Barriers To Health Services Delivery

Barriers to Health Services Delivery

Introduction

The health service delivery in the United States faces some challenges that hinder its efficient delivery of services to patients. A big percentage of citizens in the United States do not have healthcare insurance to cater for their health when they fall sick. The poor members of the community are the ones who are uninsured and they rarely seek medical care from healthcare organizations. The healthcare services that the citizens in the United States receive are also inadequate. Patients who go to the healthcare organizations get recommendations but very few of them receive the recommended care. This paper will seek to analyze the barriers to healthcare services and the steps that healthcare organizations can use to improve the quality of services that they offer to the patients.

Uninsured Workers

Research that has been done shows that in every five people investigated, one adult is not insured. Also, it has been discovered that in every ten working adults, one of the adults is not insured. The research has also shown that the workers who are not insured will not bother look for medical help. These workers are the same people who do not own a personal doctor. The health of the uninsured workers is always in the risk than the health of the insured workers in that the uninsured worker is less likely to have prevention measures to prevent him or her against the dangerous diseases. Among the uninsured, fifteen million of the adults lack dental care, about twenty seven million do not have flu shots, those without mammograms are approximately three million, and about seven million that do not have cervical cancer or prostrate cancer screening (Brayton, 2009).

It goes without saying that those individuals who do not have insurance cover are more likely to experience conditions of poor health than those individuals who have some insurance covers. The uninsured are the very poor people in the society and they will only seek medical advice if

Barriers to Health Services Delivery

they are in the most severe conditions. At times, these uninsured people may be experiencing the worst conditions and fail to go to the hospital not because it is their wish but due to lack of funds to pay for the services that they recieced. The nation that is leading with the highest number uninsured individuals is Texas which has about twenty seven percent of the adults do not have an insurance cover. Louisianan has about twenty three percentage of uninsured workers. These percentages vary with nations. Hawaii has the smallest number of uninsured individuals which means that it is probably the nation with the healthiest people. Most of the uninsured adults also do not insure their children against any diseases (Brayton, 2009).

In comparison with the whites, more Hispanics and blacks who reside in the United States are uninsured. In fact, in any country where the blacks and the Hispanics have occupied some land, most of the blacks and the Hispania’s are uninsured in comparison to the population where they reside. Those states that have been good in providing insurance cover for the patients have not yet achieved the stable status as they still need to address the issue of decreasing healthcare health disparities (Brayton, 2009).

Healthcare Conditions among the Insured

Another research has been done to check if those who are insured get the healthcare services that they need. Unfortunately, this is not the case regardless of the insurance cover that these individuals have contributed. The research was trying to see if the care that has been recommended to the individuals who are insured is delivered efficiently. Individuals were consulted over telephone calls while some health records were gone through to compare the situation. The investigations were done in a number of different cities on individuals who have been attended by different healthcare professionals from the country (John, 2008). The care given was tested on diseases such as asthma, high blood pressure, heart diseases, etc.

The results of the investigation showed that those who get particular recommendations in the healthcare organizations only get about fifty percent of the care that is prescribed. It was also found that the quality of care that was given depended on the condition of the patient who was receiving this care. The care that was given to those who had suffered alcohol abuse was less compared to the care that was offered to those who had problems such as the cataract. The

Barriers to Health Services Delivery

individuals who had visited the healthcare centers for their first few times received better care than those who had been attended to severally earlier before though the sickness could be the same and the recommended care be the same. The care that the patients with different problems received was in most of the cases less than the care that had been recommended. Cases of patients receiving more care than had been recommended were not spotted (Brayton, 2009).

A report that was given by Rand stated that the inadequate healthcare that the individuals in United States received resulted to illnesses that can be protected and deaths that can be protected too. Some of the inadequate health care that was given included checking of blood sugar levels of diabetic patients which was done at much longer intervals than it should be done. This leads to extreme conditions in the disease due to failure of receiving the best treatment at the right time. The failure to control the body conditions gat the right level may lead to different complications depending on the disease that the patient could be suffering from (Charlene, 2002). If a person who is diabetic fails to receive the best care so as to control the level of sugar in then body, he or she might end up suffering from kidney failures, of blindness. Inadequate healthcare given in regard to blood pressure may result into heart diseases, stroke, death, etc. The care that was given to pneumonia patients was far less below average and the prescribed vaccinations were not given. As a result, over ten thousands deaths that could have been protected occurred every year. Another cause of many deaths that could have been protected was lack of follow-up which is very important.

How the National Health Care System can Change These Barriers

The research conducted clearly shows that there exists a large gap between what the clinicians know and have been trained to do and the services that these clinicians offer to the patients.

Data Automation

The national health care system should come up with a means by which entry and retrieval of

Barriers to Health Services Delivery

data is efficient. The importance of automating the retrieval of data is that it will help in making decisions faster. This can be explained by the fact that the information regarding any patient is unique to this one patient and all the information regarding this patient will now be kept at one place. This will in turn allow the clinician to track the patient’s record since the patient started attending the clinic (Daniel, 2007). The recommendations will also easy because all that has been offered to the patient can now be traced. Data automation is also important in that it helps the clinician to measure the quality of care that has been given to the patient since the beginning. This can be seen in the attendance of the recommended clinics that the individual has been prescribed. Automation will also ensure efficiency of services offered in that the retrieval of data will be faster which means less time will be spent on one individual and the rest will be used on a different patient (Brayton, 2009).

Teams of Doctors, Nurses, and Health Educators

The national health care system should create a team of doctors, nurses, and health educators who will be sitting together to look at the conditions of the patient and agree on the best care that that particular patient needs. This way, the different ideas that these professionals contribute leads to provision of best and efficient services to the patients (Robinson, 2003). The doctors are trained in different areas from the nurses and the health educators and the same case applies to the nurses and the health educators. This helps the team capable of dealing with a problem completely and at a go.

Conclusion

The healthcare organizations in the United States have failed in offering services to patients due to various reasons. One of these reasons is the failure by the citizens to have some insurance covers for their health. It has been found that in every five working citizens in the United States, one is uninsured. The uninsured members of the community fail to access the basic health care whereby they are not vaccinated against some very dangerous diseases. This increases their vulnerability to the dangerous diseases that may lead to death. Research has shown that the care given to the insured is also not as per the recommendations. Patients get a very small percentage of the care that is recommended on them. Some don’t even get the vaccinations that are recommended to protect them from certain diseases due to a poor follow-up program. As a solution to the current problem, the national health care system should come up with a

Barriers to Health Services Delivery

means by which entry and retrieval of data will be efficient. The national health care system should also create a team of doctors, nurses, and health educators who will be sitting together to look at the conditions of the patient and agree on the best care that that particular patient needs.

References

Brayton, P. (2009). Attorneys Helping People. Retrieved on 01-Sep-09 from http://www.brayton law.com/news/mednews/051404_healthcare.htm

John, S. (2008). Health Services Delivery-Current Projects. Retrieved on 01-Sep-09 from http:/ /www.jsi.com/JSIInternet/Projects/ListProjects.cfm?Select=Topic&ID=4&ShowProjec ts=Yes&ProjectStatus=Active

Daniel, W. L. (2007). Effects of Service Barriers on Health Status of Older Chinese Immigrants in Canada. Retrieved on 01-Sep-09 from http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-1682923 45/effects-service-barriers-health.html

Robinson, G. (2003). School Mental Health Services in the United States. Retrieved on 01-Sep-09 from http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/publications/allpubs/sma05-4068/

Charlene, H. (2002). Health Policy: crisis and reform in the U.S. health care delivery system. Retrieved on 01-Sep-09 from http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=Nh-q0_rjHaQC&pg=PA 29&lpg=PA29&dq=barriers+to+health+services+delivery+%2B+United+States+%2B +National+Health+Care+system&source=bl&ots=0nOGcIszkB&sig=DzLGyccbe k-N5z8hp4E1bmVdmrU&hl=en&ei=DErESurrHpD24Abh-YhN&sa=X&oi=b ook_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=barriers%20to%20health%20s ervices%20delivery%20%2B%20United%20States%20%2B%20National%20Health%20Care %20system&f=false

Barriers to Health Services Delivery