Week 5 Discussion Healthcare Management

WEEK DISCUSSION 1

Week 5 Discussion Board Posting

The discussion question this week revolves around a monthly town hall meeting held by the local library to educate 100 residents on community health. The presenter is required to develop a presentation or program demonstrating ways of improving the community’s health. This assignment details the key points to include in the presentation.

To begin with, the program needs to include a definition of key terms and services (Griffith & White, 2019). Since the participants are local residents who may not have knowledge about community and population health, it may be prudent to begin by defining key terminologies. In this regard, the presenter may need to define and explain community health, population health, hospice care, advocacy, health promotion, and health community, among other key terms.

Secondly, the program needs to identify the specific health needs of the community as determined by needs-assessment exercises or results of epidemiological surveys (Griffith & White, 2019). Needs-assessment exercises and surveys will indicate the prevalence and incidence of diseases such as asthma and diabetes, which could then serve as the basis for developing asthma management and diabetes prevention programs (Griffith & White, 2019). In this case, the presenter needs to include information on the incidence and prevalence of disease, mortality rates, disease-specific mortality rates, patient-physician ratio, immunization rates, patient and family satisfaction data, and birth-related data. This will help the listeners understand the community’s current position in regard to community health and would also serve as a basis for improvement.

It would also be important to mention the population health programs currently available in the community to address the identified health needs. For instance, if prevalence reports indicate maternal health as a need for the community, it would be prudent to include information on the number of well-baby care facilities and other maternal health programs available in the community. Further, if the needs assessment identifies diabetes as a health need, it may be beneficial to point out the programs that are currently available to prevent diabetes or support residents suffering from the illness. However, it may not be enough to just mention the available programs, the presenter may also need to explain how effective the programs have been in addressing the community’s health concerns (Griffith & White, 2019). To assess the programs’ effectiveness, the presenter could look at changes in disease incidence rates, changes in mortality rates, changes in patient satisfaction rates, and increases in life expectancy among community members.

By comparing the community’s health needs to the programs available, the presenter would clearly show the unmet health needs and identify the programs that could be developed to address the same. Thus, another fundamental aspect that the presenter could include is proposals on programs or interventions that are currently unavailable but would help in improving the community’s health (Jamison et al., 2017). It would be important to indicate the change expected as a result of implementing the proposed interventions, such as the projected increase in birth rates, declines in disease-related mortality, and increases in patient and family satisfaction rates, among other things (Jamison et al.,, 2017). The cost of implementing the proposed interventions, summed up in a budget, may also be presented to the audience. This would help in calculating the cost burden to the community.