Organizational Evaluation: Healthcare Service to Vulnerable or Diverse Group
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Organizational Evaluation: Healthcare Service to Vulnerable or Diverse Group
Vulnerability in health care is understood as the susceptibility to harm. According to Mechanic & Tanner (2007), “Vulnerability results from developmental problems, personal incapacities, disadvantaged social status, the inadequacy of interpersonal networks and supports, degraded neighborhoods and environments, and the complex interactions of these factors over the life course” (p. 1221). One primary health concern associated with the susceptible in the organization is lack of culturally-competent care. Being a large organization that admits patients from various ethnic backgrounds, there has been a growing need to tailor services to suit the need of these diverse client base served.
The organization has made commendable strides in accommodating this diverse group with pretty weighty health concerns. The organization has invested greatly in conducting research on the hospital demographic information. Subsequently, educating the staff on various cultural aspects of the population served has been prioritized. In fact, cultural awareness training is an essential component of the company’s employee orientation program. Moreover, the firm has aligned programming and resources to suit the need of the community. Also plausible has been the management’s effort to employ a culturally diverse workforce. All these efforts have been called to improving employees’ cultural competency.
Overwhelming evidence indicates the insufficient capacity in the healthcare system to cater for everyone’s needs. The underprovision traverses specialist services like chronic disease management, minor surgery as well as non-clinical support that entail physiotherapy, in addition to speech and psychological therapies (Woods et al., 2005, p.48). Language barrier has raised concerns especially in communicating symptoms related to a medical condition. Similarly, it has affected giving medical reports to patients. Also, some cases of discrimination have been reported. Actually, most of the issues arising when dealing with the diverse population emanate from language barrier.
Browne et al. (2012) stressed the necessity of understanding the cultural meaning of health and illness and how people perceive racism, alongside discrimination and marginalization. Undoubtedly, such experiences affect health care service in many ways thereby calling for evidence-based strategies of mitigation. One strategy to bridge the gap is to align care, programs, and services to cultural, social, gender, and demographic contexts of patients (Browne et al., 2012). This will make primary health care meaningful to the person to which it is intended. Likewise, the firm should create opportunities that encourage and foster engagement with community, different sectors and promote patients’ participation. Community involvement will help the organization develop a highly diverse staff, bridge cultural barriers, and participate more actively in the community (Wilson-Stronks, 2008).
Ostensibly, most problems persist because of constraints that delay implementation viable of solutions. As identified above, the proposed evidence-based ways of bridging the gap in providing quality primary health care to the given vulnerable group are subject to some barriers. A profound barrier is capital inadequacy. Aligning services in all departments of the organization to suit individual patient requires finances, which may be quite a challenge for an organization whose budget is already strained. The cost of healthcare is already very high and more expenses are likely to lead to a delay in implementing procedures that will improve healthcare. Employee attitude and organizational culture can also be a major drawback. Change is expected to meet resistance of varying degree and the strategies may face some rigidity from workers.
In summary, quality primary health is essential in the struggle to achieve a healthy community. However, vulnerable or diverse groups are peripherally aligned in the equation due to factors that widen the gap between them and quality medical service. This essay has discussed the approaches an organization can adopt to improve inclusiveness in quality care.
References
Browne, A. J., Varcoe, C. M., Wong, S. T., Smye, V. L., Lavoie, J., Littlejohn, D., … Lennox, S. (2012). Closing the health equity gap: evidence-based strategies for primary health care organizations. International Journal for Equity in Health, 11(1), 59. doi:10.1186/1475-9276-11-59
Mechanic, D., & Tanner, J. (2007). Vulnerable people, groups, and populations: Societal view. Health Affairs, 26(5), 1220-1230. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.26.5.1220
Wilson-Stronks, A., Lee, K. K., Cordero, C. L., Kopp, A. L., & Galvez, E. (2008). One size does not fit all: Meeting the health care needs of diverse populations. Oakbrook Terrace, IL: The Joint Commission.
Woods, M. D., Kirk, M. D., Agarwal, M. S., Annandale, E., Arthur, T., Harvey, J., … & Riley, L. (2005). Vulnerable groups and access to health care: a critical interpretive review. National Coordinating Centre NHS Service Delivery Organ RD (NCCSDO) Retrieved May, 27, 2012.