Improving Rural Healthcare Through Technology - Essay Sample

Introduction

The purpose of the proposed change is to improve the services provided by health care facilities in rural areas. The proposal intends to achieve this by employing novel solutions that will exploit the capabilities of information technology and computers. The strategy is to take advantage of technology in the provision of timely and prompt medical intervention, offer effective healthcare, and reduce the inconveniences caused to practitioners and patients in regards to poor logistics. The proposed framework is exceptionally compelling and a tool that can be effective in enhancing the contemporary health practices through restorative treatment and reduction of operational costs. Also, health care facilities provide education by teaching the community on aspects such as prevention of communicable diseases, hygiene, and sanitation. Health education and awareness of the general population are important in the successful implementation of the proposed change.

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Stakeholders

The participants identified for the proposed change are patients, staff, and directors of the various primary health facilities across rural regions within the nation. The survival and success of the proposed change will practically reflect the capacity of the identified stakeholders to deal with future situations. The directors of the facilities will momentarily be confronted with the complex task of implementing the program. The execution of the strategy will assist other stakeholders in utilizing appropriate measures that will improve the health outcomes of a community. Each stakeholder plays distinct roles in the implementation. The participation of the patients or community as the recipient of healthcare raises awareness and promotes illness prevention. The proactive strategy towards the community will involve education on how to work with the new technology. Implementing a user-friendly interface will overall promote this. On the other hand, staff will also require education and training in regards to technology and its use in improving healthcare outcome. The objective is to advocate for flexibility among practitioners and improved cost benefits.

Social Determinants Affecting Health in The Community

The social determinants of health are the circumstances in the society upon which individuals are born, raised, live, work, and age plus the systems in place to deal with their health issues. A more extensive set of forces also shapes these circumstances such as politics, social policies, or the economy. Relative to this proposal, income-level, educational achievements, and health literacy will be considered as the aspects that impact the ability of individuals to access health services and related elements that can help them maintain a healthy lifestyle. Rural residents are more likely to face either of the challenges compounded by barriers already surrounding the place. Typically, rural regions are subjected to widespread inequality compared to urbanized regions and often suffer a lack of personal resources such as transportation. Averagely, people living in rural places are poorer and less educated than their urban counterparts. Income levels contribute to whether a person will be able to pay for prescription drugs, health insurance coverage, or means of transportation to a health facility. Healthcare access is in itself, a social determinant for rural residents. Living in a rural community with inadequate health provisions is a barrier to achieving good health. The burden might extend to accessing particular health service as mental, dental, or sexual. Also, there is a barrier in regards to the time availability of a particular health service. Lastly, hazardous materials usually get dumped in rural places where land is cheaper further increasing the health risks of residents. This, among other factors overall contributing to the increased interest in the social determinant of the quality of health in rural places.

Windshield Survey and Environmental Analysis Findings

The government, through both private and public agencies endeavors to provide quality healthcare to communities in rural places through various primary health facilities. Despite the significant funding by the government, primary health centers in rural areas are still unsuccessful because of various reasons such as lack of technology and decent equipment for performing health tasks. A more crucial reality is that rural places lack enough qualified doctors and nurses to serve the entire population. Attempts to offer financial incentives for doctors to work in rural regions have equally been unsuccessful. Consequently, there is no better approach to increase the willingness of doctors and nurses to practice in rural areas and their reluctance to travel, leave alone live in, remote places will remain for a long time. That said, the proposal has incorporated these realities into the planning from its inception. Consequently, the plan seeks to increase the effectiveness of practitioners willing to work in rural places. This is possible through making work at primary health facilities in rural places more satisfying.

Positive Aspects of Rural Health Population

In the past years, there have been renewed interests in the characterization of public health. Researchers have established a difference between urban and rural public health often described in the form of costs, distributions of practitioners, access to healthcare, and utilization of services. More recently, in the examination of the dissimilarities, research has directed its attention on population and environmental health by focusing on factors that can lead to the difference in health outcomes of the rural and urban population. The rapid urbanization in the recent century brought changes in the political, economic, and social forces. Consequently, the health of the urban population has been affected by the evolution of city life. As more people keep living in cities, it is imperative to understand the effect of urban population on health. In the assessment of the health of the urban population, it has been compared side by side to that of rural places in social, physical, access to healthcare context. Research has established that despite negative health behaviors in rural places, many elements of the social life of people living in these places contribute to positive health outcomes CITATION Bur13 \l 1033 (Burton, Lichter, Baker, & Eason, 2013). These are aspects of their lifestyle, such as shared experiences, quality of life, dense social networks, reciprocity, and norms of self-help. Lastly, in terms of environment, it is less likely to have problems related to poor air quality and crime rates in rural places. Insufficiency of the built environment makes residents sedentary hence less likely to report health issues such as accidents related to sidewalks and streetlights. Addressing the health requirements of remote places should build upon the mentioned positive aspects of the places.

Opportunities for Improvement

As earlier mentioned, good health is determined with how easy it is to access healthcare services. Perhaps the reason why Ciccone, et al. (2010) emphasizes that health is about what goes on at the practitioner's office. While this is the case, rural residents face several access barriers, particularly the appropriate use of personal services to attain good health outcomes. Ideally, residents need to confidently and conveniently access services such as primary care. Access to such care is essential for the general well-being of the physical, social, and mental health status of people. For sufficient access to the necessary healthcare services, it must be available and can be obtained promptly.

That said, this proposal envisions primary health centers at first in terms of functionality in the healthcare system. At their level, the primary health facilities have two crucial roles. In the first place is that they are the first place for diagnosis of sickness through simple lab tests or assessment of symptoms then treatment or referrals. Second is that they can be centers of health education on healthy living, better hygiene, sanitation, sexual health to prevent communicable diseases, or family planning. Consequently, the centers can be instrumental in achieving the desired change.

Outline of the Proposed Change

To achieve its purpose, the capabilities of information technology and computers will be used by the proposal. The goal is to exploit technology in the provision of quick and timely medical intervention, offer effective healthcare, and reduce inconveniences caused to doctors and patients. The proposed tool is a software that can help in early detection of health issues and subsequent treatment or prevention of future occurrences. It is possible to achieve this through screening patients and pointing out those who will require quick intervention by qualified personnel while recommending other necessary treatment for other identified sickness. The software will work with the complaints offered by a patient, their medical history, and results from lab tests to give a possible diagnosis. It should be apparent that the software offers a probable diagnosis but not a confirmatory one. Consequently, it should serve as the initial line of intervention upon which after the provision of probable diagnosis, a patient will go to the next step of meeting a specialist. Minor maladies can be treated at this level per the instructions offered by the software. This can save time and liberate the few available doctors to deal with more urgent problems.

Benefits of the Change to Community and Stakeholders

The proposed health care system changes entail improving care coordination by focusing on patients with various diseases at a low cost. According to Manyazewal, Oosthuizen, and Matlakala (2016), the goal of enhancing health care services is to improve operational settings and strengthen the way healthcare is delivered. The main benefit of the change is that it will ensure there are commitment and high-level support from the management and better utilization of financial resources that will improve the management structure of a healthcare setting in the community. The goal of the change in the community is to improve health care outcomes and enhance people's living condition. From the zoning and housing structure, most of the buildings are incredibly modern, and they do not indicate public health harms. Through the change of the public healthcare system, the community will also have access to care, which is a vital public health factor. Park Nicollet, as well as St. Francis health services, which are the principal health providers in the community, will offer a whole range of emergency, outpatient as well as inpatient care.

Challenges and Concerns

According to Morley & Cashell (2017), any change in a health care organization will face potential barriers in an organization due to various factors within the internal working environment. The change will face potential barriers in the community as healthcare workers and personnel will be reluctant to accept the new approach as it will hinder their daily activities and tasks. A change will require a new approach in health care finance models and policy frameworks, transitioning to these improvements will affect patient outcomes. Implementing the changes can fail if the healthcare personnel are not willing to accept the new approach of improving the condition of the patients in a community. Based on the change theory, employees can be motivated to embrace the changes by offering those added benefits and remuneration. Therefore, the change theory will ensure that healthcare practitioners are willing to implement...