Personalized Healthcare: Its Importance & Challenges Faced (Essay Sample)

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10/24/16
Personalized care planning is defined as a forward-looking discussion in which patient, family members and health professional consider negotiating goals and ways of meeting them, where agreed and planned actions are made based on mutual understanding( Reuben and Timothy, 2012). These are goals aimed at managing conditions for people with long-term conditions such as Mr. X who is an alcoholic. Arguments in this paper there for seek to explain how personalized care planning is essential in ensuring that healthcare is tailored to patients and family members as follows;
Role of nurses in health promotion strategy
The role of nurses in promoting health care services ranges from consultation, follow-up treatment, and creating awareness to patients on illness prevention to teaching patients on what to eat. This cannot be taken lightly since a lot lives are saved by these professionals. Research has it that the whole concept of health promotion was initiated to put emphasis on the ideas of community-based practices of health, involving the community in the project and promotion of health care services based on the social and health policies (Baisch, 2009).
Another health promotion orientation aimed at mobilizing people and keeping them updated on healthcare is empowerment through participation where both the patient, health practitioner and the family/community around collaborate. Communication takes center stage in ensuring there is good relation between patient-nurse and the community. For instance, when patients are allowed to choose what to wear and what to eat while in bed, the family members being allowed to pay the patient visit anytime are also an act of unlimited personal aspects channeled towards understanding and realizing personalized healthcare by nurses (Casey, 2007a).
Through promotion of healthcare strategies, nurses are in one way or another involved in community orientation. Mostly these occur in a heterogeneous society where nurses work closely with members from different ethnic groups. The same can be related to nurses engaging in voluntary work with the community around. They are usually faced with a number of challenges such as language barrier and at times they are not welcomed at some places. This calls for a community gate keeper to introduce them and act as translator to allow effective communication. Also some cultural traits and beliefs do hinder the championing and promotion of healthcare done by nurses. Generally one cannot judge another person’s culture as this will result into ethnocentrism. The community gate keeper will mobilize both parties to come at terms and work together in implementing of preventive and protective health measures. (Sheilds and Lindsey, 1998).
Research has it that public health-orientated chronic diseases are the basis of nurse’s health promotion. There are different approaches used firstly, disease prevention is used by nurses as a public health orientation mechanism. Secondly, the authoritative approach is also used to emphasize the need for nurses to create rapport with the patients and give out detailed information. Additionally the authoritative approach entails shifting the patient’s behavior from pessimistic to optimistic (Irvine, 2007).
According to research conducted on how nurses promote healthcare there nurses implemented a wide range of health promotion activity and different health promotion practices and expertise were involved. These saw nurses being categorized into different groups with specific titles. This is as shown below;
1 General health promoters
These are nurses who are expected to have the general knowledge of health promotion with effective actions, national and social health care policies and are able to incorporate them with their nursing skills (Whitehead, 2011).
2 patient-focused health promoters
There are different patients suffering from different diseases and need different professionals to attend to them. A patient-oriented nurse ought to have the necessary skills required to take good care of patients and pays attention to details. For instance, an alcoholic such as Mr. X has different health needs and requires high level of care and treatment so as to rehabilitate him. This can only be achieved when a nurse is able to inculcate the required health promotion activities and skills in his/her day to day practices so as to be able to help patients (Goodman et al.., 2011).
3 Managers of the health promotional projects
All nurses ought to be able to work and operate as managers of the healthcare promotion projects. This unit involves planning, evaluating and implementation of health projects. The community is also supposed to be involved in analyzing and development of the project so as to ensure its sustainability. Apart from having clinical skills nurses ought to have leadership and management skills so as to ensure effective running of their projects within their respective communities (Fagerström, 2009).
Impact of age, cognitive ability, sexuality, disability and health inequalities on maintaining health and well being
Our bodies are physical mechanism which can be studied, analyzed and treated through measurements from psychological functioning and the physical characteristics. Mostly medical practitioners tend to disregard the psychological concept and emotional reactions from the patient and leads into biases against certain age, gender, sex, and or people who are disabled differently. According to Erickson 1959, he describes the human life in terms of stages and talks of the old age as a stage in time when people struggle to find meaning in life they have lived. To nurses this may pose a challenge due to miscommunication due to a sense of ego. Aging people are described as having impaired health, loss of autonomy and require various services from professionals such as counselors, healthcare providers and employment human resource departments CITATION DrM16 \l 1033 (Dr. Marini 2016).
The same notion transits into having those who are disabled being treated different from others. Cognitive ability and sex also determines how and when you will be treated. At times in most hospitals it is against a female doctor/nurse to give an injection to an elder or a male patient. The reason behind such is always derived from religious perspectives and cultural beliefs. In some societies for instance in the Old Testament, the Israelite society saw women as commodities and subordinate to men. They were excluded from public congregations following their beliefs of how women were unclean and could charm men into falling for them because of their menstruation and seen as outsiders. This acts as a barrier in ensuring equity to access for medication and promotion of healthcare services by nurses in such societies will be hindered.
Impact of health and social policies on service delivery
Access to medication is a right that every citizen is accustomed to. Health and social care policies do work to the advantage of the people in most cases but at times there are challenges with the policies limiting people to access better medication. For instance, research in the United States show that most black people have a low level of education hence ending up with low paying jobs. This limits them to accessing insurance covers that can allow them access private hospitals for better medication instead they are limited to having the general and public insurance cover. In Europe, policies social care policies act as limitations to accessing medical care. Current policies with respect to social care indicate retrenchment policies and market-framed care policies which are a barrier to social care. The feasibility of such policies creates a wide gap between and imbalance between demand and supply hence causing stress and social exclusion for citizens in Europe CITATION Wil13 \l 1033 (Willis Arts 2013).
The number of citizens with health and social care problems is increasing drastically. Research has it that for the next 10years the number would have doubled if preventive measures are not put in place. This is to allow them access both health and social care services at a pocket friendly fee. This makes it difficult for citizens to be treated. For example, when a person is admitted and overstays at the hospital when it would have been easy and convincing for him/her to access the care from home. Such problems can only be dealt with if people are allowed to have an integrated health and social care services. CITATION Wil13 \l 1033 (Willis Arts 2013). Regulations put in place should be able to allow citizens to choose what services are convenient for them, where it will be more efficient for people to monitor and have control over their own budget for health and social care services without being restricted and limited on what to choose.
Strategies and models of health promotion
The framework for health promotion in medicine is mainly developed to offer support to the health service executive strategic objectives of improving and promoting health care to citizens. The rationale is not only supposed to set out consistent and clear objectives but also provide a model within which health services can be integrated. The priorities by health practitioners should have an approach that focuses on achieving a perfect balance between healthcare promotion, prevention and disease treatment. Nurses should exhibit professional knowledge and skills when promoting healthcare services. The strategies and models put in place should be simple and ought to involve the community. These strategies heavily rely on the multidisciplinary knowledge that should be encompassing to age grades, sex, and people who are enabled differently.
Processes in implementing ...