Introduction
The healthcare system needs to tackle the issue of health equity in order to provide good quality services to all sections of society, regardless of their income or place of residence, racial or ethnic affiliation. We can find the key steps for eradicating these disparities through the outline of CDC’s Core Health Equity Strategy. Such an endeavor looks forward to collaborating with institutional leaders to ensure the strategy is effectively adopted and implemented within the healthcare organization. To achieve this goal, we want to take a step further to make the environment conducive to all, where individuals can strive for optimum health outcomes. This is the concerted effort among health practitioners and policymakers toward narrowing the healthcare disparities and empowering the whole community at large for good health, and this has an equal chance.
Synthesis of Current Evidence
Key Evidence Related to the Policy Issue
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) tends to be consistently different across rural America concerning both productivity and outcomes. This is more realized because there are variations in access to healthcare and the outcomes among various demographic groups, including residence (urban or rural), race/ethnicity, and income level (Gaffney et al., 2022). This target population of individuals aged 40 and above suffering from COPD living in rural counties has an outcome rate of 8.6%, while their counterparts in urban counties experience 5.4%. This inequality, which is common in rural areas, where people are not only sicker and have more disabilities but also have to deal with significant difficulties in getting healthcare services, resonates with the notion. For example, in certain regions, say, in the rural COPD population, 12.6% do not have health insurance. In comparison, 10.4% of their urban counterparts do not have access to health care, which in some way is a relevant illustration of and a factor determining the necessity of universal health care access in addressing the problem of respiratory health inequities in society.
Additionally, the continuous existence of health disparities after all the technical advances come as a warning sign proposing the idea of a digital divide during medical care that prevents equal healthcare outcomes across different populations (Saeed & Masters, 2021). This gap is severe, especially among socioeconomic dilutes where the impoverished, women, and black individuals have a miserable chance of completing telehealth appointments. Dealing with such disparities is one of the fundamental factors that contribute to the improvement of healthcare results and also serving the community with fairness in light of the steadily growing diversity of the population. While the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has brought progress concerning both coverage and care, especially for disadvantaged populations, several challenges remain, including but not limited to the adequacy and diversity of social determinants of health, prevention, and public health funding, as well as embracing cultural and linguistic diversity in care (Artiga et al., 2020). In order to surmount these barriers, complex approaches should be developed. Hence, the legislative body needs policies built upon coverage expansion and societal issues concerning healthcare.
Multiple Points of View and Other Disciplines
The holistic approach of utilizing the viewpoints of varied disciplinary fields, such as public health, nursing, social work, and healthcare administration, opens up a different angle and way of implementing health equity strategies and provides a coherent picture. Public health professionals provide a relatively broad view of health determinants and preventive strategies compared to nurses who focus on direct patient care and emphasize compassion and cultural acceptance in the process. Social work provides a principal aspect: the first-hander, social determinants, and advocates for patient rights and access to services. Healthcare administration skills such as strategic planning contribute because they ensure that these health equity initiatives reach feasibility and sustainability. In consensus, the disciplines advocate for an approach toward public health that is – all-encompassing and based on wellness, which entails equality and success for everyone in the community.
Perspectives from Individuals and Groups Who May Not Support the Policy
People are mostly worried about the Core Health Equity Strategy of the CDC, especially if there will be misallocated resources, with skeptics fearing that this issue could drain funds from other urgent healthcare needs. However, these methods pose one’s concern. Therefore, it is vital to emphasize the long-term benefits that come with the achievement of health equity. It illustrates that equal and healthier care for all are the key points in decreasing overall healthcare expenditure, but improving the standard of living and production advancement is essential. For instance, such arguments supported by evidence can prove to believers that apart from sheer moral duty and ethics, having equity in healthcare is a strategic means to curing current healthcare system inefficiencies and achieving better healthcare outcomes for the entire population.
Recommendations
Given the existing evidence, we are presenting some evidence-based solutions to ensure we can reduce the health gaps. Funding is an essential component. Therefore, it should be considered a critical aptitude to augment funding directed to effective programs that focus on reducing health disparity situations, whereby the distribution channel should be well-planned to reach the deep-rooted causes of inequality. Above all, the capacity building of medical practitioners on cultural literacy and medical disparities is vital. This training would equip health workers with the requisite skills and knowledge to provide care that respects their patients’ heterogeneous health beliefs, practices, and needs. Besides these, community outreach programs that are of prime importance should be conducted. These programs aim to strengthen low-income and vulnerable populations’ access to health care. Providing better ways for them to receive care would help those who live in marginalized communities. Taking these strategic suggestions is an important step toward promoting a truly equitable healthcare system.
Applying a Policy Model or Framework
The approach I will be using will include Kingdon’s Three-Stream Model as a guiding framework and delineate the combination of the problem stream, which deals with health disparity, with the policy stream presented as the presence of Core health equity strategy from the CDC. Moreover, it only includes the political stream, which involves healthcare governance, administration, and policy shaping. Utilizing the Kingdon formulation strategic application, this policy-making approach powerfully brings together these fundamental elements to increase the hope of a positive policy outcome. This alignment provides a platform that showcases the importance of policy availability and political will and makes the existence of core issues and disparities based on class, postal address, income, sex, and age(Chigewe, 2022).
Short and Long-term Goals
The strategy indicates short-term goals that raise awareness of health inequalities in healthcare institutions and within the communities at large, as well as the creation of training programs for healthcare providers to help them boost their knowledge and competencies in tackling this issue. The long-term fruits are measured in success, which the community obtains in the tangible improvement in the health outcomes of the underserved communities by concerted involvement in the efforts to curb the spread of health disparities significantly. To achieve these goals, strategies are developed that incorporate immediate actions and sustain a progressive shift towards making health care equal. It is a strategic and effective approach to ensuring that the efforts efficiently alleviate the disparities in the healthcare system.
Budgetary Implications
The execution of the CDC Core Health Equity Strategy, therefore, requires the initial investment made in workforce training, community outreach, and program development. Governments may be the major sources of donations (grants), and the private sector may provide these funds in addition to reallocating existing funds. It is important to stress the long-term economic benefits associated with a health disparity. This can be in the form of reduced medical expenses and increased labor productivity. Emphasizing such benefits will justify the starting cost and may lead to popular support for continuous funding of measures to address health inequities.
Evaluating Strategy Effectiveness
The strategy’s effectiveness will be evaluated using different measures such as cost-benefit analysis, shifts in health outcomes among low-income people, opinions from the health providers, and patient satisfaction surveys. The cycle of evaluating will be conducted throughout, and we will monitor progress, spot weak links, and make changes to the plan regularly. This iterative method guarantees that the strategy keeps pace with time-changing needs and accordingly gets results, thus eliminating health inequities and ensuring fair healthcare ownership and outcomes.
Summary, Conclusions, and Project Evaluation
Strengths and Limitations:
Thus, it considers health equity comprehensively, has an interdisciplinary team, and has an active approach to tackling it; thus, it has good potential. However, the likely limitations are subject to the limitation of budgetary constraints and skepticism from stakeholders on the effect of the strategy.
Areas for Revision:
The feedback of this phase may signal the need to signal the project’s aspects. It can mean changes in training methodologies, for instance, fine-tuning community outreach strategies or reprioritizing resources to deal with the exigencies thrown up by the implementation process.
Discussion of Meeting with Leadership
The meeting with stakeholders, who may include legislators, representatives from organizations, or formal leaders, is set for discussing and explaining the problem. It will have evidence supporting the CDC Core Health Equity Strategy and the proposed action plan outline. The discussion will highlight the potential benefits the strategy will render to the health system and the community. The scope of the meeting will also outline some of the actual tasks to be done in terms of collaboration and implementation to execute the objectives and goals laid down in the strategy.
Conclusion
Realizing the CDC Core Health Equity Strategy will call for a collective effort from the healthcare team, administrators, and policymakers. It means interdisciplinary collaboration and evidence-based planning on the project in such a manner that it touches on health equity, which gives every individual an opportunity to reach the highest attainable level of health. In this view, it becomes necessary to fully exploit nursing and administrative leaders’ engagements to get the required change that will minimize the health differences and improve the health service level to balance it for all population groups.
References
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