Public Health Resources 1• Information About Country, Essay

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Public Health Resources

1• Information about country, state, and national public health resources

Public health is the bigger science of protecting and improving the health of communities by providing services based on education, healthy lifestyles, and other forms of medical and paramedical services. Public health professionals tend to analyze the health issues of individuals, family and community. However public health also involves the control of epidemics, causalities and calamity reactions. Thus public health professionals try to prevent problems from happening or re-occurring. The basis of the delivery of public health services is on the "Public Health Laboratory Practice, Public Health Policy and Practice." ("What is Public health," 2011) These practices are however very costly and is not adapted by private agencies. ("What is Public health," 2011)

However the evolution of public health concept was made from very early times but the U.S.A. is a capitalist country with private participation in almost all fields of service including health and health care. The problem with pubic health care actions and institution is that there must be an orientation to welfare and service with minimum or no returns and this has caused wide spread anger among tax payers and thus the support of reform in public services by the expedient of privatizing the services is on. Public health resources depend on the services rendered and paid for by revenue from taxes, levies and other forms of revenue generated by the state or local body. Thus the profitability of public services and the advisability of removing state controls have become the debate of the day. (Goh; Pritula, 1996)

The public health and service concept in the U.S. also is parallel to the changes in the medical history and also with the changes in the U.S. economic history with regard to the changes in the medical industry. The public services are possible because the doctors and medical workers were not 'commercial' initially. There have been economic changes in the U.S. economy from the period 1960-1980 that have shaped and affected the current trends and the present scenario of the health care. Thus there are three types of services -- public services, private services and non-profit volunteer services in the U.S. health industry today. The face of the industry has changed and so has the requirements. Value creation to day is mostly done by pharmacy benefit managers -- PBMs and health maintenance organizations -- HMOs. The new healthcare players are thus in need of these tools to improve the medical cost management skills, and creating a competitive organizational culture. (Goh; Pritula, 1996)

2• History of public health, pertinent dates, significant events related to the agencies researched

Public health is the primary cause of the changes in the public handling of illness and medical science. In other words the growth of medical science is attributed to the growth of public health concerns. However it was not so in the centuries gone back. Public health was not even a concept 2 centuries ago. We have to remember that before the 18th century the epidemics like cholera, plague and so on went unchecked and there was no public health system that effectively combated the infections. In the eighteenth century the term 'quarantine' brought about the isolation of the sick people and establishments of the general hospitals and nursing practices. (Institute of Medicine (IOM), 1988)

In the 19th century there was the awakening of the needs of sanitation and sanitary conditions and thus filth was considered the medium of spread of diseases and the urbanization and population explosions sanitation became a concern that had to be addressed by public systems, government agencies municipalities and health authorities. The 19th century paved way for sterile sanitary conditions and architectures and public utilities that catered to sanitary aspects of living. The development of bacteriology and the advances of medical science in the nineteenth century at the end of 1800s gave rise to public health policies all over the globe.

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By the end of the Second World War, the public health and community health concepts have become dominant parts of the national health policy. (Institute of Medicine (IOM), 1988)

What actually changed the concept of public health issues are more scientific developments and insight into community care and medicine. Some of the modern developments at the end of the 20th century caused major public sector reforms that also caused changes in the way community health questions and public health services, hospitals and other providers were affected. Looking back, during the 1980s, budget deficits were a huge motive for public sector reforms in lot of parts of the world - reforms which covered the two content of public policy and the way in which public policy was made. (Fox; Ludden, 1998)

'New public management' has now come in force for the public sector. In the U.S.A. The public services at this time was being scaled down and sent to the private providers, the emphasis was more on privatization that could improve the services rather than taking a look at the scenario of the services as they were. Thus the financial and public finance implication for the services became top priority. The health-care markets like all others have been influenced by supply and demand, and the more competitive environment which has created purchasers like insurers and investors in the industry have now become beneficiaries of the market forces and the cost of health-care is now a great percentage of the gross national product -- GNP as a result of the interplay of demand and supply changes. (Fox; Ludden, 1998)

Here the supply and demand in the health industry is taken by the public and private sector, and this has paved way for the growth of medical science. Thus while health care became an industry it also used up a larger part of the national resources. Though this has caused a lot of setbacks in the programs; the cost of medical services rose very high giving a different view of the situation. For example in the analysis of the 1995 period there is the statement that the hospital outpatient prices rose to 6.3% in the first quarter of 1995 from 3.9% in 1994. This acceleration is attributed to the expansion of Medicare, Medicaid, and other such services. Economic indicators also show important information like the employment scenario, and the total hospital employment was at 0.6% in the first three quarters of 1995. (Sensenig; et al., 1996)

The community health and public health programs are suffering to day because of a shortage of qualified hands. In 2007 the American Association of Colleges of Nursing reported that the vacancy rate of 8.1% in using amounts to 116,000 unfilled positions. One reason for this is said to be the shortage of faculty at nursing schools. Secondly there are very less numbers of students who graduate with nurses degrees or from masters and doctoral programs. Laws and acts have been passed in this regard. Thus the Nurse Training Act evolved. The act provided for the funding for nursing schools, and also loans to students. This was followed by the Nurse Reinvestment Act of 2002 that clearly demarcated the career ladders for nurses and defined the methods of education, practice, and retention. (Fox; Ludden, 1998)

However in the public health setting as of today, existing staff ought to be encouraged by offering financial and other incentives to participate in degree programs, diploma programs and nursing programs which are made available by the Advanced Education Nursing Program -- AENP and the Nursing Faculty Loan Program --NFLP. There is not only the need to rethink on education but also make the profession attractive to the future. One improvement would be to provide advancement in learning to nurses which could be a career path up to baccalaureate and higher levels. (Fox; Ludden, 1998).....

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