Screening for Healthcare Disparities
Disparities in most healthcare systems are a result of Complex healthcare quality, access to healthcare, which stem from historical injustices. The prevalent disparities in many healthcare systems include socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2020). Healthy people 2020 has therefore tried to make sense on how to eliminate healthcare disparities and promoting equity. Over the years, various health assessment tool has been developed and used to assess access to healthcare.
In developing a screening tool, I would keenly review existing literature and consult primary care staff to understand factors that need urgent intervention to ensure equal access to healthcare. My screening tool would include theoretical frameworks. The first section would consist of a patient and interviewer background information (name, age sex, and occupation) this information would be essential for coding purpose in data analyses. I would assess population financial capabilities to understand how financial constraints have led to poor access to healthcare. I would include Employment status, access to healthcare insurance, and level of income. I would also include a section on race to understand which races experience significant difficulty in accessing health services. I would consist of a part assessing how ethnicity affects access to healthcare.
It is also essential to assess the professional perspective of health care providers regarding access to health care. I would evaluate the ability of healthcare providers to provide patient care regardless of a patient’s sex, ethnicity, and cultural background with respect to autonomy, integrity, and dignity during patient care. Further I would include a section on policy assessment. Are the current policymakers aware of healthcare disparities? Do the current healthcare policies provide for equality of access to healthcare? What penalties are stipulated for those who breach these policies? And how are these policies often complied with by healthcare providers?. In any screening tool, people’s opinions do matter. Asking both patients and healthcare providers their take on healthcare disparities could give exciting ideas.
The health sector has a vast cadre of professionals who would comfortably administer a screening tool including, clinicians nurses, psychologists, social workers, physicians, or any other healthcare provider. It could be self-administered or via clinician interviews. In this case, my screening tool would be administered by a social worker. A social worker has a general touch with patients and can easily access them at home and identify difficulties they may be facing in their daily lives. I would encourage community and group participation in identifying challenges to equitable access to healthcare services. With a coordinate response plan involving state agencies, departments of health, communities, and health insurance companies, we could eliminate healthcare disparities (Spalluto et al., 2018).
My screening tool would not be feasible for a clinical setting. In a clinical setting, most clinicians are usually unfamiliar with the hardships that their clients face in their daily routine. This would prove impossible to understand a patient’s way of life. Some clinicians may not be able to ask their clients sensitive issues on topics such as domestic violence. This is because the scope of such sensitive matters is beyond health services. Time constraints may prove to be an obstacle due to the limited time that clinicians have in dealing with clients.
References
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. (2020). Retrieved from Health People.gov: https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/Access-to-Health-Services
Spalluto, L., Thomas, D., Beard, K., Campbell, T., Audet, C., Murry, V., . . . Wilkins, C. (2018). A community-Academic Partnership to Reduce HealthCare Disparities in Diagnostic Imaging. Journal of the American College of Radiology.