Improving health is in the best interest of everyone, including non health professionals. Health mangers need to be constantly looking for ways to improve access to health, the quality of the care, and cost containment. Often the biggest barriers to accessing healthcare are cost and location. Lower income individuals just do not have the resources to have optimal healthcare, or cannot take the time away from employment to deal with health issues. One potential solution to help with these problems could be “telehealth.” Telehealth allows a lower level healthcare practitioner to communicate with a physician or specialists when necessary. Remote rural areas use a Physician Assistant or a Nurse Practitioner on location in remote areas. When procedures call for a physician, an internet or satellite link provides a teleconference with a physician who can prescribe appropriate treatment (Gangon, Duplantie, Fortin & Landry 2006). This could be implemented in lower income urban areas, allowing free clinics to lower costs, and require fewer physicians. Programs that increase the level of healthcare available to school children could be increased. Small clinics could be incorporated into schools, and provide basic care to the students. Schools are known to be places the diseases are spread. Such a program could slow or stop some transmission. Children also spend more time in school than at home, allowing children to seek care and not be required to miss school, or parents to miss employment. This program would also provide more equal care among different income groups (Allison, et. al, 2007). There could be the potential for the secondary effect of children being educated on health, including nutrition, and sexually transmitted... ... middle of paper ... ...in, J.P., Landry, R.., (2006) Implementing telehealth to support medical practice in rural/remote regions: what are the conditions for success? Implement Sci. 2006 Aug 24;1:18. Persoon, T.J., Zaleski, S., & Frerichs, J., (2006) Improving preanalytic processes using the principles of lean production (Toyota Production System). Am J Clin Pathol. 2006 Jan;125(1):16-25. Pincus, T., Esther, R., DeWalt, D.A., & Callahan, L.F., (1998) Social conditions and self-management are more powerful determinants of health than access to care. Ann Intern Med. 1998 Sep 1;129(5):406-11. Vest, J.R., & Gamm, L.D., (2009) A critical review of the research literature on Six Sigma, Lean and StuderGroup's Hardwiring Excellence in the United States: the need to demonstrate and communicate the effectiveness of transformation strategies in healthcare. Implement Sci. 2009 Jul 1;4:35.
...an, P., Egerter, S., & Williams, D. R. (2011). The social determinants of health: coming
Among the main aims of health care reform and improvement is expanding healthcare access to different populations, which have been subjects to underserving for a long period. These include the poor, the previously uncovered, rural societies, and the minorities, to mention just a few. Great challenges definitely lie ahead, since several individuals start seeking access to the primary healthcare clinicians (Arnaert & Delesie, 2001). Telenursing assures to be a crucial tool to meet such needs. It refers to making use of the telehealth technology in conducting nursing practice and delivering nursing care. Because of the quick telemedicine technology adoption within the healthcare institutions, telenursing emerges as a fresh tool that provokes discussions
Wilkinson, R. G., & Marmot, M. G. (2003). Social determinants of health: The solid facts.
Describe the contribution of key performance improvement theories; i.e., i.e., Lean Six Sigma, TQM, etc. to the performance improvement process, and discuss how they may impact improvement in today’s healthcare institutions.
In order to reduce this inequalities eHealth has been proposed as an approach with the potential to deliver healthcare to all populations (7–10). However as shown by Oh et al. 2005 (11) there is not a single definition, throughout this essay eHealth will be defined as Gustafson & Wyatt, 2005 propose “use of the internet or other electronic media to disseminate health related information or services” (12). In my view eHealth has the capacity to increase healthcare provision, however it is not the panacea that some have described as it has several limitations.
Telemedicine can make specialty care more accessible to rural and medically underserved communities and can easily connect providers a...
The United States is going through a huge shortage of physicians, which is composing a very severe supply and demand problem in this country. Citizens living in rural areas should be able to receive the same amount of quality care as those living in urban areas. The shortage of physicians in rural America calls for immediate attention and change because the shortage is affecting the quality of patient care. The life expectancy of people living in these areas is declining due to treatable conditions like diabetes, cancer, heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Thankfully, these conditions can be managed with proper medical treatment. Many people living in rural America have poor access to medical care. Approximately twenty percent of the population live in rural areas, which is twenty percent not getting adequate healthcare. Healthcare is in catastrophe in many different countries. There are many providers that are unable to provide medical care to an increasing number of chronically ill and the aging population. There are numerous amounts of systemic failures, none are more difficult to fix than the usual basic lack of human resources. There are not enough physicians to service the needs of the entire population. Many physicians get into the more specialized fields. The issue is deepened in rural areas, where specialized physicians are not found within several hundred miles. This healthcare system need to figure out how to do more with less and stretch a limited amount of resources to work more efficiently. There are many programs that are created to recruit and retain physicians in rural communities. Physician shortages continue to threaten the healthcare delivery in rural areas. This area will be hit the hard...
The unit I worked at, we are very familiar with telemedicine (telehealth) especially in the weekends/holidays when we don’t have providers on site available to assess and evaluate patients who need their expertise. After patients are evaluated and admitted to our floor, they describe their experience about telemedicine as convenient, minimal waiting time, and getting an instant medical answer. Whereas the disadvantages of using telemedicine are a power outage, slow internet connection, loss of privacy and confidentiality, no consultation, and even no stable patient-nurse relationship. According to WHO, despite those barriers, telemedicine has the potential to decrease emergency room visits and hospitalizations, promote quality care for patients
Picture yourself walking into your local mechanic’s auto repair shop. As you approach it, you see tires in random places, there’s muffler hanging awkwardly on a shelf next to a car battery and you can’t distinguish between costumers and mechanics besides the fact that the person with oil spots on his clothes make for a clear give away. What’s your general impression? Do you think you feel comfortable leaving your car with this shop? I know I wouldn’t. My name is Art Garcia, today I will be telling you about the Five S step process of Lean manufacturing and how it can be applied to everything from organizations such as this local business or military unit or office.
The Social Determinants of Health would negatively affect Mr. Jones’ ability to self-manage his chronic disease. The Healthy people 2020 initiative lists the main social determinants of health as economic stability, education, social and community context, health and health care, and neighborhood and built environment.
The first is telemedicine, which is defined as “the delivery of medical care independent of time and location.” Telemedicine has the potential to improve quality and access to care while decreasing costs. Cusack et al describe the potential for telemedicine to positively impact the ongoing problems in the healthcare system, including ever-increasing costs and “dysfunctional reimbursement policies.” Remote monitoring has the potential to reduce costs related to the sickest, most economically draining patients by improving continuity of care and providing improved opportunities for early intervention.
Increasingly, existing rural medical facilities are utilising telemedicine to treat patients where less people are employed. Telemedicine is the application of technology to treat and diagnose patients within a remote or rural background (Gregory, 2013). Telemedicine is proving to be a well-regarded use of medical technology where adequate care is provided for patients (Harvey, Yeager, Cramer, Wheeler, & McSwain, 2017). Although this is a positive regarding telemedicine, there are certain limitations within the rural setting, making healthcare access difficult in
Individuals that have a good source of care have good health outcomes, lower cost, and fewer disparities. When having a primary care provider who provides you with care is very important. Primary care providers establish a meaningful relationship with all patients and provide them with great service. Developing healthcare services consist of increasing access to preventing illness by promoting healthy behaviors in people’s diet and exercise. It also helps with providing protection to those individuals that may be at risk with vaccinations, and can also help identify and treats people with no symptoms but do have risk factors before all illness
Software exists for processing these often complex formulas to help managers formulate and integrate a plan for performance improvement. nMetric (2012) is a supporting software manufacturer that supports multiple manufacturing and quality improvement programs. Through explaining their product’s capabilities and how their product can be implemented, nMetric identifies the process improvements of Lean Thinking, The Theory of Constraints, Six Sigma, and Total Quality Management, and how they can support them in their company’s propaganda. The article goes on to briefly explain each process improvement and how nMetric can interface and integrate with each. Though each improvement methodology has been explained previously in this review, it is of interest to discover how new improvement software like nMetric can be utilized to be of assistance in today’s process improvement issues. In Lean Thinking (Manufacturing), nMetric assists in value stream mapping by tracking and virtually replicating specific boundaries of production scheduling and the production environment. For Six Sigma and Total Quality Management that uses statistical data to analyze the effectiveness, efficiency, repeatability and accuracy of workflow and processes, nMetric touts their ability, through integrated real-time charting, to allow
In a time where insurance costs are keeping patients from seeking care, or those that are receiving care are on federally subsidized plans, the healthcare industry has felt the pressure to implement money saving strategies, yet many are not confident in a proper approach. Six Sigma is the solution that allows this industry to reduce defects, which in effect does save money, while increasing