Community\'s Access Health Care Technology Determine Access

¶ … community's access health care technology determine access ( lack thereof) impacts community economically. 2. Assess community's demand health capital determine factors contributing level demand find.

Health care access

The issue of health care is becoming more and more severe in today's changing society. The need for health care provision increase, but the finances allocated to the effort contract. A new solution could be offered by the more intense integration of technology within the provision of health care services (Smith, 2004).

The issue is long debated and has yet to come to a resolution, especially due to the complexities revealed. One important complexity is represented by the different needs regarding health care and health care technology, as well as the different impacts these would generate upon the communities. In other words, before developing a universally implemental solution, it is necessary to assess the various particularities of different communities, understand them and create better tailored solutions.

In such a setting, the current project sets out to assess the health care traits within my own community, which is a community of young adults, at the beginning of their careers and starting out their own families. Their health care needs are different to those of a retiring community, including for instance an increased need for pediatricians, gynecologists or parenting counselors. In this context, three important issues are raised, as follows:

The community's access to health care technology and the impact of this access on the local economy

The demand for health care capital and the factors contributing to the demand

The demand for health insurance and the factors of the demand

(1) Access to health care technology and the economic impact

The people in the community have a relatively decreased access to health care technology, for the reason that the community is generically underdeveloped. This is explained by the fact that the community is located in a suburb, created during the economic boom. Houses in the area became more affordable and easily accessible and the neighborhood expanded. Nevertheless, the infrastructure in the community is still underdeveloped, and so is the provision of health care supported by technology.

The health care facilities in the community are decreased in number, and the community members continue to seek health care services in the city. This situation nevertheless creates inefficiencies for the people, who spend additional time and money when traveling to the city to get medical assistance. The negative economic impact is also felt at the level of the community, which is unable to treat its patients and loses them to hospitals in the city; the community is as such unable to attract new funds and new investors (Drummond, Sculpher and Torrance, 2005).

The community only integrates two health care provision facilities, both centralizing several specialties, such as general medicine, pediatrics, dentistry, gynecology or orthopedics. The facilities are equipped with technologic devices that support investigation and diagnosis, yet they are generically limited to these operations. In other words, the facilities in the local community integrate technology specialized in diagnosis, rather than treatment. For treatment including only medication, this is offered by the doctors in the two facilities. Still, for treatment that requires more elaborate efforts, such as hospitalization or specialized technology-supported treatments (such as dialysis or chemotherapy), the patients are sent to the city, where they go to their previous doctors, or meet the community doctors in the larger hospitals where these work.

(2) Demand for health care capital and affecting factors

In the context presented above, the community's need for health capital is increased. The community as such needs both financial resources to develop its health care facilities, but also specialized personnel to operate in it and technologies to support efforts of both diagnosis as well as treatment. In other words, the health care provision in the community -- and even more so the technologically supported health care provision -- are underserved in the community and there is an increased need for additional capital investments in the field.

The demand for the health capital is generated by a wide array of forces, some of the more notable of these being mentioned below:

The demographic characteristics of the population in the community, referring primarily to the young adults, with busy careers and young children who reveal special health care needs

The economics of health care provision, which force the population to seek assistance outside the community, generating the loss of money to the local health care sector

The socio-economic status of the people in the community (Ringer, Hosek, Vollaard and Mahnovski). At this level, it is noteworthy to mention that the people in the neighborhood are mostly white collar workers, college graduates, with well paid jobs and high expectations of quality medical act and technologically supported health care.

(3) Demand for health insurance and contributing factors

Last, a final issue to be assessed at this level is represented by the demand for health insurance. This demand is generally increased at the level of the entire population; within the assessed community, the majority of the people is employed and benefit from health insurance. The health insurance they have is mostly one from the employer, but some members of the community have also purchased separate insurances to better cover their health.

At this specific level then, the demand for new health insurance is decreased, whereas the general demand for health insurance is increased. This demand is influenced by a wide array of forces, some of them being revealed below:

The employment status of the people; in a different community, with fewer employed people, the demand for insurance would be higher

The age of the population, with the specification that insurance is more demanded by the elder population, rather than the young (Market Watch, 2011)

The individual perceptions of the individuals, some of whom would prefer the stability of a health insurance, whereas others would hope to not require assistance and might refrain from spending the money; this possibility is further increased in the context of the internationalized economic crisis (Schich, 2009).