Addressing healthcare issues in low-income communities
Problem
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Today, one of the common problems that we see in medicine is the lack of access to basic healthcare and lack of access to information on some of the health issues for the low-income communities. By basic healthcare I mean dental, prenatal care, family planning, primary care, and behavioral and heath sciences. For example, an organization providing basic healthcare to low-income communities found out that one in three adults could not see a doctor in 2014 due to the cost (CCl Health & Wellness Services, NA). This eliminates a person from receiving health-related information, from a physician, on topics such as how to control cholesterol, or stay healthy.
To address this issues, as a future physician, I have formulated solutions that can help alleviate some of the problems that are faced by those communities. Just in general, the first thing to do is to gather a group of like-minded people who share similar goal of providing healthcare to low-income families. Second step would be to find resources, sponsors, and location of where to serve. Third step would address the lack of access to healthcare information by providing the patients with brief presentations on the health-related issues. The final step would include a follow-up survey to see how as a team we are performing and if necessary changes need to be made based on the feedback from the patients. Detailed information on each of the steps is mentioned below.
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Solutions
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Network build-up
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To initiate the process of ultimately providing basic healthcare to low-income families, the first step is to bring people together who share a similar vision. This step is crucial because the goal is more effectively reached when a whole group works on it as opposed to the individual doing so by itself. Because of individuals contributing different ideas, the whole group will have several options to select from as to how we can start this process. This network will not only consist of doctors from one specialty but also from different specialties such as podiatry and dentistry. The idea right now is to build a team of doctors, nurses, and physician assistants (PA’s) who can collaborate as a team like volunteers do in community service to reach a certain goal.
By my third and fourth year rotations, I will start asking my colleagues of same and different healthcare professions, mentors, and attendees to join me in this process of providing healthcare to low-income families. The key here will be asking my mentors and attendees who might have tried similar initiative in the past but did not work out due to any specific reason. They can provide suggestions as to what different approaches I can take this time in order to avoid any problems down the road.
For steps on bringing people together, I can start by giving a brief presentation on my idea about serving the low-income families in my lecture hall and see how many people would be interested. Those who are interested will be told to forward the presentation to their colleagues to spread the idea around. The next step would be to send the presentation to my colleagues of different healthcare professions and tell them to see if they can give presentation to their own class. Those interested will be encouraged to send the presentation to their social network and so forth. What this does is it creates a large group and brings people together who share a similar passion for serving low-income community together. Through interacting with people of same and different specialties, one’s performance as an individual is enhanced. The next step after bringing people together would be to discuss how to set-up a clinic.
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Setting-up clinic
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Once the team comes together the next step is to determine how can we gather resources. First and probably the most important resource is financial resource. Our team will try to contact several hospitals, programs, and organizations across the country who might be interested in affiliation, and providing us with the necessary resources. Through those resources, we as a team can set-up our basic clinic in which patients can come and get the necessary healthcare. The next step would be to contact the local officials of a place (tbd) where the clinic will be set-up and discuss the availability of space. Normally, we would like to set-up a clinic in a massive building so that patients can get different types of healthcare check-ups in one place. The massive building can also help us accept several patients at one time therefore accommodating a large amount of population.
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Basic information on wellness week
As a leader of our team, my plan is to provide wellness check-up one week per month.
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The clinic will run from 6 AM to 10 PM, Monday to Friday. The clinic is set-up essentially whole day to accommodate for people of both night and day work shifts.
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The team will be split into two groups: morning, and afternoon group. Each group will work 8-hour shift, so for example: morning group will work from 6 AM to 2 PM and the afternoon group with work from 2 PM to 10 PM. This way it provides each group some time to get re-energized for the next day.
As a leader, I will make sure that the clinic is set-up in a low-income community so that it is very accessible for population who might not have the means of transportation. If the team is large enough, then providers can volunteer for different months that way everyone gets the opportunity to help the community.
After reserving space, the next step would be to market the clinic-week. This can be done through advertisement, contacting local businesses and newspaper, and maybe putting the sign up on city billboard. To achieve the goal of providing the ultimate healthcare, this project requires a strong cooperation between healthcare providers, sponsors, and local officials.
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Outside Clinic
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Along with providing basic healthcare, I also believe in educating the families who might not have the means of getting the latest information on health. As the leader of the team, I think having some part of the clinic outside can influence a large amount of the population.
One of the issues that our society is dealing with today is the issue of vaccination. For the majority, this is not a problem but there are still a few people who think that vaccination damages the body rather than protects it. As a future physician, this is false because it has been proven that vaccinations have made the United States free from certain diseases that used to plague people back when there was no vaccine. One of the main arguments against vaccination is that it causes Autism. This was falsely reported by a physician who was paid to do so, and now his license has been revoked.
My point is that I believe that there are some low-income families who might not believe in vaccinating their children, and it is our responsibility to make sure that they understand the consequences of such actions and the importance of vaccinations. By having the vaccination part of the clinic outside, I believe it will change the viewpoint of some of the folks who might believe the opposite. People not only learn through observation, but they are also motivated by observing other people. In this case, people who are against vaccination can become motivated to vaccinate their children when they see the majority of the people providing vaccines to their children.
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Educating public
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I believe educating those families who do not have other means of obtaining information is crucial in sustaining their health. Health topics such as obesity, diabetes, proper nutrition, healthy eating, and physical activity will be discussed with patients so that they are well-informed on things that need to be done in order to stay healthy. Obesity, healthy eating, and physical exercise are all intertwined and so a detailed presentation will be given on this topic after patients complete their check-up. There will also be separate presentations on proper nutrition and diseases so that patients can focus on one topic at a time. For all the presentations, separate rooms will be reserved within the building. A big emphasis on these presentations will be advocating the patients to stay hygienic, active, and consume healthy food.
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Follow-up survey
Patients will be surveyed at the end of each check-up week. The feedback provided will be used to assess the performance of the staff, and if any changes need to be made to make the overall experience better for the patients. There will be a scale system from 1 to 5 on each question of different categories. For example, 1 on a scale might say "very unsatisfied" and 5 might say "very satisfied". Categories such as customer service, physician cooperation, and presentation organization will measured. After completing the survey, the points from each category of each survey will be analyzed. The mean and median of all the category scores will be used to grade the performance in that particular department. From this experience, I hope to learn about what exactly patients are looking for in a care provided to them. This way, as a future physician, it will give me an idea on how to go about providing patient-centered care at my workplace.
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