Hcad498 Week 1 Role of Hospitals: Allina Health
Role of Hospitals
- “What factors affect a patient’s ability to navigate and access the healthcare system? In this case specifically, what prevented patients from receiving preventative care? Why is literacy important, and how is it connected to health literacy?”
Factors that affect a patient’s capacity to access health care include financial barriers, geographical and environmental factors, infrastructure factors, race and ethnic factors, language barriers, working age factors and socioeconomic barriers. In this case, literacy factors, such as limited English proficiency, were observed to affect the patient’s ability to receive healthcare. Allina Health noted that when education materials were not available in a language that patients understood or were difficult to understand, screening rates decreased.
Strong literacy skills are important because they help patients understand and use health services and information. However, a report by the CDC indicates that a majority of Americans have reported that health services and information need to be more technical or complicated (Rubin & CtC, 2016). Literacy is important in health because when patients do not understand health information, their health condition is more likely to get worse.
- “How can health professionals detect these issues? What types of data should be collected and analyzed regularly to ensure that patient’s needs are noticed?”
Health practitioners can detect a patient’s inability to access the healthcare through patient interviews, data collection, and awareness of social factors that affect healthcare. Patient interviews are used to collect data that hinder the patient’s access to healthcare, such as transportation, language barrier, and financial limitations, among others. The most common way of determining whether access to healthcare has been realized among patients is by looking at the frequency of visits to a healthcare provider.
In a clinical setting, data should be collected during admission and throughout ongoing patient care. During patient admission and registration, data on ethnicity, race, geographical location, and language needs is usually collected. Consequently, clinical data is mostly collected during patient care or as a part of a clinical trial program. The data includes diagnosis and treatment data, laboratory tests, patient insurance, and hospitalization data. Collection and analysis of such data are important in helping doctors predict the patient’s medical treatments and interventions.
- “How did this hospital choose to handle their situation? What were other possible solutions?”
To address this challenge, Allina Health adopted a few solutions. First, they revised their educational materials on colorectal cancer screenings to address cultural, literacy and language barriers. Secondly, community health workers versed in multiple languages were used to bridge the communication gap with patients. These professionals were recruited to follow up with patients experiencing language, cultural and literacy barriers. Finally, Allina Health collaborated with community groups and allotted a budget of $30 million as an investment in community health for three years.
Other solutions that would be possible in this case would be the use of visual aids such as pictures, tables, and illustrations to deliver information to the patients. Additionally, interpreters can be used to provide accurate information to the patient and the clinicians that can be used to tailor a healthcare plan well-suited for the patient.
- “Why is continuous monitoring important?”
Continuous monitoring is crucial in healthcare because it helps health professionals identify rapid changes in the condition of the patient. Patterns in the data collected are indicative of whether the patient is getting better, or there is a need for intervention.
Additionally, continuous monitoring helps in tracking the patient’s vital data, such as heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and other physiological parameters. This data is important in remote monitoring of a patient’s health and early detection of abnormalities in the patient’s health. Continuous monitoring is also important in minimizing the rates of in-hospital mortality resulting from unexpected health deterioration and delayed or sub-optimal health intervention in patients (Brown et al., 2014). Overall, continuous monitoring helps in risk assessment, efficiency in treatment, early detection and data-driven decision-making.
References
Brown, H., Terrence, J., Vasquez, P., Bates, D. W., & Zimlichman, E. (2014). Continuous monitoring in an inpatient medical-surgical unit: a controlled clinical trial. The American journal of medicine, 127(3), 226-232. http://www.patientsafetyresearch.org/articlesmay2014/ajm_cont_monitoring.pdf
Rubin, D., & CtC, T. (2016). A health literacy report: Analysis of 2016 BRFSS health literacy data. Office of the Associate Director for Communication Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/healthliteracy/pdf/Report-on-2016-BRFSS-Health-Literacy-Data-For-Web.pdf
ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE
Instructions
Role of Hospitals: Allina Health
As Health Professionals, it is our job to problem solve and break down the barriers to access for our patients. Ensuring equity to care is a number one priority.
Read the following case study: Role of Hospitals: Allina Health and then in an APA formatted paper that is 1-2 pages long (not including title and Reference page) answer the following questions. You should include 3-5 outside references to support your ideas.
|
1.) What factors affect a patient’s ability to navigate and access the healthcare system? In this case specifically, what prevented patients from receiving preventative care? Why is literacy important and how is it connected to health literacy?
2.) How can health professionals detect these issues? What types of data should be collected and analyzed regularly to ensure that patients needs are not being missed?
3) How did this hospital choose to handle their situation? What were other possible solutions?
4) Why is continuous monitoring important?