Areas of Concern that Should be Focused on Health Center Redesign

Health center redesign involves developing systematic changes to health systems and primary healthcare practices to improve the quality of patient care (Grantham, 2017). Health center redesign is crucial in ensuring efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery by healthcare workers. There are seven areas of concern that should be focused on when redesigning Oakhurst Medical Center.

Health Insurance for Patients

The high cost of medical services makes it difficult for patients to access health care. For example, in Oakhurst Medical Center, the Chief Executive Officer, Jeffrey Taylor, reports that 40% of the visiting patients are poor and uninsured and thus have no access to other healthcare facilities. Therefore, health insurance is essential in ensuring that patients' medical bills are covered to improve accessibility to health care. Insurance programs such as the State-Federal insurance program and Medicaid have played an essential role in insuring the poor (Takvorian et al., 2020). Generally, the insurance programs majorly enhance affordable care since the beneficiaries do not incur extra payments when seeking health services.

Health Center Expansion

Mainly, health centers have limited space for service provision as well as a relatively lower number of service providers. Therefore, a well-structured plan should be implemented to expand health centers to meet the required standards for delivering quality services. For example, the rooms required for counseling, screening, examination, and other medical procedures should be spacious and well-organized to ensure the comfort and privacy of clients when carrying out sessions with clients.

Moreover, expansion should also be focused on the technical staff and insurance coverage in the health center. About 30 million Americans were expected to gain health coverage from various health insurance programs at the beginning of 2014. Therefore, the expansion of Oakhurst Health Center is crucial since more patients with health coverage seek healthcare services from this center.

Maternal and Child Health Care Plans to Promote Women's and Children's Health

Maternal and child health programs focus on health issues concerning women, children, and families. Routine immunizations should be adhered to by mothers to ensure children are protected against diseases (Grantham, 2017). According to the April 2012 report at Oakhurst Medical Center, only 20% of children had received their routine immunizations by two years. Additionally, strategic plans should be developed to ensure the timely provision of prenatal care to reduce low-birth-weight babies and child mortality.

Implementation of Health Education Programs

Health education is a strategy for implementing health promotion and disease prevention programs (Harvey et al., 2020). It provides knowledge to targeted clients concerning various health topics, including health benefits or threats, thus providing tools for capacity building and behavior change in an appropriate setting. Moreover, adherence counseling should help patients take their medications, thus controlling their blood pressure and blood glucose.

For instance, Oakhurst developed a free nutrition class program to accommodate clients battling diabetes, hypertension, and obesity to help them acquire adequate knowledge to solve their conditions. However, the encouraging enrollment in these classes led to only 18 out of 300 patients joining the class; therefore, continued sensitization on the need to enroll in this class will help clients adopt healthy behaviors, thus, overall improvement in their condition.

Continuous Medical Education Sessions to Promote Competence and Performance among Healthcare Providers

Most poor patients cannot acquire tools such as a blood pressure machine or a glucometer to monitor their conditions. For example, a nurse at the Albany Area Primary Health Care was credited by Warner Robins' Elizabeth Rayes, aged 38 years, for counseling her on diabetes control even without a glucometer, which she couldn't afford. Thus, continuous medical education is essential in helping healthcare providers acquire new knowledge and skills and be creative, innovative, and competent in their areas of professionalism.

Transparency and Accountability in Data Reporting Concerning the Health Center's Performance

Lack of transparency and accountability makes it difficult to compare health centers' performance since federal data is not risk-adjusted to account for hospitals that treat sicker patients. For instance, the case study shows that most health centers shared their quality data only with the local board of directors. However, the agency has plans to publish the 2011 data on the individual centers on its website. Therefore, ensuring transparency will enhance performance, and accountability will be enhanced in reporting quality data.

Use of Technology in Service Delivery

Technology plays a vital role in promoting quality service provision to patients. It also enhances provider capabilities and patient access while improving the quality of life and saving lives for patients (Harvey et al., 2020). For example, centers with electronic health records tend to perform better since they help them report quality data to the federal government, unlike those without technology, which only report a sample of their data. Therefore, installing various aspects of technology, such as telehealth, wearable technology, remote monitoring tools, and electronic health records, helps promote the health center's performance in providing services to patients and data reporting.

Conclusion

Health center redesign is crucial in ensuring efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery. The six performance measures of health centers include overall service provision, child immunization rates, cervical cancer screening, assisting clients in managing blood sugar and pressure levels, timely prenatal care, and rates of low birth weight babies. The seven areas of concern in health center redesign will help health centers improve their performance of the six quality indicators.