaining after-hours care, and short waiting times for doctor appointments. Throughout the entire world, better healthcare access correlates to better health status and lower hospitalization rates as the whole. The United States has always tried to reach equality and justice in politics. This also applies to healthcare accessibility. The United States has gone through many reforms and reconstruction to better increase the accessibility for everyone nationally, but there are still multiple setbacks in the way of a more readily available healthcare system.
heathy (WHO, 2017), also acts as a significant barrier to accessing healthcare, it is interrelated to lack of education and knowledge about the healthcare system. Therefore, contemporary barriers to Aboriginal people accessing healthcare are numerous and proving to be very effective at disadvantaging aboriginal people from access to appropriate healthcare services. CALD communities face many barriers to healthcare access in Australia today but one of significance is the barrier of language. CALD communities are defined as people born overseas, those who know limited English and those whose patents were born overseas. CALD communities include those that migrate to Australia as highly skilled workers, those coming on family reunification visas
Imagine the ability to obtain healthcare services from almost anywhere in the world where you have access to a phone or computer. Now, imagine being able to provide nursing assessments, diagnosis, treatments, and recommendations to your patients from your home to almost anywhere in the world. Lauren Stokowski (2008) noted in her article that one fourth of the United States has rural residents. That number may appear small in comparison to the urban residences; however, rural residents have a tendency to to have “higher poverty rates, larger percentage of elderly, and tend to be in poorer health”. Could telenursing be a solution?