NURS FPX 4020 Assessment 1 Health Assessment and Communication

NURS FPX 4020 Assessment 1 Health Assessment and Communication

Health Assessment and Communication

Introduction

Health needs assessment is a methodical approach that seeks to ensure the resources of the health service are used in an efficient way to enhance the health of a target population. The approach employs epidemiological, qualitative and comparative systems to give a description of the health problems facing a population. The health needs in question are those that stand to benefit from health care or from changes in the social and environmental aspects (Shi & Singh, 2014). To succeed in carrying health assessments, one must have a practical understanding of the resources and time needed for the incorporation of the outcomes into the planning and implementation of the program.

Key elements that make up a health assessment at the community, group, and individual levels

Most clinicians and healthcare practitioners are used to assessing the individual health needs of their patients and as such, they have developed a systematic to use for this purpose. However, it is evident that the health needs of individuals coming for treatment at the consultation room of a physician may not reflect the needs of the wider community or group of people (Shi & Singh, 2014). For instance, people that have a health issue but believe the services offered by some facility will not help them then they will not visit that facility. It is, therefore, vital that the individual needs be distinguished from the needs of a group of people and that of a wider community as this will help in the planning and implementation of services to the local communities. Ignoring the community health needs risks the adoption of a top-down approach which essentially relies on what some people feel to be the needs of the community as opposed to what they actually are (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015).

Process involved in conducting a comprehensive health assessment

Most health assessment tools give between six to nine steps that are critical when carrying out a health needs assessment. The first stage involves reflecting and strategizing where the previous programs are evaluated to identify the elements that worked well and where improvements need to made. At this stage, the team looks back to determine if the strategies used during implementation had the desired impact (Huey Jr et al., 2014). The second stage involves engaging the community which includes defining the geographic location and the characteristics of the population. This process will greatly determine the implementation strategies to be applied as well as the scope of the assessment. Connecting with the community members to have an understanding of the concept of community is a critical if the assessment is to be successful (McKenzie, Neiger, & Thackeray, 2016).

After engaging the community, the next step is to develop the vision for the assessment. This phase involves defining the goals for the program to allow the executing team to be guide throughout the implementation period. With a clear vision, the next stage is data collection and analysis. The data collected includes quantitative demographic, qualitative and health data. This data should be able to demonstrate the opinions and experiences of the stakeholders in the community. This data should then be summarized and synthesized to illustrate the overall community health picture and establish the specific health needs of the population under consideration. The next phase is prioritizing the community health issues where the team will go through all of the data to establish the most pressing health needs (McKenzie et al., 2016). These identified needs will be addressed thought the execution strategies.

The next step is the communication of the result to various stakeholders after which, the process of developing the community health improvement plan begins. In this stage, strategies to be used to address the identified health needs are developed in this stage to allow for the next phase of implementing and monitoring the program to see if the progress being made relates to the anticipated outcomes. The final stage involves evaluation of the progress and the outcomes.

Summary of the Findings of a Health Assessment for the Blue Ridge Town

The most recent statistics show that this rural town has a population of 1954 with a median income of $ 29,467 (Shi & Singh, 2014). The poverty index for the town is relatively with more than 25% of the residents living below the poverty level. A majority of the inhabitants speak English at 75% while the Spanish and English speakers making up 16 % (Shi & Singh, 2014). The community also has a population that speaks Hmong with some English and this makes up 8% of the total population. People aged below 18 years make up 23% of the population while those aged above 65 years make up for 28% of the population (Shi & Singh, 2014).

From the above data, it is clear that a relatively large number of residents are senior citizens. After engaging the community, we realized the prevalence for chronic disorders including cancer, and heart diseases were high compared to the state average. The assessment revealed that there was need to carry out health promotion among the elderly. We sought to engage the community and religious leaders to ensure that the program is accepted by the members.

Conclusion

We formed consumer advisory committee to consult about certain issues that may hinder health promotion (Shi & Singh, 2014). We encouraged for the gathering of data using surveys and focus groups. Diversity of the population was considered as well as the differences in the languages spoken. For the interdisciplinary team to work efficiently, we adopted an open communication strategy with mutual respect among the members for the success of the collaboration (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015).

References

Huey Jr, S. J., Tilley, J. L., Jones, E. O., & Smith, C. A. (2014). The contribution of cultural competence to evidence-based care for ethnically diverse populations. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 10, 305-338.

McKenzie, J. F., Neiger, B. L., & Thackeray, R. (2016). Planning, implementing & evaluating health promotion programs: A primer. Pearson.

Shi, L., & Singh, D. A. (2014). Delivering health care in America. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2015). Public health nursing: Population-centered health care in the community. Elsevier Health Sciences.