Operational Plan: Mobile Health Promotion Outreach Program for Hypertension Awareness.

Hypertension has been the number one killer of American lives for decades and through the coming years. Underserved communities are the most affected; therefore, hypertension awareness measures must be implemented to stall the rate of infections and mortalities. These actions include increasing hypertension diagnosis, treatment, and control by educating people about the need for healthy diets, exercising at least three days a week, and eating food with reduced sodium intake. Providers’ objectives will integrate hypertension detection, control, and treatment within existing health facilities. There will be initiation of funds for hypertension programs. In addition, the plan will adopt a system for correcting data that will monitor and report hypertension detection, treatment, and control rates.

In order to screen at least 10,000 hypertension patients’ within the first year, the program will impose strategies to be followed to reach the target. These strategies will be categorized according to economic and social status, age, and diet. Individuals over 70 will be prioritized for screening as they are at a higher risk of hypertension. The second group will be the middle aged 40 – 69 years and 39 years and below, respectively. Automated telephone communication systems (ATCS) will be provided to screen the anticipated target. The gargets can collect health-related information from patients using the telephone’s voice recognition software or touch-tone keypad. There will be two different types of ATCS used: non-interactive communication and interactive communication. The former type of communication offers additional functions, such as access to a specialist to request advice.

Partnership with community organizations will be the number one factor as this will help reach more community members. This partnership will help coordinate care for underserved populations like the unhoused and older adults. Partnerships with the community and the local government will benefit the community and the caregivers. Private partners will also be imposed to enhance the quality of care for patients. The following action will be considered for effective partnership. Every partner will play a different role and make an implementation plan towards the defined goals. Finally, time will be set aside to celebrate and acknowledge the hard work accomplished through effective partnerships.

Key activities.

Vehicle procurement and setup

Mobile vehicles will be deployed daily to offer health services to the underserved communities. The ambulance will be equipped with screening equipment, including Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) and Home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) (Cash-Gibson et al.,2012). HBPM involves the self-measurement of BP at home, while ABPM is a fully automated system where BP is recorded typically over 24 hours. Staff will ensure all hypertension medicines are included in the health care centers at affordable costs. The healthcare mobile vehicle will have logos on the exterior to broadcast hypertension awareness to the community.

Two highly trained doctors and two nurses will conduct mobile health services to help screen, treat, and offer society the necessary education. The target group will be older adults, middle-aged, and youth, respectively—each professional will purpose to screen over 50% of each group in the community every day. A routine plan that will ensure every location is visited will be imposed. These will include mass screening, home screening, and office screening. Staff members will also design and implement regulations requiring packaged foods to have labeling, such as warning labels, that will enable consumers to avoid foods high in sodium. Education forums will be passed down to society to warn people about the dangers of tobacco and enforce bans on tobacco by raising taxes and prices of tobacco and alcohol (Parati et al., 2022).

Partnerships and Collaboration.

Collaboration with professionals within the community will be initiated. This way, new forums will likely emerge, including multiple skills and improved health care. The partners engaged will include professional doctors, trained nurses, and government organizations working across all disparities, such as community development and health. Partnerships with academic institutions will be deployed to bring a steady stream of broad research expertise and broaden the scope of the care they can offer.

Providers’ partnerships with community leaders will be implemented to reach patients remotely. This partnership will also ensure safe housing for the community to improve public health. Partnering with advocacy groups will help expand access to affordable health care for the community and shape public policy. Finally, mergers and Alliances will be introduced as a form of partnership. According to researchers, unions are linked to higher profits and revenues because they increase hospital’s market share in society. Mergers will also help patients access more healthcare providers and services in the local area.

Marketing and Promotion.

Two local media channels that are known to be effective in raising awareness and increasing positive hypertension monitoring will be designed. As one of the local media, television has been found to be the most effective for both tests and control groups. This method increases awareness by 58% in the test group and 48% in the control group. Radio falls in second position, increasing awareness by 14% and 10% in the test and control groups, respectively. Billboards will also be designed to aid in hypertension awareness. These local media channels boost awareness of personal hypertension rates from 33% to 41% (christov et al., 2020). Social media channels to be used will be through Facebook and WhatsApp. Community channels to be implemented to promote awareness will be through campaigns and social gatherings.

Regular hypertension screening can find problems early, and treatment can begin. Serial blood pressure measurements, medical records, or self-reports derive information on the age at which an individual’s BP level meets conditions for hypertension onset. The former ( series BP measurements) is likely the most accurate method for defining the age of hypertension onset. For this to be effective, brochures and posters will be disbursed to schools and hospitals to promote the awareness program. These methods will have extra education informing the community of the effectiveness of early hypertension screening. These methods will educate society on the need for a good diet, physical exercise, and taking food out of sodium, amongst other hypertension information.

Screening and Data collection.

Early detection of hypertension (and related risk factors) by screening can aid in identifying high-risk populations, leading to prompt treatment and management of risk factors. Screening can assist in restricting health-related expenses, such as hospitalization due to severe disease and poorly managed risk factors and comorbidities. It can also help reduce the associated morbidity and mortality. Wearable BP measuring devices will be deployed to aid in screening. These devices include Ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) and Home BP monitoring that has minimal annoyance to the patient. Omron’s upper arm gold blood pressure will be deployed to the rural areas to enhance screening. Omron is easy to set up and to read data.

Electronic medical records (EMR) will be offered to keep patients’ health records. Patient care is found to have improved by 65% since EMRs were put into practice. The EMR technology gives providers information where they can print graphs of values such as blood pressure, and cholesterol level changes over time. The health improvement network (THIN) database will be used to correct and keep all data from hypertension onset, screening, and treatment (Peng et al., 2017). Synchronous virtual interactions or telemedicine between providers and patients via a video-based platform will be designed to offer feedback to the patients (Hare et al., 2021). These two methods are more efficient because they offer direct conversations between patients and healthcare providers.

Feedback and Continuous Improvement.

Feedback is a valuable tool for identifying whether things are going in the right direction or redirection is necessary. Through effective feedback, healthcare professionals can gather information and identify areas for improvement. Multiple sources to gather information will be made to analyze the doctors’ performance and the patients’ sustainability. Professionals will be required to provide feedback on their performance during the program. Patients will be asked to provide feedback on the services offered by specialists, where quantitative measures such as patient satisfaction will be used to evaluate doctors’ performance and results. These methods will also be used to identify areas for improvement.

Community-based approach research (CBPR) will be implemented to show this program’s impact on hypertension outcomes and motivate professionals to invest in the project. Furthermore, a community-based approach will address health disparities while emphasizing a community-driven approach. According to (Chimbarengwa & Naidoo, 2020), CBPR is proposed to be the most cost-effective and sustainable strategy for it allows the community to identify, find a solution, and practice a new behavior. This framework also emphasizes equal partnership, decision-making, and ownership of this program between the community and health specialists.

Funding and Budgeting.

The Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC) uses cooperative agreements and grants to fund public health programs (Joseph et al., 2016). Health equity is the principle practiced to reduce health disparities that contribute to the vulnerability to poor health. Health equitability can be viewed as a notion of distributive justice to equitably allocate resources to reduce disparities and improve health outcomes. Frequent strategies are employed to distribute and award funds among different healthcare systems. The CDC typically distributes these funds using a competitive application that uses a standard objective assessment in which funds are closely considered. Other strategies on the allocation of funds use measures according to the levels of profession and roles played by healthcare providers.

Some of these strategies will be employed to make this program a success. Funds will be allocated based on the community targeted and the population within the area. Other measures will be used to enhance equity in allocating funds to healthcare specialists. The following table shows how funds are budgeted in different fields.

Funds will also be generated from different sources including government funding, taxation, private funding, or voluntary aid. These funds will contribute to an improved understanding of the pathophysiology of hypertension and the implementation and development of approaches for hypertension treatment and prevention. Those who are most vulnerable in the community to access healthcare facilities will be prioritized when allocating the funds.

Monitoring and Evaluation.

Hypertension has been a growing burden and is emerging as a major healthcare challenge in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Some LMICs have significant disparities in the cascade of hypertension including awareness, screening, control, and treatment. This contributes to a high burden on both healthcare providers and patients. A sample of 10,000 individuals between 15- to 69 years old were pooled for surveillance. According to (Dhungana et al., 2022), among hypertensive individuals the percentage for hypertension screening was 40.5%, the prevalence for hypertension awareness was 20%, the percentage for hypertension treatment was 10% and the prevalence for hypertension control was 4.8%.

The unmet need for hypertension control and treatment was highest amongst the aged and the poorest individuals. These results found that the prevalence of hypertension awareness, screening, treatment, and control are low in LMICs communities. Through the conducted research, this program will embark on creating awareness of hypertension screening, awareness, treatment, and control in the low and middle-income communities. Stiff strategies including high professionalism, and allocation of funds will be deployed to meet the program’s target.

Risk Management.

No program is complete without well-defined policies, and programs confronting the possible threat of natural or human-made disasters. Contingency planning is deployed in many programs to help respond to crisis if they arise. Contingency planning includes; emergency response, crisis management, and business continuity. Emergency response actions involve responding to an incident, disaster, or crisis and handling that incident at the scene. The result is a better-prepared team ready to respond to any emergency.

To avoid such incidents as one vehicle breakdown, regular services on the vehicle will be conducted to ensure the engine, tires, and brakes are all in order. Extra tires will be provided in case of a tire puncture. Water will be provided in order to cool the engine after long distances. An emergency supply of food and water will be set in place in case of bad weather. First aid kits, a torch, extra warm clothes, and adequate shelter will be provided to prepare for unforeseen events. Doctors will be well-trained to respond to patients with hypertensive emergencies. Hypertensive emergencies are severely increased BP associated with new or advanced target organ dysfunction. Doctors will be equipped with intravenous esmolol (Wilbert., 2017) which is the best drug to deal with patients with hypertensive emergencies.

Reporting.

Hypertension reports are important because they can help researchers develop hypertension screening, treatment, awareness, and control and improve BP management and prevent early mortalities. The prevention, early detection, and effective management of hypertension are among the most cost-effective interventions in health care and should be prioritized by countries as part of their national health benefit package offered at a primary care level. Targeted and/or population-based methods can be used to prevent and control hypertension. The focused strategy for controlling hypertension entails actions to improve individual awareness, treatment, and control. The program will focus on educating society on environmental factors including obesity, unhealthy diet, insufficient physical activity, and consumption of alcohol. Monthly reports will be designed to elaborate on areas of interest that must be tapped into to reduce the risk of hypertension.

Early detection through screening for hypertension (and related risk factors) can aid in the identification of high-risk populations, which can lead to prompt treatment and risk factor management. Furthermore, early detection can help restrict health-related expenses, such as those related to hospitalization owing to severe disease and poorly managed risk factors and comorbidities, as well as morbidity and death linked to it (Sharif., 2022). Population increase, aging, genetic risk factors, and behavioral risk factors such as excessive salt and fat consumption, inactivity, being overweight or obese, drinking alcohol harmfully, and poor stress management are all linked to the rising prevalence of hypertension. Long-term hypertension increases the risk of cardiovascular conditions such as heart disease, stroke, renal failure, disability, and early death. When high-risk populations are targeted, for instance through population-wide screening programs, cardiovascular incidents can be avoided.

The following goals should be achieved in the fight for hypertension awareness. More than 80% of individuals in a defined community should be screened, 80% of all hypertensive should be treated and more than 60% of those diagnosed with hypertension are controlled. To achieve these objectives, individuals and organizations from government, health care, private sectors, and civil society are called upon to create awareness and reduce factors attributing to hypertension.

References

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