Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal Population Health Concerns

            This week, I engaged my preceptor in discussing population health concerns. I realized that issues with population health are a larger and more critical topic that requires the attention of all stakeholders in healthcare. Population health requires the collaboration of multidiscipline organizations and healthcare systems working in hand with community members. This helps identify various health concerns affecting people and the determinants of health. Notably, individual health is a combination of various factors, including environment, relationships, and personal factors (Spruce, 2019). The environment, for instance, includes neighborhood, food security, sanitation, income, social status, education, and social support that influence health. Besides, access to care and the quality of care further influence health choices and health-seeking behaviors, which in turn influence personal health. While addressing the community’s health concerns, hypertension and diabetes were the identifiable issues.

Despite hypertension and diabetes being the most studied subjects in health research, they continue to affect many people in the community and are associated with morbidity and mortality. The rise in these conditions could be attributed to laxity in healthcare to promote primary health practices. Educating the community on issues such as lifestyle modifications, regular physical exercise, weight reduction, and adopting appropriate stress management techniques. Failure to promote health, early diagnosis, and offering management can lead to complications such as stroke and heart failure that require intensive care to stabilize patients. In addition, mechanical ventilation could be used, which predisposes to the risk of ventilator-acquired pneumonia. Chlorohexidine would be used in intubated patients to reduce nosocomial infections. Finally, I evaluated the level of organizational preparedness while addressing the potential barriers to implementing the project change. I devised a strategic plan to guide the implementation process while overcoming challenges.

References

Spruce, L. (2019). Back to basics: Social determinants of health. AORN Journal, 110(1), 60–69. https://doi.org/10.1002/aorn.12722