Improvement in Healthcare - Essay Example

Improvement in Healthcare Improvement in Healthcare Psychological and physical wellbeing is a critical issue in the performance of individuals in their daily activities. A healthy population has high performance and lower poverty levels. Psychological development of children is also closely linked to their health condition. Improvements have been made to ensure that the current state of healthcare is improved mostly using technology. Most nations have been active in improving healthcare, which has been crucial in the improvements encountered in the contemporary world by all age groups. For instance, due to the condition of healthcare in the year 1955, 210 children in every 1000 born that year died before realizing their 5th birthday. Improvements have reduced this number to 37 by the year 1995 and this is expected to improve further in the future (Health Across the life Span, n.d). However, in spite of the improvement, there are other opportunity areas for improvement, which have weaknesses and strengths. There are many health issues facing different age groups that range from children, young adults and the aged. These issues are unique to the various age groups. For children and infants, one of the main issues to be identified is the lack of safe C-sections, lack of sterile equipment to be used for episiotomies, and issues with prenatal care. While these remain the main causes of death for infants both during birth and before birth, other issues contributing to these deaths have also been identified. These include lack of crucial health services from the perspectives of mosquito control, healthy mothers, and basic nutrition issues (Chin, et al., 2009). Lack of health care services can be mostly attributed towards poverty and lack of support from the government. Mothers are required to be as healthy as possible but this might not be accomplished for those who cannot afford certain prenatal care gadgets such as mosquito control gadgets while other mothers do not have information showing them that they should avoid drugs while pregnant. Fortunately, there are opportunities for improvement. The modern world has some of the highly technologically advanced equipment that can be used in child delivery. However, most health institutions have not acquired them. This leads to a negative effect on the health improvement effort especially in reducing child mortality rates. Equipping the health institutions is an opportunity that can be exploited. In addition, ensuring that all health institutions educate mothers on hazardous practices that may affect the unborn child is also an opportunity that can be exploited. This can be done through a government directive that would require all institutions to educate the mothers on issues regarding drugs and proper eating habits. This can also include the provision of mosquito nets to help the mothers in protecting the children both before and after birth. Some of the weaknesses facing these strategies include the length of the time that the government would take to implement such measures, the laxity of the health institutions in implementing the requirements, and large sums of funds that would be required in equipping the institutions that may also render healthcare more expensive. The government can also intervene in issues related to childhood disability to provide the special needs for such situations. One of the strengths is that although it may take longer to implement these recommendations, the long-term effects would yield the most anticipated results such as reduced mother or child death during delivery. In addition, mothers are usually willing to comply with the directives given to them since they want to secure their babies, which imply that it would be easier to educate them. One of the disparities identified in childhood healthcare include the achievement of equity between children from different racial backgrounds, which is an ethical issue especially in countries such as U.S. For instance, medical errors may happen since a member of a certain minority group does not speak English (Beal, 2004). While disparities may be few among children health care, research maintains that they are prevalent in preventive care that include vaccination rates where majority groups have their children vaccinated more often and on time as compared to children from minority groups. The implications for better prenatal and after birth care include reduced infant mortality rates. Considering adult health care, the main issues facing their health care include cost of the general healthcare, cost of insurance cover, and lack of equipped facilities for psychiatric patients. In most cases, the government does not provide significant input towards adult healthcare since they are expected to make personalized decisions and cater for their own healthcare needs (Chin, et al., 2009). In addition, their healthcare insurance cover is mostly not taken care of by the employer. This adds burden to the adults since it is compulsory to have medical insurance cover. Other issues that face adult healthcare include lack of technologically advanced facilities to cater for problems that include chronic diseases such as the patients that require specialized care such as dialysis. However, these issues are mostly experienced in public healthcare institutions. Although the private ones are usually adequately equipped, they are usually more expensive. In the cases where the public hospitals are equipped with such devices, there is congestion. There are many opportunities for improving adult healthcare that include government’s intervention in increasing GDP allocation for the healthcare institutions to help in the purchase of such equipment. In addition, legislation regulations can also be imposed to help in regulating the cost of insurance cover or in requiring the employers to pay for the insurance cover for their employees. This is because most employers are capable of the same. The government may also consider restructuring the healthcare institutions since a significant number of them offer have the equipment but still offer poor services. This can be resolved by restructuring the entire hospital management. Some of the weaknesses involved here include the extensive debates that the government would undertake before such amendments are implemented. In addition, the present financial issues may affect the government’s capacity to equip the health institutions without more taxes, which would burden the citizens further. Moreover, the employers may consider reducing the salaries for them to cater for their employees’ insurance cover. However, there are strengths that include better healthcare in the long-term basis in spite of the time that would be taken to implement the recommendations. The main disparities identified in the adult category include differences in income levels. Here, the individuals with higher income get better healthcare as compared to the poorer individuals. With regard to the elderly, the main issues affecting their healthcare include lack of support or neglect both from the family members and from the government since they are highly dependent. This mostly happens for the poor individuals and for an elderly person in psychiatry. In addition, since the elderly individuals usually face many chronic diseases such as diabetes, the services they need are usually very expensive (The American Nurses Association, Inc., 2014). Most governments, on the other hand, do not provide significant funds to help the elderly cater for their health needs. Moreover, those with disabilities face other problems such as lack of appropriate equipment such as wheelchairs. These challenges get worse if their families are poor. Although these members of the society are not very productive, the funds allocated to them should be increased, as they were previously productive. However, if that proves more difficult, the government can ensure that the health services that they require are affordable. This is an opportunity although most governments would be reluctant to cater for them for the mere fact that they are not productive. A legislative directive requiring the family members not to neglect an elderly person can be enacted if the family is financially able to provide for their healthcare services. The elderly people without significant support from the family members should be the ones to benefit the most from the government allocated funds and such benefits as free wheelchairs. This would ease on the burden on the government. The weaknesses involved here include that the move to increase the funding to elderly people would not be supported by most governmental officials. In addition, the government does not get returns from such allocations implying additional burden on the working population. On the other hand, the strengths include that the government would be helping those without family support, therefore, relieving much burden. In addition, the possibility of fund increase is substantial since these people have previously contributed to the country’s economic performance. This implies that helping them is a way of compensating them for their contribution to the country. The disparities affecting the elderly include that the minority elders are constantly affected by access to medical care (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2001). They are also less likely to receive quality and routine medical care as compared to the majority individuals. If the elderly do not receive such benefits, there may be implications such as early deaths. References Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2001). Improving the Health and Health Care of Older Americans. Retrieved from http://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/final-reports/olderam/oldam2.html Beal, A. (2004). Child Health Disparities: Framing a Research Agenda. Retrieved from http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/in-the-literature/2004/jul/child-health-disparities--framing-a-research-agenda Chin, M. H., Alexander-Young, M. & Burnet, D. L. (2009). Health Care Quality-Improvement Approaches to Reducing Child Health Disparities. Pediatrics, 124(3), 224-236. Health Across the life Span. (n.d). Retrieved from http://www.who.int/whr/1998/en/whr98_ch3.pdf The American Nurses Association, Inc. (2014). Issues Affecting the Health of Older Citizens: Meeting the Challenge. Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/Volume82003/No2May2003/OlderCitizensHealthIssues.html Read More