Accessibility of Primary Health Care in Canada - Case Study Example

Running Head: ACCESSIBILITY OF PRIMARY HEALTH CARE (PHC) IN CANADA Accessibility of Primary Health Care (PHC) in Canada Name Institution Date Accessibility of Primary Health Care (PHC) in Canada Introduction Primary Health Care (PHC) is the initial level of contact with the health structure whereby services are gathered to promote health, avert diseases, care for general diseases and manage the current health problems. Primary Health Care goes beyond the traditional health structure and consists of all human services that are involved in dealing with the interlinked factors that have an influence on health. Primary Care involves evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of ordinary diseases basically offered by family medics and nurses. Primary Care one of the vital services offered by the primary health care system in Canada. Other vital services offered are health promotion, disease prevention, health safeguarding and home support, community therapy, pre-hospital emergency medical services management and referral. In Canada, PHC services are normally offered in the community. However, some services that are conspicuously primary care are also offered in acute care settings (Shi, 2005). In this report, the accessibility of Primary Health Care (PHC) in Canada will be analyzed. When Canadians require health care, most frequently they seek primary health care services. Trips to family physicians, consultations with medical practitioners, phone calls to healthiness information lines, and guidance gotten from pharmacists are some illustrations of primary health care services. Primary health care is answer to upholding and getting better Canadians' health, and to the quality and maintainability of the health care system. A range of Health Canada activities in addition to programs of other federal departments tackle the wide-ranging of services and activities which encompass primary health care (Barrett, 2008). The notable key component of the Canadian PHC is the responsiveness to the needs of the community. Consequently, the range and configuration of health services offered differ from one community to another. This means the system is not a one size fits all model. Likewise, there are several governance and funding models that support the PHC. The Primary Health Care system that operates in Canada avails the following services to the people (Barrett, 2008). Fundamental emergency services Referrals to/organization with other stages of care primary mental health care Sedative and end-of-life care Promotion of health Healthy child development Prevention and management of frequent illnesses and injuries Primary maternity care Rehabilitation services These services are obviously appropriate and necessary to the people and have led to significant improvement in the health system (Birch, 2007). Access to Primary Health Care has been an essential center when tackling health matters in Canada. PHC in Canada has been accelerated and this has enabled the Canadians to repeatedly get the required health care from suitable provider. Almost 50% of them access suitable health care providers anytime there is need. Basically, PHC in Canada is widespread and this makes it easy for a good number of Canadians to access the services. For instance, British Columbia has more than thousand clinicians who offer team care in PHC whereas Saskatchewan has about 35 primary care teams that covers about 23 percent of the population. Ontario has about eighty interdisciplinary teams and is adding health centers and has also established about 150 family health teams. On the other hand, Quebec has about 105femily medicine groups offering primary health care services to about 1.55 million people while New Brunswick has 10 community health centers and two collaborative practice models. Finally, Prince Edward Island has five established family health centers and Newfoundland and Labrador has eight teams in different stages of implementation (Canadian Institute for Health Information, 2006). Currently, Primary Health Care services are delivered majorly by family physicians and basic medical practitioners who focus in diagnosing and treating diseases and injuries. Consequently, there are several factors that has been hindering the whole being access of primary health care services to the Canadians and this include the comparative lack of prominence on health promotion and disease prevention, which has been associated with high rates of avertable diseases as well as lack of stability with several health care providers and institutions that regularly work in segregation from one another. The primary health care providers are also not sufficiently able to offer the services since they do not have excellent working conditions which include long hours and consequently rendering an impact in their own health and their family life. More importantly, there are problems with access, more so in rural and remote areas and also in urban centers where the deficient of after hours services regularly results in the use of emergency rooms for non critical care (Birch, 2007). The Primary Health Care provides a dual function in the Canadian health care system while availing the services. The first function is direct provision of initial contact services and these are offered by providers like family physicians, pharmacists and phone advice lines. The other is coordination function whereby PHC makes sure there is continuity and simplicity of movement across the health system. The sole purpose of this is to ensure that the Primary health Care remains integrated when Canadians need more specialized services and this in the case of specialists or within hospitals (British Columbia Ministry of Labor & Citizens' Services, 2008). In Canada, the notable feature of primary health care is a change to teams of providers who are responsible for offering all inclusive services to their customers. There is a growing accord that family doctors, nurses, and other professionals working as partners in primary health care will lead in a better health, enhanced access to services, more proficient use of resources, and better fulfillment for both patients and providers. Such teams are well placed to center of attention on health promotion and improving the managing of chronic illnesses. This team advance, together with phone advice lines, eases access to primary health care services after-hours, decreasing the need for expensive emergency room visits. Other technologies support information-sharing amongst providers and this leads Canadians into not needing to repeat their health histories or undertake the same tests for each health care professional they come across. In these ways, all features of personal care are gathered in a coordinated way. Currently, comparatively few Canadians access primary health care services in this manner. There plans within the Canadian primary health system which are to be implemented to support the PHC. These plans include the development of primary health team and bodies whose role will be offer comprehensive services to the people and this also includes coordination with other levels as well as plans to create and improve telephone advice lines in order to offer 24 first contact services. This aimed at improving accessibility since more people will be able to call anytime and get the required advice. There are plans to improve the manner in which the primary health care manages chronic illnesses. Chronic diseases are responsible for a big part of health care system costs and thus if the management is improved it will go along way in improving the way in which the care is offered. This will also go along way in reducing the cost of PHC services in Canada (Canadian Institute for Health Information, 2006). Furthermore, in order to avail these services to the people, there are plans to include voluntary participation to both the PHC providers and the patients and greater emphasis is being laid on health promotion and disease and injury prevention and thus making the delivery of the services more appropriate. Moreover, the government in Canada is focusing capacity building in assessment to ensure that the PHC system is monitored and an unequivocal focus on change management activities to support the proposed plans. There are aspects in the country’s PHC that are relevant in improving access and quality. This includes promoting rostering of patients with the PHC providers as a method of defining practice populations, increasing accountability, reducing duplication and implementation of blended, capitated and other reimbursement services that do not charge any fee (British Columbia Ministry of Labor & Citizens' Services, 2008). The increased accessibility of the PHC services within Canada has greatly contributed to better health and reduced total health care system costs. Many people in the country seek PHC services since they are affordable and thus many people are able to meet the costs are this even includes the population living in rural and remote areas. PHC services are relatively cheaper when compared to the services offered in hospital settings. The continued accessibility of primary health care in Canada has been linked to decreased social economic disparities in general mortality, infant mortality and low birth weight as well as reduced stroke mortality. There have also been reduced self reported and preventable hospitalizations. All these improvements can be attributed o the fact that people are in a position and can afford these services and consequently they are seeking PHC services and therefore tackling the some illnesses and thus reducing the overall mortality rate in both adults and infants and other disease rates as well (Barrett, 2008). Individual access to Primary Health Care is a good assessment tool of examining the efficacy of primary health care in Canada. Lack of access to the PHC services indicated a gradual rise in the number of emergency visits whereas when the people were able to access PHC services, the result was increased preventive health care and also improved glycemic control of the population that was diabetic. Moreover, the continued increased access to PHC services within Canada has led to augmented preventive care, reduced overall hospitalization and also reduced rate of people seeking emergency hospital services and emergency hospitalization. The evidence for the availability of Primary Health Care in Canada has led to positive contributions to population health and this is observational naturally and hence not essentially casual and there are negligible inconsistencies regarding specific outcomes. Nevertheless, the overall findings are strong and steady across ecological and individual- level studies, they have dose-response relationships and they are explicit to primary healthcare (British Columbia Ministry of Labor & Citizens' Services, 2008). However, the present degree of innovations being introduced into Canada's health system at the provider level is nearly unparalleled. The level, to which the reforms will effectively address the present access and quality challenges, remains indistinct. Each province in Canada is developing its own approaches to research and evaluation but there is no pan-Canadian advance to understanding which innovations are flourishing; nor is there a way to compare the impact of reform models across various provinces. Without coordinated national approach to assessing primary healthcare per se, there will be no cross-jurisdictional lessons learned which can assist in improving the deliverance of the PHC services within the country (Barrett, 2008). Recommendations I would recommend an organization of the Canadian PHC system to enable the providers to work collaboratively within equivalent settings in improving access and quality as well and optimally aligning with the requirements and needs of the population. Further research should be carried out to assess the nature of Primary Health Care practice and to assess if there is shortage or surplus of PHC providers. Actually, policy and planning of activities associated with Primary Healthcare will need more updated information which should include other health practitioners, for instance the nutritionists and social workers who wok in this sector. Conclusion Primary healthcare is connected with better population health at lesser cost and should be considered the keystone of Canada's health system. This makes more people to access the services since they are less costly and thus affordable and the resultant feature of a population seeking health services is a health population. Serious challenges facing access to care, quality of care, availability of information technologies, and attracting new trainees to offer the services effectively have become apparent. Policy initiatives to tackle these concerns include extension of after-hours office care, telehealth, new compensation models for the providers and new inter professional team models of care. Nonetheless, many people in Canada access the PHC services since they are affordable, pervasive, are evenly distributed within the country and hence accessible to many people. References Barrett, J. (2008). CHSRF Synthesis: Interprofessional Collaboration and Quality Primary Healthcare. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Health Services Research Foundation. Birch, S. (2007). Needs-Based Planning of Health Care: A Critical Appraisal of the Literature. Hamilton, ON: Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis. British Columbia Ministry of Labor and Citizens' Services, (2008). Sub Provincial Population Projects (People 28). Victoria, BC: Citizen Services. Canadian Institute for Health Information, (CIHI), (2006). Highlights from the Regulated Nursing Workforce in Canada, 2005. Ottawa: Canadian Institute for Health Information. Shi, L. (2005). "Primary Care, Race, and Mortality in the US." Social Science and Medicine 61: 65-75. Read More