Benefits Of A Healthcare Professional

Preventive health care involves a wide range of interventions which help for maintaining good health habits, reducing the incidence of disease and disability, and slowing the progress of illnesses. These interventions can include providing childhood immunizations, raising taxes on cigarettes,

One area where access to care is a problem is in the rural communities. Healthcare professionals including physicians, nurse practitioners, and nurses all affect the quality and cost of care (Derksen, & Whelan, 2009). Going forward importance needs to be placed on using recourses more efficiently and effectively; these resources include but are not limited to tests, prescriptions,

Traditionally, it is custom that patients to travel to the provider. Although it is possible to create an establishment for patients to visit providers, Mullin & Stenger (2013), advise patients choose home care in which the provider travels to them. According to Buchan, Couper, Tangcharoensathien, Thepannya, Jaskiewicz, Perfilieva, & Dolea (2013), the World Health Organization provides favorable recommendations to procure health care professionals into the rural environment. These recommendations include providing further education opportunities, improved living conditions, career development programs, incentives such as public recognition, and a safe and supportive work environment. Another essential recommendation is to implement jobs for multiple scopes of practices and varieties of health care workers. It is important that health care providers have the support of a multidisciplinary work staff to implement safe and efficient

Americans living in rural areas have found out that getting access to quality health care is not only hard to obtain but very expensive. People who live in rural areas have the highest rates diseases that are chronic, poverty is higher, an having no insurance, and there are limitations to having access to primary care physicians to millions of rural Americans. Since the economy is going through a downturn, this has the potential to cause a rise in a number of access and health issues that are already causing problems in communities in rural areas.(HealthReform.Gov., 2012). This is where the new health care tax or the Patient Protection and Affordable Act of 2010 will play one of its greatest roles which is its main goal which is to allow coverage to all residents of the United States and thereby improving the delivery of needed health care to rural parts of America. (Becker & Dunn, 2012).

To respond to these legislative changes, there must be an increase in the professional workforce of rural health. The existing workforce will need extensive training to deal with the new aspects of the Affordable Care Act, and new professionals need to be encouraged to practice in rural areas. The following are potential methods for increasing the health care workforce of rural and frontier America:

Another threat is the current state of rural hospitals nationwide. According to the case study, about 25% of Americans live in rural areas and only about 10% of physicians actually practice in rural areas. There is a 15% gap in the ratio of rural citizens to available practicing physicians. This is a threat to ELH’s need to attract and hire more physicians. In relation to rural hospitals, citizens have longer drive times to their medical facilities. This causes them to delay routine visits which subsequently exacerbates

Significant health disparities between rural and urban populations have been a major concern in the United States. One prominent factor contributing to the disparities is lack of access to quality care in rural areas which is closely associated with challenges faced by rural health care providers (National Rural Health Association, 2007). Rural hospitals are the key health care provider in rural areas, offering essential health care services to nearly 54 million people (American Hospital Association, 2006). They face a series of challenges such as workforce shortages, rise in health care costs, difficulty in finding access to capital, difficulty in

The morbidity and mortality rates are higher in the rural areas than in the urban areas partly due to the high rates of chronic illness and poor health behaviors. The health care disparities of the rural population have led to negative bias. The bias within the health care field have affected clinical judgment and decision making (Blair, Steiner, & Havranek, 2011). Bias further lead and exponentiate health disparities, continuing the trends and challenges among the rural population. Economic status is another negative impact of health care disparities among the rural population. Their low economic status continues to effect the availability of resources to improve the health care infrastructure and specialization. Health reform is needed to improve the effects of the health care disparities and their negative impacts on the rural

The production of agricultural products in the United States is dependent on the hand labor provided by migrant agricultural workers. However, this population is at higher risk for certain chronic illnesses that must be monitored frequently. With most of them working long hours, English illiterate and living in a poor socioeconomic status, access to preventive health care services becomes very challenging. Different solutions to tackle this challenge have been proposed, including mobile clinics as well as clinics devoted to providing medical care to this population. Both still face significant barriers in delivering health care services to agricultural migrant workers (AMWs). Building upon an idea proposed at the Finding

Rural Americans face an exclusive combination of issues that create disparities in health care that are not found in urban areas. Many complications met by healthcare providers and patients in rural arears are massively different than those located in urban areas. Financial factors, cultural and social variances, educational deficiencies, lack of acknowledgement by delegates and the absolute isolation of living in remote rural areas all combined to hinder rural Americans in their struggle to lead a normal, healthy life. Rural hospitals located in rural areas faces many disadvantages, such as; minimum resources, shortcoming or unprepared professionals, and financial disparities. Although many of these challenges could be solved

People living in rural areas generally suffer greater morbidity than their counterparts living in suburban and urban regions (Shi & Singh, 2015). These facts are generally consistent across age groups and do not appear to change, regardless of average rural community wealth (Cohen, Cook, Kelley, Foutz, & Sando, 2016). Rural residents tend to experience greater social and physical isolation, lack local secondary level providers and primary care services in sufficient quantities or within manageable travel distances (Cohen et al., 2016). According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, rural Americans: 1) Are older, poorer, and less healthy than non-rural residents; 2) Have a life expectancy 6 months shorter than non-rural counterparts with a widening disparity trend over time; 3) Experience more activity limitations from chronic conditions than people living in urban or suburban communities (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2014).

There are two principal conditions leading to physician shortages in rural communities according to Wright and colleagues. They are “demand-deficient”, meaning they have insufficient populations and resources to support a physician practice, they are “ambiance-challenged,” meaning they are isolated, lack quality services and amenities, and/or are in geographically unattractive settings, or a combination of the two sets of conditions. Inner-city physician shortages are a more recently recognized issue. They are affected by the same conditions, though the specifics are different (Wright, Andrilla, and Hart 2001).

Geographic maldistribution has creates barriers of care to people living in rural areas. Although there is an oversupply of physician specialists in many of the urban healthcare areas around the world, while the inner cities and rural community are struggling to attract healthcare physician professional to provide high quality care to the local population. “The supply of specialties has increased more than 100% over the last 20 years, while supply of generalists has increased only 18%” (Niles,2014). Any shortage of health workers can prevent good access to health services and is a barrier to universal coverage. The issue of the matter is that maldistribution of health workers between urban and rural is consider to be virtual concern around

No other field has so many technological changes, advancements and innovations than the field of healthcare. The only way a healthcare professional can keep up with these developments is by staying current on continuing educations credits and studies. Sometimes it can seem like too much to balance work and education, but ultimately it will benefit you and more importantly, it will benefit patients. Presently, most healthcare organizations necessitate that staff and employees are well educated and up-to-date on any lessons that will make a positive impact on the way patients are cared for. That in itself should be a reason why any healthcare professional would want to stay current on continuing education credits, but usually it is not, and

Health disparities are many and affect a great part of our population. We must deal with these issues in order to assure proper medical treatment and care for our population as a whole. “A health disparity is defined as a particular type of health difference that is closely linked with social, economic, and/or environmental disadvantage” (Health People 2020). My focus of this paper will be on rural women and their increased prevalence of heart disease. How does living in a rural area affect women’s health related to cardiovascular disease and what is the APN role? I will discuss explanations for the disparity. I will explore the APN role and how it improves health outcomes. I will then take into account the legislative process and the importance of policies in helping to improve women’s health. “Rural America represents 75% of the national land- mass and is home to 22.8% of U.S. women aged 18 years and older” (Committee Opinion Number 586. February 2014. Health Disparities in Rural Woman, 2014). Cardiovascular disease is a chronic disease and requires interventions in order to improve patient’s quality of life and ability to survive the disease. “Death rates from ischemic heart disease in rural women exceed that for all U.S. women” (Committee Opinion Number 586. February 2014. Health Disparities in Rural Woman, 2014). This topic is of interest to