Access to healthcare, being the primary challenge, prevents the world from experiencing equitable health conditions and ultimately brings positive overall public health results. This is multi-layered and unique for the individual based on their geographical placement, social group(s), culture, and the current health care system. The immediacy of dealing with this issue is based on its direct effect on the quality of life of the people we serve since it affects people’s ability to utilize the most advanced technologies in preventing, managing, and treating diseases. This annotated bibliography discusses diverse aspects of insufficient healthcare access due to telemedicine, healthcare reform, individual and structural obstacles, cultural competence, rural and urban variations, and mental illness facilities.
Barbosa, W., Zhou, K., Waddell, E., Myers, T., & Dorsey, E. R. (2021). Improving access to care: telemedicine across medical domains. Annual review of public health, 42, 463-481. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-090519-093711
Bringing forth the salient truth of telemedicine’s transformative abilities in overcoming the common access barriers to healthcare, Barbosa et al. (2021) have drawn our attention to this fact. With a thorough reappraisal, the authors underline the shift of telehealthcare from being a niche service to a significant solution for delivering health services to remote rooms and medically underserved communities being heavily burdened with inadequate healthcare. The review chronicles with precision examples of how telemedicine did even more than increase the scope of health care and impacted the quality of health outcomes, providing evidence of its versatility in different areas like chronic disease management and emergency care. Nevertheless, the article also digs into the barriers that hinder the current realization of telemedicine capabilities, including the digital gaps that limit high technology reach among marginalized masses and the regulatory plus reimbursement frameworks that are yet to adapt to these new care modes
Warner, J. J., Benjamin, I. J., Churchwell, K., Firestone, G., Gardner, T. J., Johnson, J. C., … & American Heart Association Advocacy Coordinating Committee. (2020). Advancing healthcare reform: the American Heart Association’s 2020 statement of principles for adequate, accessible, and affordable health care: a presidential advisory from the American Heart Association. Circulation, 141(10), e601-e614. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000759
The 2020 statement by the American Heart Association (AHA) demonstrated by Warner et al. (2020) is a synopsis of the need for change in the healthcare sector made through these recommendations; firstly is to meticulously follow the entire landscape after the Affordable Care Act was passed, and the second is to point out the areas where we’ve made progress and stumbled in our journey toward universal healthcare coverage. The advisory stresses a set of core principles that are designed in such a way that they help people overcome any difficulties that they may come across during the process of providing healthcare for everyone and that are also equitable and cost-effective. By further the chance for health policy revising and systems facilitating, the document advocates a patient-centered approach that highlights prevention services and healthy elimination of healthcare disparities prominent development, brought about by an agency that is seen as the premier advocate for cardiovascular health reform, sheds light on the framework that healthcare systems should use to improve access and quality of care. This influential work of the association pleads for redesigning the health infrastructure.
Tzenios, N. (2019). The Determinants of Access to Healthcare: A Review of Individual, Structural, and Systemic Factors. Journal of Humanities and Applied Science Research, 2(1), 1-14. https://journals.sagescience.org/index.php/JHASR/article/view/23
Tzenios (2019) addresses in detail the interlocked issues related to health care, offering a multifaceted portrayal of the many elements that lead to a person being able to receive quality treatment. The review identifies these determinants into the individual characteristics, which involve the health status and the general knowledge of health; the structural variables, which include the healthcare accessibility and services for sick patients; and finally, entities, encompassed by the healthcare policies and funding mechanisms. Through the exposé of the multiple layers of healthcare barriers, Tzenios points to the complex factors underlying the disparities, showing how intertwined they are and highlighting the necessity of a systematic approach to reform. The paper stresses the need for an overall policy solution embodied in introducing universal healthcare coverage and the attraction of healthcare infrastructure development to resolve this long-standing problem.
Nair, L., & Adetayo, O. A. (2019). Cultural competence and ethnic diversity in healthcare. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Global Open, 7(5). https://doi.org/10.1097%2FGOX.0000000000002219
Nair and Adetayo (2019) present a potent response to the deficiency in cultural competency and the neglect of ethnic diversity in the health workforce. The critical strategies they propose for tackling the prevailing healthcare disparities are crucially needed. The paper rigorously investigates the role of the insensitivity to cultural differences and the ignorance of multiculturalism in the healthcare system that results, in limited access to care and, on the other hand, in negative healthcare results specific for the minority groups. It is the stepping stone for the design of an area where healthcare providers are not only diverse but also culturally competent. This enhances the quality of the healthcare rendered because it allows it to fulfill the healthcare needs of the patient population, which is multicultural. The article’s authors argue that enhanced cultural sensitivity, empathy, and respect for all people in healthcare will result in better understanding and more effective healthcare delivery, to the ultimate effect – the reduction of gaps and improvement in satisfaction of patients of any cultural belonging.
Summary
These articles draw attention to the crucial influence of cultural competency and the importance of ethnic diversity as it is a factor in elevating the quality and accessibility of healthcare services. These can be achieved by targeting the uniqueness of different patient population groups so healthcare providers can bring disparities down among them and thus improve health outcomes. Implementing telemedicine, transformation-oriented healthcare reforms, and a competence drive will demonstrate the path to better healthcare systems. The results of this research suggest that ongoing research, innovations in policies, and education in healthcare practices play a significant role in providing the best possible kind of care for everyone.
write