Prevention of Chronic Disease and Improving Public Health - Essay Example

?Running head: Prevention of Chronic Disease Prevention of Chronic Disease and Improving Public Health Number: of Name of Institution: Name of Instructor: 9 July 2013 Modernizing Disease Prevention and Public Health Systems The U.S. health system is a cooperative effort of both the private and public sectors, but it is called cooperative only in the sense that both sectors have the general public or the U.S. citizens as their clients. What is not cooperative and worthy is how they have been doing it and what should be done about the U.S. healthcare system. The emergence of new diseases and continuous growth of the population have triggered the need to modernize disease prevention and public health systems. In the past, the clamor for a National Health Insurance was the outcry of many administrations – in the U.S. and many countries in Europe. Recently however, the Obama administration has pushed for the full implementation of its once a campaign platform but now has become a law, the Affordable Care Act or what is popularly known as the ObamaCare. The aim of this law is to implement within the next ten years an Information System for the healthcare sector and to invest $10 billion annually for the many programs about health insurance and address the problems and challenges of healthcare. Modernizing disease prevention and public health systems is a question of policies and political will. If there is political will, all things are possible under the sun. But what should be modernized? The Medicare and the Medicaid are two healthcare programs that insure U.S. citizens but the system is already rotten and needs to be reprogrammed to address healthcare problems of the people. Medicare was designed to provide healthcare insurance to seniors and the disabled. It was run by the government to focus on reimbursing healthcare expenses and financed by federal taxes but also shared by payroll tax from employers and their workers, to include individual enrollees. Medicare covers hospitalization expenses, physician fees, and expenses for drugs. Medicare Gaps The Medicare program has many gaps which need review and so-called modernization. For example, insurance lacks nursing services, inadequate preventive care insurance, and no insurance for dental, loss of hearing, or vision. Since there is lack of insurance, some enrollees resort to supplemental insurance and so more expenses for the citizens. This gap needs to be reviewed and covered by the ObamaCare, or the Affordable Care Act launched by the present administration. The Medicaid is a government insurance program for the poor and the disabled. It is also the program for poor pregnant women, children, seniors, disabled, and poor parents. Although it’s a federal program, states are given the leeway to improve the coverage and eligibility options. (Chua, 2006, p. 2) Incentives for Prevention of Chronic Diseases Stakeholders in disease prevention should be provided with government incentives. Again this is a question of policies. Policy makers should be able to determine the areas where care is most needed, know the various stakeholders and identify their motivational factors where they could be effective in disease prevention, and develop systems in accessing the incentives. (Singh as cited in Committee on Living Well with Chronic Disease: Public Action to Reduce Disability and Improve Functioning and Quality of Life, Institute of Medicine, 2011, p. 240) Modernizing Disease Prevention and Public Health Systems Problems in healthcare require new ways of detection and prevention of illness. Aids and other virus-triggered diseases are considered new diseases that require new techniques and methods. A. Clinical and Community Preventive Services When there is improved collaboration among health professionals and the community, there is increased reduction in health disparities, deaths and morbidity. Public and private sectors should focus more on the 65-years-and-older sector as this is growing. This is composed of Baby Boomers who had just crossed the 65-year line in 2011 and will provide challenges to the nation’s health care system (Ogden, 2012, p. 419). Clinical services for prevention of diseases involve vaccination and information materials or campaign to inform the public about certain diseases. On the other hand, the U.S. Preventive Services: Task Force makes recommendation and counseling for the prevention of household accidents like falls and household injuries. Falls threaten injury for older adults. According to surveys, 30-49% of adults living in communities fall at least once every year. So far, the task force has focused on specific clinical preventive services and recommended the benefits of exercise and also provided assessment. Physical exercise and vitamin D prescription for adults 65 years and above were recommended to prevent accidents and falls. The task force recommended that effective exercise and physical therapy should include group discussion with a physical therapist or physician, or at-home physiotherapy strategies which should vary in length of time from 9 hours to as high as 75 hours. Vitamin D recommendation supports 600 IU for adults aged 51 to 70 years and 800 IU for adults aged more than 70 years. The task force found that age is related with falls and counseling for regular exercises was one way of dealing with falls. (Moyer, 2012, p. 197) B. Increasing Access to Clinical Preventive Services The Public Heart Service Act provides that no additional cost, like cost-sharing requirements, to insurers for immunizations that were recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Citizens should have increased access to clinical preventive care to the children, infants, and youth, also called evidence-informed preventive care. This also applies to preventive care for women on their quest for breast cancer screening, mammography, and other preventive services. Removal of Barriers to Preventive Services in Medicare A. Evidence-based coverage of preventive services in Medicare Medicare coverage should be in line with the recommendations of the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a government agency that looks after scientific evidence for disease prevention, before any health reform is made. An analysis was made by the task force on 2 kinds of preventive care, covering preventive coordination and the preventive service. The recommendations and the Medicare coverage should agree on this point. (Lesser et al., 2011) B. Improving access to preventive services for eligible adults in Medicaid The Medicaid insurance, under State option, which includes diagnostic, screening, preventive and rehabilitation services will have improved options to include: 1.) “any clinical preventive service recommended with a grade of A or B by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force;” 2.) immunizations recommended by the agency known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP); and 3.) any recommendation by a physician or health professional for medical or remedial services, for healing and for reduction of physical or mental disability. (Hart Health Strategies, n.d.) Incentives for prevention of chronic diseases A. Creating Healthier Communities Creating a healthier community can be easy and challenging if the people within the community gather their strength to achieve a common goal. A great example is New Orleans, a city that suffered one natural calamity after another, such as Hurricane Katrina which covered 80 percent of it with water, causing the death of about a thousand people and turning homes and city landmarks into devastation. The city is also a place of poor inhabitants, obese people and criminality. But New Orleans is rising up from the rubbles. With the help of different sectors and the government’s “Fit NOLA”, the city is envisioning as one of America’s 10 healthiest come year 2018 when it celebrates its tricentennial. With this program, the city was recently hailed as one of six U.S. cities to win the Roadmaps to Health, a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). This means that any place can be a healthy community if people join efforts to fight the forces of negativity and illness. (Pomerance, 2013) B. Healthy Aging and Living Well With the advancement of science and discovery of new medicine, lives are extended and many have claimed that they are healthier and have longer lives. This is known as the demographic shift. In advanced countries, private and public sectors are cooperating to provide the necessary healthcare to their aging populations. There are lower birth rates, longer lives, and the baby boomers are still active and participating in human activities. Healthy aging means being able to cope with major changes in life, passing through difficult stages through ages 60 and above, and finding new ways to enjoy and inspire life. Aging has many challenges for people and communities where they live. There is the biomedical challenge which asks for new ways of becoming young and how to delay aging. There is also the epidemiologic challenge which is to continuously identify the causes of chronic conditions related with aging and increase the chances of disability. The sociological challenge asks the researcher to understand people experience the effects of old age differently with others. (Albert & Freedman, 2010, p. xiv) Conclusion This essay mostly covered the provisions and proposal of the Affordable Care Act, or the Obama Care, but also on other related laws promoting and providing healthcare for American citizens. It was point out in the above paragraphs that a collaboration of both the private and public sectors produce results. But this is what happened to the U.S. healthcare system which was a decaying law before the passage of the ObamaCare. Whatever will be the outcome of the implementation of this law will all depend on the American people – their full cooperation and understanding of the law is required. Laws cannot be effective and will not produce positive outcomes if the people do not put their heart on it. This is especially true with the ACA which is about health of individual citizens and health of the United States of America. References Albert, S. & Freedman, V. (2010). Public health and aging: Maximizing function and well-being. New York: Springer Publishing Company. Chua, K. (2006). Overview of the U.S. Health care system. Retrieved 8 July 2013 from http://www.amsa.org/AMSA/Libraries/Committee_Docs/HealthCareSystemOverview.sflb.ashx Committee on Living Well with Chronic Disease: Public Action to Reduce Disability and Improve Functioning and Quality of Life, Institute of Medicine. (2011). Living well with chronic illness: A call for public health action. Washington D.C.: National Academies Press. Hart Health Strategies: PPACA: A closer look. (n.d.). Retrieved 9 July 2013 from http://primaryimmune.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/H06-ImprovingAccesstoPreventiveServicesforEligibleAdultsinMedicaid.pdf Lesser, L., Krist, A., Kamerow, D., & Bazemore, A. (2011). Comparison between US Preventive Services Task Force recommendations and Medicare coverage. Retrieved 9 July 2013 from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/736208 Ogden, L. (2012). Clinical preventive services for older adults: The interface between personal health care and public health services. American Journal of Public Health, 102(3), 419-425. Retrieved 9 July 2013 from http://web.ebscohost.com.proxymu.wrlc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=d0e056e6-2924-460c-bdbc-6c1eee859dc9%40sessionmgr198&vid=1&hid=128 Moyer, V. (2012). Prevention of falls in community-dwelling older adults: U.S. preventive services task force recommendation statement. Ann Intern Med, 157(3), 197-204. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.proxymu.wrlc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=d157ac10-6608-4276-ad95-c3c9dfc30c0e%40sessionmgr111&vid=1&hid=128 Pomerance, R. (2013). Creating healthier communities: Who’s doing it, and how? Retrieved 8 July 2013 from http://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2013/03/14/creating-healthier-communities-whos-doing-it-and-how Read More