Module 4 – Case

INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE HEALTH POLICY:
OPPORTUNITIES AND LESSONS FOR THE UNITED STATES

Assignment Overview

Countries around the world take different approaches to addressing health and health care for their citizens. While developing countries have much different needs than industrialized countries, comparing nations that fall into like categories can provide valuable insight into how to improve health care for a populace. Policy analysts at the Commonwealth Fund found that the United States did not perform well compared to similar countries as reported in their study, Mirror, Mirror 2017: International Comparison Reflects Flaws and Opportunities for Better U.S. Health Care. Five domains were examined in their study: care process, access, administrative efficiency, equity, and health care outcomes.

Case Assignment

After reviewing the background materials and conducting your own research, examine each of these domains. Discuss what they are and how the United States performed. Provide an analysis of what can be learned from other countries to improve the United States’ performance. Be sure that you are citing more than just the Commonwealth Fund report in supporting your analysis.

Assignment Expectations

1. Conduct additional research to gather sufficient information to justify/support your analysis.
2. Limit your response to a maximum of 5 pages.
3. Support your paper with a minimum of 3 reliable sources.
4. Please use the following resource for evaluating information found on the internet: https://www.library.georgetown.edu/tutorials/research-guides/evaluating-internet-content
5. You may use the following source to assist in your formatting your assignment: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/.Module 4 – Case

INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE HEALTH POLICY:
OPPORTUNITIES AND LESSONS FOR THE UNITED STATES

Assignment Overview

Countries around the world take different approaches to addressing health and health care for their citizens. While developing countries have much different needs than industrialized countries, comparing nations that fall into like categories can provide valuable insight into how to improve health care for a populace. Policy analysts at the Commonwealth Fund found that the United States did not perform well compared to similar countries as reported in their study, Mirror, Mirror 2017: International Comparison Reflects Flaws and Opportunities for Better U.S. Health Care. Five domains were examined in their study: care process, access, administrative efficiency, equity, and health care outcomes.

Case Assignment

After reviewing the background materials and conducting your own research, examine each of these domains. Discuss what they are and how the United States performed. Provide an analysis of what can be learned from other countries to improve the United States’ performance. Be sure that you are citing more than just the Commonwealth Fund report in supporting your analysis.

Assignment Expectations

1. Conduct additional research to gather sufficient information to justify/support your analysis.
2. Limit your response to a maximum of 5 pages.
3. Support your paper with a minimum of 3 reliable sources.
4. Please use the following resource for evaluating information found on the internet: https://www.library.georgetown.edu/tutorials/research-guides/evaluating-internet-content
5. You may use the following source to assist in your formatting your assignment: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/.

Question 1:

The Value of Comparative Policy Analysis

After reviewing the background materials and doing your own research, discuss the value in looking at other countries’ policy successes and failures. How can it be beneficial to health policy development in our own country?

Be sure to support your answer with citations from reliable sources.

Question 2:

Reflection

Your comments will be graded on how well they meet the Discussion Requirements posted under “Before You Begin.”

A poem by T. S. Eliot says, “We had the experience but missed the meaning.” As your experience in this course comes to a close, I don’t want you to miss the meaning of the materials you have read, papers you have written, and discussions we have had throughout the session. They are more than a series of assignments and grades—the end result should be an improvement in your higher-order thinking and your ability to make connections between thoughts and ideas. You can achieve that through reflection, the art of taking charge of your own mind. Reflection is a mental process that challenges you to use critical thinking to examine the course information, analyze it carefully, make connections with previous knowledge and experience, and draw conclusions based on the resulting ideas.

A well-cultivated critical thinker (Paul & Elder, 2008):

• raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely;
• gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively; comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards;
• thinks open mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and
• communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.

For this discussion, take some time to reflect upon two concepts that you learned in this course.

• What are the concepts?
• What insight or ideas did you gain from learning each of these concepts?
• Were there aspects of the concepts that you would challenge?
• What is the importance of these concepts to public health?
• How will you use this new wisdom in your current or future career? 

In order to earn maximum credit, the comment should be more than your opinion, and more than a quick “off the top of your head” response. Be sure to support your statements, cite sources properly, cite within the text of your comments, and list your reference(s). The response must be a minimum of 250 words.

Britton, B. & Serrat (2013). Reflective Practice. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/Celcius233/reflective-practice-27714069

Eliot, T. S. (1943). Four Quartets. The Dry Salvages, pt. 2.3. Harcourt: New York.

Paul, R. & Elder, L. (February 2008). The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools. Foundation for Critical Thinking Press.

After responding to the Reflective Discussion above, please complete an anonymous Course Evaluation Survey. Instructors are not able to view course evaluation reports until after the grade submission period is over. Thank you for your feedback.

Module 4 – SLP

GLOBAL HEALTH REGULATIONS, PARTNERSHIPS, AND GOVERNANCE

Bringing It All Together: Global Health Funding Proposal

Develop a 1-page executive summary synthesizing your findings from your Module 1–3 SLP assignments (in order) and create a complementary 10-slide PowerPoint presentation to solicit funding for your proposed strategy to address your selected infectious disease within your selected population.

In your slide presentation, please include a budget, an implementation plan, monitoring and evaluation milestones to assess progress and success, and a communications/reporting plan for all stakeholders.

Length: 1-page executive summary paper and 10-slide presentation.

SLP Assignment Expectations

Assessment and Grading: Your paper will be assessed based on the performance assessment rubric. You can view it under Assessments at the top of the page. Review it before you begin working on the assignment. Your work should also follow these Assignment Expectations.

The environment in a neighborhood and surrounding community has a profound impact on individuals’ lifespan and health. Disease prevention and health promotion usually aim at keeping individuals healthy. Health promotion involves empowering and engaging communities to change to healthy behaviors. Health promotion programs typically make changes that reduce people’s risks of developing various morbidities such as chronic diseases. Health promotion usually enables people to have better control over their health. This promotion covers multiple environmental and social interventions designed to protect and benefit a person’s quality of life and health by preventing bad health’s root causes and centering on cure and treatment (Raphael et al., 2006). Disease prevention varies from health promotion since it involves specific efforts to minimize the severity and development of chronic disease among other morbidities. Disease prevention and health promotion get related to wellness.

Health promotion is defined as protecting and improving the public’s health. Health promotion can get achieved by planned activities and programs that aim to enhance a population’s health outcomes. This promotion usually enables a community to reduce their risks of disability and disease while making healthier choices. At the population level, health promotion and disease prevention can enhance the quality of life while eliminating health disparities and improving healthcare and related services availability and accessibility. Health professionals can implement various health promotion activities that address different social determinants that impact modifiable risk behaviors (Stanhope et al., 2019). Social factors include the political, economic, and cultural conditions in which a person gets born, grows, and lives that impact one’s health status. Through focusing on preventive measures, health promotion usually minimizes the costs in human and financial terms that families, employers, individuals, communities, insurance companies, the state, medical facilities, and the national government would spend during medical treatment procedures.

Actions on health social determinants can get implemented at community, practice, and patient levels. Health professionals can support patients facing social challenges better through enquiring about an individual’s social history. These professionals can offer people at risk with advice and, in severe cases, refer them to local support services. Additionally, health professionals can also facilitate access to various health services and even stand-in as reliable resources. People usually encounter varying disadvantage types that are not obvious through patient observation. Enquiring about challenges facing a patient in a caring way is vital since it has been proven that empathy and compassion make patients more open about their concerns and symptoms, allowing for more accurate diagnoses and enhanced care. A health professional in a community can also refer patients and help them access support services and benefits (Raphael et al., 2006). Once a patient social issue gets identified, a professional can initiate social prescribing. Social prescribing involves connecting people with available support resources beyond and within the system. Health professionals can also advocate for patients even after referral. This backing can be through writing letters on behalf of a patient to support resources.

In conclusion, various community, patient, and practice level actions that health professionals can utilize to promote population and community health. Practice level interventions can prove vital in promoting population and community health. Professionals can enhance the quality of care and access to services for a patient group in remote areas. For instance, patients can get provided with child care services and bus fare that allow them to attend doctor appointments (Stanhope et al., 2019). Further, patient language preferences can get recorded while practitioners’ language skills are identified and provide interpretation services. Health professionals undoubtedly have a vital role to play in promoting the health of a population and communities.

References

Raphael, D., & Bryant, T. (2006). The state’s role in promoting population health: Public health concerns in Canada, USA, UK, and Sweden. Health policy, 78(1), 39-55.

Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2019). Public health nursing e-book: Population-centered health care in the community. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Examine the x-ray of a patient diagnosed with pneumonia due to infection with Mucor. Refer to the “Module 4 DQ Chest Xray” resource in order to complete the following questions.

Critical Thinking Questions

1. Explain what Mucor is and how a patient is likely to become infected with Mucor. Describe the pathophysiologic progression of the infection into pneumonia and at least two medical/nursing interventions that would be helpful in treating the patient.
2. Examine the laboratory blood test results and arterial blood gases provided in “Discussion Question Resource: Laboratory Blood Test Results.” What laboratory values are considered abnormal? Explain each abnormality and discuss the probable causes from a pathophysiologic perspective.
3. What medications and medical treatments are likely to be prescribed by the attending physician on this case? List at least three medications and three treatments. Provide rationale for each of the medications and treatments you suggest.