Health Care Administrators - Assignment Example

Health care administrators affiliation Part A The system of public health in the United is multifaceted and complex, and itsobjective in protecting the health of society is very imperative. Public health is defined as a science and art that utilises several approaches to maintaining, promote, protect as well as improve the health of the public. The organization of public health system varies drastically across state, federal as well as at local levels. The federal provides the necessary funding needed and support but delegates all the authorities to the state to organise and directly deliver public health services to the public. Each state is composed of an agency that is having a responsibility for public health issues; however, the structures vary across different organizations. For example, in some states, the agency that is dealing with public health issues is part of a human services department and health (Ingram et al., 2012). The relationship between the local health departments and state agencies vary considerably. Some state has an organizational structure that is centralised, whereby the state agencies have direct control over all services related to public health. On the other hand, other states have a decentralised structure, whereby they provide the local health department a remarkable discretion during decision-making and delivery of services. Moreover, some states have a mixed structure, in that they have both centralised and decentralised organizational structure. The local health department has a significant variation in terms of the jurisdictional responsibility and size. Some of the local health departments possess jurisdiction over a single county or city; other local health departments may be regionalised having a jurisdiction of several county blocks. The public health services are also diverse in that the services can be population-based or individualised. Those services that are population-based include screening of diseases, health promotion, environmental health services, surveillance of diseases and responses to an emergency. Personalised services include child health care, maternal care and care for patients who are not insured. In summary, the organization of U.S public health structure is in three tires that consist of federal, local and state. The federal government possess all the powers to regulate any trade, set laws that help the government to tax citizens and raise money that assist the national public health program, as well as allocating monetary resources to local government. The state possesses the police power that allows it to set and enforce public health laws for the welfare of the public. The local agency may be established at the city or county level depending on the population size that is served. The agencies may be a single health officer or several state and complex services provided by many people. The linear flow of information, policies, and funding among federal, state and local health department assist in delineating the relationship among different entities (Honoré et al., 2011). The chief public health officer leads the public health department in the federal government. The main functions include the provision of advice to the minister heading health, working with agencies and government on health matters provides health reports to various houses and stakeholders. At the local level, the public health officer has the following responsibilities handling the cause of disease, decreasing health inequalities, promoting health, enhancing social justice and safeguard community health. The local authorities always ensure that the public health services are delivered in a manner that meets most of the needs of vulnerable groups, as well as the disadvantaged in the community. The chief executive officer of state health has got the following responsibilities even though they can be different from state to state. Deals with preventive medicine by promoting preventive measures such as vaccination; collecting of relevant public health data and archiving them, issuance of licenses to healthcare professionals, obtaining all the births and death records and occasionally marriage as well as divorce certificates; deals with notifiable diseases and acts appropriately and enhance occupational safety. Some of the functions of the leaders of the public health officers are overlapping such as the preventive functions and health promotion functions. However, some functions are specific to each level, for example, advising the secretary of health on public health issues, establishing links with other stakeholders are at the federal level. Directly dealing with the public and handling their public health concern is at the local level. In essence, the different levels in public health play a significant role in promoting and enhancing health of the public. All the public officer leaders in the three levels have a unique role to play to prevent and promote health. To attain the required thresh hold of health in the public, all the leaders in the three levels must work in harmony and assist each other in the provision of the public health services. Therefore, all the stakeholders in the public health field must follow the laws that are put in the constitution regarding public health services to the latter (Dilley, Bekemeier, & Harris, 2012). Reference Dilley, J. A., Bekemeier, B., & Harris, J. R. (2012). Quality improvement interventions in public health systems: A systematic review. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Honoré, P. A., Wright, D., Berwick, D. M., Clancy, C. M., Lee, P., Nowinski, J., & Koh, H. K. (2011). Creating a framework for getting quality into the public health system. Health Affairs, 30, 737–745. Ingram, R. C., Scutchfield, F. D., Charnigo, R., & Riddell, M. C. (2012). Local public health system performance and community health outcomes. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 42, 214–220. Part B A leader in public health organization needs to possess various skills to execute his/her functions successfully in regards to the public health. Some of the required skills include: Assessing and surveillance of the public’s well-being and health; this is a significant area of practice since it is focused on qualitative and quantitative description of the general health of the population and their well being. Therefore, the public health leader shall manage, analyse, interpret and communicate information that is related to the factors of health, as well as health outcomes. In essence, the officer should be aware of the inequality that exist in the population, aware of factors that influence health and the well-being of all citizens in his jurisdiction as well as accurately represent data to stakeholders regarding the health of the community. In addition, the officer should be aware of agencies that are involved in disease surveillance and assess the population health (Coles & Porter, 2009). The leader should be able to assess the evidence of an effective intervention programmes and services that may improve the health of the population; this is critically focused in the assessing the proofs that are related to an efficient and low cost of health with related intervention programmes and practices. Moreover, the leader should use the evidence collected and put them into practice by planning, performing an audit and thorough evaluation. It is vital for the leader to understand the meaning of validating evidence, involve in carrying out specific activities that are related to improving the well-being of the population as well as developing specific indicators of performance based on the evidence obtained in research. Since, research provides an avenue for new development and improvement in public health, a leader of public health should be able to critically summarise evidence from research and formulate proper recommendations that shall lead to change on the ground of adequate critically appraised research evidence (Freedman et al., 2009). Policies and proper strategies development and implementation is an essential skill that should be possessed by the public health leader to enhance the well-being of the population health; it shall be focused on influencing significantly the development of new policies that shall aid in improving health of people. The strategies instituted should be implemented to make the policies work, and an overall assessment done to review the impact of the policies on the population health. Some of the relevant competencies needed to implement this skills include providing relevant feedback to relevant people, alerting the stakeholders when the policies have adverse effect to the public, seeking advice from other appropriate people when there is an issue with the policy and provide constructive comments on policies effects. In addition, the leader should improve communication to regional, international and national agencies within his area of jurisdiction since this will enhance to contributions and critique to the policy before it is implemented. The public health leader should possess leadership skills and qualities as well as working collaboratively with the citizens, agencies and all other stakeholders in the healthcare to improve the health and wellbeing of the citizens. This is an avenue of practice that is majorly concerned with leading and managing of groups, person, alliances and working with other agencies like media to effectively enhance health of the population. To achieve this, the public health leader should significantly contribute to teamwork by improving effective communication skill. Moreover, the leader should support individuals or groups when performing activities that improve or promote health. This can be achieved through monetary contributions or mobilization of the community. In essence, the leader should identify different opportunities and develop structures that shall propel several approaches to promote health in the population for example making a partnership with several agencies. Health improvement is the overall goal of any public health leader and this can be achieved through reducing the inequalities that exist among the population; a public health officer will achieve this if he possesses a skill of accurately delivering information regarding health issues to other stakeholders. He should listen to the views of community members about their well being and use the relevant information gathered to enhance health promotion and community development. Moreover, he should plan and review particular health aspects as well as taking the advantage of the opportunities that are available to improve the health of all people. Understanding the necessary principles of various stages in community development is a key factor in enhancing public health since it involves assessing the community needs and adequately addressing their needs with an aim of creating sustainable development of health. Health protection is another significant area in public health and it is concerned with making the environment clean, which enhance in the prevention of disease outbreaks diseases that are more so communicable. A public health officer should possess the necessary skills that shall enhance protection of health. This may include management of disease outbreaks, risk assessment and identifying threats to the population and applying the appropriate intervention measures. Therefore, the officer should inspect and monitor all the health risk as well as communicating the risk to the various stakeholders for synergistic prevention (Portela et al., 2010). Reference Coles, L., & Porter, E. (2009). Public Health Skills: A Practical Guide for Nurses and Public Health Practitioners. Public Health Skills: A Practical Guide for Nurses and Public Health Practitioners (pp. 1–285). Freedman, D. A., Bess, K. D., Tucker, H. A., Boyd, D. L., Tuchman, A. M., & Wallston, K. A. (2009). Public Health Literacy Defined. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Portela, L., Carvalho, R., Varajão, J., & Magalhães, L. (2010). A review of chief information officer’ main skills. In Communications in Computer and Information Science (Vol. 112 CCIS, pp. 387–392). Read More