Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions

Access to Health Care

The accessible health care includes three basic things. First, the care is available to all citizens and offered at reasonable distances from their residential. Second, the care is appropriate, means that care is provided with right mix of health care professionals. Finally, the care is affordable for people belonging to every economic status. Barrier to the health care access has become an important national problem which gets worse every year. In order to compete with this problem, communities have to find their own solutions. In order to achieve the objective of Healthy People 2020, the health care delivery system should take certain steps, such as: It should set priorities which identify the important changes occurring among different communities. With an increase in number of elderly people in the country, health care organizations and providers should also reach out the population living in remote areas and find it difficult to leave their environment due to physical inabilities or psychological barriers. Health care professionals also need to understand the characteristics of increasing diverse population in order to identify the effective ways of health delivery. It will also help them to understand their health customs, beliefs, perceptions and behaviors essential to make health care more accessible (Andrulis, 2000).

The primary intent of these initiatives is not to device illogical demands but to promote more targeted, direct steps around the urban heath problems and challenges. Many communities have also started taking steps in this move and the community collaborations, coalitions for access to health care and partnerships are gradually appearing at national level. Their initiatives are focused on the important issues such as drug addiction and treatment, teen pregnancy, HIV-AIDS care and etc. on the other hand, they are also finding ways to attain insurance coverage for the members ...