Essay Sample on Health Care and Health Care Promotion

It is important to note that the way health professionals and patients view healthcare is different. Therefore, as much as healthcare professionals usually feel bad that they have repeatedly told a patient to do the right thing, they should consider the two principles stated by Sandra Thomas (Friberg, 2019). Essentially, no one willingly makes the wrong decision, and that symptom only does not have a meaning to an individual unless it impacts his or her life (Friberg, 2019). Employing more health professionals do not promote better health care to individuals; instead, redesigning, improving quality, enhancing behavioral issues, using current technology, hiring trained personnel, and appropriate medication plays a major role.

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One way of promoting better health care to individuals is through redesigning (Bell et al., 2006). According to Bell et al. (2006), it was initially believed that increased health care demand might only be resolved through increasing capacity. However, other industries have been able to understand capacity and demand in providing increase productivity as they increase quality (Bell et al., 2006). Thus, better healthcare can be promoted by focusing on the needs of the clients and using a rigorous method to reengineering a systematic business process (Bell et al., 2006). Although improvement approaches in most hospitals are the same, things such as emphasis, approach, and drivers differ. In health care, the major dimensions of quality include safety in which there is no needless disease or death, effectiveness in which there is no needless pain, and efficiency as in no waster. Others are equity where there is no inequality experienced in service delivery, timelessness, no unwanted delays, and patient-centeredness in which there is no feeling of helplessness (Bell et al., 2006). Therefore, redesigning in terms of reliability and quality is essential in promoting better health care services to individuals.

The promotion of health care services is changing in hospitals. In the past, it was majorly restricted in the provision of more lifestyle linked information to the patients after completion of clinical procedures (World Health Organization, 2006). However, currently, health promotion has turned to be part of the health care process, and it is associated with organizational, clinical, behavioral, and educational issues. In improving the quality of patients’ care with long-term or chronic diseases, health care promotion activities should be well embedded in a large health system framework. Quality is essential, and the tools that can be used in improving quality include focusing on performance indicators, professional consent standards, and guidelines (World Health Organization, 2006). Therefore, self-assessment tool can be utilized in promoting health care in addressing issues such as a policy of health management, a patient assessment regarding health needs and risk factors, promoting a healthy workplace, and cooperation and continuity of hospital including other informal, social, and health care providers (World Health Organization, 2006).

Another essential way of promoting health care to better individuals is to modify health behaviors and attitudes (Friberg, 2019). Empirical evidence indicates that having a healthy lifestyle may reduce the mortality rate of different diseases, including HIV/AIDs, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and obesity (Friberg, 2019). In terms of behavioral, some of the things that should be considered include adhering to healthful habits such as taking moderate exercise severally weekly, proper weight for the correct height, adequate sleep, using moderate alcohol, and not smoking, getting the correct ways of managing anger, and problem-solving skills (Friberg, 2019). Psychological characteristics and attitudes linked with wellness that should be considered to better health care services to individuals include having a sense of humor, internal locus, healthy self-concept, high health value, a sense of purpose and meaning, spirituality, and optimistic disposition (Friberg, 2019). Apart from psychological and behavioral factors, environmental factors, which affect wellness, include cultural milieu, environmental hazards, stress, and social support (Friberg, 2019). Furthermore, healthy people initiative plays a role in guiding health policy, although it is supposed to be conducted at a community level by having strong partnerships with the public provider.

Technology can also be used to promote better health care for individuals. The main reason is that a lot of information is usually generated from care delivery (Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform, 2011). Furthermore, medical record entails patient’s demography, including sex and age, procedures, diagnoses, provided treatment, imaging results, diagnostic test, provider referrals, and medication use. They are stored in computer systems (Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform, 2011). The different technologies that can be employed in improving health care services include Electronic Health Records, Telehealth/Telemedicine, remote monitoring tools, wearable technology, and genome sequencing. Hence, it means that if Information Technology in health care is well implemented and efficiently used, then it can highly result in improved patients care.

Apart from promoting better health care to individuals, there are different ways in which medical facilities can better promote health services, including having trained personnel, quality eye care, equipment, using efficient instruments, appropriate medications, and newer technologies (Rao, 2002). Well trained personal is important for any medical facility as they provide a desirable outcome. On the other hand, not having sufficient personnel and a lack of training facilities in hospitals for the available personal are considered major problems. Medical facilities should cease recruiting poorly trained or untrained individuals (Rao, 2002). Also, the medical facilities need to increase their training programs and improve the ones that are available, having a uniform curriculum for all medical institutions will play a major role in having standardization. Well trained personnel in medical facilities might also play a major role in ensuring that the hospital achieves its set goals and objectives. The well-trained staff can also be motivated to keep them loyal to the organization and even retain them there for a longer period.

According to Rao (2002), it is important to have the necessary equipment in medical facilities to enhance better health care services. A medical facility should have all the required medical equipment, which is also well maintained (Rao, 2002). Equipment plays a role in contributing to the best results in a medical facility as it plays a role in monitoring, treatment, and diagnosis. The equipment should be of the required and acceptable standards. Lastly, the equipment should be accompanied with the required maintenance systems (Rao, 2002). The equipment should maintain safety standards in enhancing the patients' safety. If the tools are not there, then a medical facility can be pulled down and even results in many individuals' deaths. Therefore, appropriate and quality equipment should be used to guarantee reliability and functionality.

Proper instruments and the provision of appropriate medications play a role in bettering health care services in medical facilities (Rao, 2002). Access to affordable medicines is necessary for medical facilities to offer appropriate care (Rao, 2002). If medicines are highly expensive, it means that only a few individuals can afford them, making it difficult for the middle and lower classes to afford to mean they will not be able to get quality medication. Quality instruments improve better results for medical facilities as the patients can easily get the services they require.

Medical facilities can better promote health care to individuals by adopting the right and new technology, which can provide a better and faster care experience for individuals (Dillman, 2020). Using the right technology can reduce the time by making it faster for a clinician to get the record of a patient (Dillman, 2020). If the patients wait for long, then they may resolve to go to other medical facilities. Furthermore, it is usually hard for individuals who have not walked in the doctors' shoes and nurses to understand their needs (Dillman, 2020). Therefore, IT professionals in medical facilities should enhance processes and patient flow to make the health care business profitable. IT also plays an essential role in simplifying, consolidating, and cutting healthcare costs in medical facilities through virtualization (Dillman, 2020). Medical facilities can also prioritize analytics in improving operations and reducing errors. It is very difficult for most medical facilities to manage the things that they do not measure. IT systems help in reducing the amount of money spent on reordering the right medication (Dillman, 2020). Thus, the IT systems play a role in making medical facilities to avoid the mistakes they might encounter that can result in high-cost fixes.

In conclusion, it is important for healthcare professionals and medical facilities to promote better health care to individuals. For instance, they can do this by changing their behavior and attitudes towards the patient and making them know how to do the right thing and even remind them. Also, other ways in which they can do this is by redesigning and using technology. Redesigning makes health care professionals provide quality services. For the medical facilities, they can use the current technologies and equipment to reduce time spent in enhancing productivity. Furthermore, they can employ well-trained personnel to provide quality services to hospitals.

References

Bell, D., McNaney, N., & Jones, M. (2006). Improving health care through a redesign. BMJ, 332:1286. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.332.7553.1286

Dillman, D. (2020, April 2). How Hospitals Can Leverage IT to Improve Healthcare Business Outcomes. https://www.himss.org/resources/how-hospitals-can-leverage-it-improve-healthcare-business-outcomes.

Friberg, E. E. (2019). Conceptual Foundations The Bridge to Professional Nursing Practice (7th ed.). Mosby.

Rao, G. N. (2002). How can we improve patient care? Community eye health, 15(41), 1–3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1705904/

World Health Organization. (2006). Implementing health promotion in hospitals: Manual and self-assessment forms. Copenhagen, Denmark.