Accountability In Health Advocacy

Moreover, increasing costs of healthcare delivery and emerging trends toward patient empowerment and patient-centered care in order to achieve higher quality healthcare, needs patients to play a more active role in their

Being able to identify the number of common factors and obstacles that may need to be overcome in order to carry out an effective patient engagement and strategies would need to be researched. Once the results of the data could be analyzed, we could then indicate the information to the patients and their characteristics and proclivities and others to those of providers. For patients to engage effectively in shared decision making, they must have a certain degree of health literacy. Suppose that all patients are at risk of not understanding their health conditions or how to deal with them. Health care organizations adopting this model would work to increase health literacy and patient engagement over the entire care span. If health care organizations

In 2010, the U.S Department of Health and Human Services crafted the nation’s 10 year health agenda. Healthy People 2020 outlines key objectives aimed at improving the standard of care health consumers receive by improving both the quality and format of health information offered to consumers as well as improving the consumers’ ability to obtain and process that information. These objectives included supporting shared decision-making between patients and providers, increasing health literacy skills, and delivering accurate, accessible, and usable health information that is targeted or tailored to the individual. (“Healthy People.gov” 2015)

To achieve sustainable health equity, all hands must be on deck, the society needs to be a health literate society that comprises of health literate public, health literate health professionals and health literate politicians and policy‐ makers. In order to achieve

Health literacy has been demarcated as the measurement of the individual’s capacity to obtain, understand and process simple health information. It is needed to make satisfactory health decisions and determine services needed to treat or prevent illness. Health literacy requires knowledge from many topics, comprising the patient’s own body, appropriate conducts towards healthy results and the difficulties to understand the health system. It is influenced by many conditions such as our communication skills, age, socio-economic status, and cultural background, past experiences, educational level and mental health status (U.S. Department of

Before introducing the topic, it is essential to understand what accountability is. In this regard, it can be stated that the term ‘Accountability’ signifies an image of transparency as well as trustworthiness. In relation to this, it can be argued that in different dimension the meaning of accountability is usually differ. However, the real meaning of accountability can be referred as an answerability, which signifies that having an obligation of answering or clarifying regarding the selected decision and/ or action. In this context, more specifically it can be stated that accountability denotes having an obligation of answering to hierarchical superiors regarding information and/or narrative description regarding the

Many health professionals across the county can offer advice and strategies by highlighting actions that particular organizations or professions can take to further these goals of strengthing the system. All health care workers in every department work together in a linked and coordinated manner to improve access to accurate and actionable health information and usable health services. By focusing on health literacy issues and working together, this will strengthen the accessibility, quality, and safety of health care. It will reduce costs and improve the health and quality of life of millions of people in the United

One of the subtitles from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is Modernizing Disease Prevention and Public Health Systems. The National Prevention, Health Promotion and Public Health Council, in consultation with the relevant authorities, are mandated to “develop and make public national prevention, health promotion, and public health strategies and evaluate and revise such approaches occasionally” (Authenticated U.S. Government Proclamation, n.d.). Further this specific part of the Act seeks to promote health goals, along with specified-based initiatives to achieve the measurable goals indicated in Health People 2012. In addition to this, diverse group of licensed health professionals develop and recommend policies and programs respectively to ensure that chronic disease are prevented and managed; health is promoted, and

\Often there is concern deciding how to improve this area of healthcare, and this is resolved by establishing that it is the responsibility of all healthcare professions to identify information gaps in order to come to the more rational and beneficial conclusion about declining health literacy in this population.

Public health is concerned with protecting and improving the health of entire populations, whether through education and promotion of healthy lifestyles, research for disease and injury prevention, detection and control of infectious diseases, or changes in public policy.1 The patient-provider encounter is an important point of access between the patient population and the healthcare system and other healthcare resources.2 During this encounter, conversations around health education and prevention, in addition to delivery of immediate care, can take place. When it becomes evident that populations are failing to receive proper healthcare, not due to a lack of tangible resources, but because of institutional/societal barriers (i.e. within the field of medicine) that prevent them from accessing that care, this constitutes a public health problem.

Research is an essential element of any effective healthcare system. Accountability may best be served by building a true system, including the discovery and testing of new medical treatments and diagnostics new drugs, medical devices, and vaccines, all of which must be rigorously and systematically studied through clinical trials for safety and effectiveness. Leaders are accountable for their employees and should foster a working culture to ensure that accountability prevails over culpability. Accountability in the healthcare organizations helps in the control of abuse and misuse of public authority, resources, and ensures the population that resources are effectively use as well as proper exercising of authority.

Health literacy is both a consumer and public healthcare issue. As a health care provider, it is not only my responsibility to ensure that you understand your health and what is going on

An advocator is a person who pleads the cause for others and as patient advocators; it would be for their rights. Mallik (1997), noted a difference in the structure of the advocacy relationship in law and in nursing. Whilst in law the etymology of the word advocacy relates to a “calling to” and the establishment of a contract between the parties. In nursing the action tends to reflect more a “giving of” helping an individual. Nursing advocacy had been defined as “communicating with and informing patients and building relationships with patients” (Hanks, 2008). Nygardth et al. (2011) highlighted a range of nursing definitions of advocacy; one of it is protecting patients’ rights and empowering them in decision making.

Results: The findings confirm that health literacy and empowerment are independent concepts. The participants having a high level of patient empowerment and concurrent adequate health literacy reported the best health status. By contrast, the highly empowered respondents

The importance of maintaining an active role in one’s health is long recognised. In 1978 the Declaration of Alma–Ata (World Health Organisation, 1978) affirmed, “people have the right and duty to participate individually and collectively in the planning and implementation of their health care” (p. 3). Consequently, for many years patients have maintained a central role in their personal healthcare, albeit one regulated by doctors who, “were the only readily accessible source of information for most patients” (Broom, 2005b, p. 327) and specialised in understanding medical terminology. Other traditional sources of health information originate from