In a bid to promote better patient outcomes and community health, healthcare institutions alongside community health stakeholders conduct a comprehensive community health needs assessment (CHNA) to ascertain the health concerns within the target community (Morris, 2019). Hospitals, among other healthcare institutions, document the CHNA and prioritize community needs. After that, they implement effective evidence-based strategies to ensure the provision of high-quality healthcare services to the communities they serve. This term paper seeks to highlight ways in which hospitals ensure they meet the needs of the community which include: adoption of a community-centered approach to healthcare, implementation of evidence-based practices, intensification of public health education, and utilization of community health assets.
According to Morris (2019), hospitals adopt a community-centered approach to health to formulate an effective strategic plan to address priority health issues within the community. Healthcare providers engage in community health stakeholders and social workers in the implementation of health improvement strategies to promote better health outcomes within the community. Healthcare institutions also implement effective evidence-based practices to promote health and healthy lifestyles among community members. Evidence-based practices are the best clinical practices which advanced practice nurses and physicians use to ensure patients receive high-quality healthcare services (Sodhi, Pennel, Baillargeon, & Prochaska, 2019). Moreover, healthcare providers implement EBPs to reduce the incidence rate of secondary infections and patient readmissions within the hospital. In most cases, the effective clinical practices adopted in hospitals target specific health issues within the community, thus ensuring that the hospitals meet the health needs of the target community.
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After the prioritization of community health issues, hospitals often formulate effective public health education plans to address these issues, as suggested by Sodhi et al. (2019). Conventionally, hospitals identify problematic health issues affecting most people’s health within the target community. These issues may include, but not limited to: increased prevalence of mental health disorders, the spread of epidemic diseases, maternal and postnatal health promotion, HIV/AIDS, poor nutrition and hygiene among others. To address these issues, hospitals often intensify public health education programs to sensitize the public and create disease/health issue awareness. Hospitals strive to adopt culture-centered public health education strategies to make education programs more inclusive.
Hospitals also utilize community health assets to address health concerns and issues within the target community. These assets include local community groups, voluntary associations, economic and environmental resources that promote health, knowledge, and skills of community members, friendships, and neighborliness of community members. Utilization of community assets ensures that health promotion actions are co-produced between healthcare service and communities, as suggested by Robinson et al. (2019). Moreover, the use of voluntary associations to address health issues within the community also ensures health promotion at a grassroots level. Local community groups also act as the hospitals' mouthpiece in addressing problematic health issues that affect members of the community (Robinson et al., 2019).
In conclusion, healthcare institutions such as hospitals ensure they meet the health needs of the community they serve through community health needs assessment and implementation of effective strategies to address arising health issues within the community. Some of the most effective strategies formulated to address community health concerns include the adoption of evidence-based practices, intensification of culture-centered public health education, utilization of community health assets/resources, and the use of community-centered approach to address health issues. These strategies are quite useful in ensuring the provision of high-quality healthcare services and promoting better patient outcomes within the community.
References
Morris, J. E. (2019). When “Patient-Centered” is Not Enough: A Call for Community-Centered Medicine. The Annals of Family Medicine , 17 (1), 82-84.
Robinson, T., Brown, H., Norman, P. D., Fraser, L. K., Barr, B., & Bambra, C. (2019). The impact of New Labour’s English health inequalities strategy on geographical inequalities in infant mortality: a time-trend analysis. J Epidemiol Community Health , Jech-2018.
Sodhi, J., Pennel, C. L., Baillargeon, J., & Prochaska, J. D. (2019). An Exploratory Study of Community Health Priorities and Implementation Strategies for Nonprofit Hospitals in Southeastern Texas. Texas Public Health Journal , 71 (1).
