Outreach Services

Outreach Services

Outreach services are any services that mobilize healthcare workers to provide services to the population or other healthcare workers away from the location they work and live. Various parties can provide outreach services; these include healthcare institutions, professional boards (such as a nursing board), and non-governmental organizations. These services are a strategy to improve access to health workers and improving overall retention at a country level. Most outreach services target the rural and remote areas that lack access to some of the primary healthcare services.

Outreach services may be virtual or physical. When they are virtual, for instance, telemedicine, health workers do not need to move from their workplace. Strategies in outreach services include involving all healthcare workers in outreach programs and mobilizing technology for remote support. Professionals working at the secondary and tertiary level can support those working at the front line. General practitioners, nurses, midwives, and technical staff can all be involved depending on the program. For instance, when creating maternal awareness, midwives and nurses may be included in this outreach program to provide care to pregnant women in remote areas. Mobilizing technology for remote support involves the use of e-health to promote health. It can be used for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Patient-centered health services and telemedicine are examples of e-health that help health professionals interact directly with a population to promote health.

Types of Outreach Services

1. Domiciliary (Home visits)- these services are provided on a door to door basis. The healthcare workers move from one home providing healthcare services to the population. For instance, during a malaria outbreak, healthcare workers will move from home to home, advising people on how to take care of malaria patients, how to prevent malaria, and providing them with nets.
2. Detached outreach services (mobile clinics)– this involves providing healthcare services in open environments such as a community park, for example, organizing a maternal awareness camp in the church compound to educate pregnant women on the foods to take, when to visit the clinic and how to manage a newborn.
3. Peripatetic– these outreach services are undertaken in public or private environments targeting organizations rather than individuals. For example, health workers from tertiary healthcare organizations educating health workers in the primary health facilities.

Advantages of Outreach Services to Patients

1. Patients can interact with healthcare workers to receive health care. This enables them to have access to healthcare that maybe they had no access to.
2. Different populations can receive health education. This enables them to learn ways of managing disease and preventing various illnesses and complications.
3. Some of the outreach services such as telehealth help provide immediate help to patients, therefore, preventing complications and death.

Advantages of Outreach services to Health Care Workers

1. Some outreach services, such as health camps, are a source of income. Health care workers might charge a small fee for the services received.
2. Health workers can be exposed because they are working in a different environment. They can interact with individuals from diverse backgrounds who might have different cultures.
3. It is a learning experience; therefore, health workers might learn new inventions that contribute to their creativity.

Disadvantages of Outreach Services

1. Outreach services might not be need-based; therefore, it does not benefit many people in a population. For instance, a cancer camp will only help cancer patients and not patients with malaria in a population
2. Outreach services, especially the free ones, are costly because many resources are required. For instance, free medication might be needed.
3. Outreach services might lead to inconveniences sine healthcare workers will leave their place of work to work in different environments. This creates a void at their place of work for the duration they are away.