Primary Care and Health Promotion

By comparing the United States with other developed countries of the world such as France, England and Japan, the U.S faces a much shorter span and an increased rate of infant mortality. This is because the United States, health care system basically focuses on injury and diseases and not on the promotion of health and prevention of illness.

This is a society that is further faced with a wide range of adverse lifestyle behavior such as leading a sedentary lifestyle, eating a non-nutritious diet; about twenty percent of Americans still smoking and another larger percentage of people suffering from chronic stress. These kinds of health issues clearly show that, there is the need for strategies that will increase our opportunities for improving our overall health, and to make changes to our behavior. These strategies should be impacted to Americans rights from a young age (Sultz, & Young, 2011).

There is an opportunity for the United States healthcare system to improve on illness prevention health promotion and primary care. This is through shifting these aspects to the top of health care expenses pyramid. Millions of Americans will benefit by becoming aware of the root causes of ailments like; stroke, cancer, and heart diseases. These diseases are the main causes of death. Such diseases can be prevented when the right programs are available to educate people on the need to do physical exercises, eat nutritious food, avoid alcohol and drug abuses. The medical care of the U.S, therefore, has to shift away from concentrating on trauma and illness.

It has to adopt a multidisciplinary team approach that will look into the need to prevent illnesses and promote health. Such a team incorporates ophthalmologists, nutritionists, exercise physiologists, primary care physicians, and nephrologists among others(Schimpff 2012). The primary care physician will take control of this coordinated team in helping to fulfill the needs of patients. In the long run, patients will be able to reduce the number of heath care procedures, specialist visits, imaging, or test. This results to improved quality of care, and reduced cost of healthcare to all.

Reference

Sultz, H & Young, K, (2011) Healthcare Understanding its Organization and delivery. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett

Schimpff, S (2012) America has a medical care system and not a healthcare system. Retrieved from http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/02/america-medical-care-system-health-care-system.html

On November 4, 2012

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