What Does a Culture of Healthcare Look Like for At-Home Care?

Culture of Health

Human health doesn’t start and end at a doctor’s office. 

Much of the health of an individual is determined by the activities and habits they develop outside of their visits to healthcare providers.

In this blog, we will cover the importance of fostering a culture of healthcare for the future health of various populations throughout the US. Furthermore, we’ll discuss what those in the healthcare field can do to perpetuate a better culture of healthcare. 

Let’s start with the basics.

What is a Culture of Healthcare? 

A culture of healthcare, or a culture of health, is one in which good health flourishes regardless of geographic, demographic, and/or social status.

A culture of healthcare that fosters this equality ensures that everyone in a community has the opportunity to make choices that lead to healthy lifestyles and habits. 

What are the Four Components of a Culture of Health?

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), an organization dedicated to improving the culture of healthcare across the US, developed an “Action Framework” that encompasses four components that aim to help improve the culture of healthcare in the US on a multi-level scale.

1. Making Health a Shared Value

In order to foster a culture of health on an individual level, it is important to ensure that the families and communities that surround individuals are also on the same page when it comes to health. 

If people in a community are “all in it together,” then it becomes easier to change public policy in a positive direction in support of a flourishing and equal health culture. This is driven by participation in activities that advance the good of the public, foster a sense of community to increase support, and prioritize the health and well-being of individuals’ mindsets and expectations regarding their health.

2. Fostering Cross-Sector Collaboration to Improve Well-Being

This component focuses on encouraging individuals to see a culture of health as transcending the line between their personal and their corporate lives. Whatever an individual does for work, this initiative encourages them to think about how public and private institutions can improve in order to promote a better culture of health.

This initiative focuses on forming quality partnerships between organizations, investing in collaboration to provide sustained support and increase successful partnerships, and creating incentives and methods to encourage ongoing collaboration.

3. Creating Healthier, More Equitable Communities

This component focuses on implementing neighborhood planning efforts that support the healthy development of children, the ability of older individuals to age happily, and the sense of community within the areas where people live. 

An equitable community has access to resources like public libraries, outdoor trails, sidewalks, and parks. This is done through improving a community’s built environment, as well as its social and economic environment, and advocating for policy and governance efforts that support the growth of communities in this positive direction.

4. Strengthening Integration of Health Services and Systems

Perhaps the most obvious out of all the culture of health components, this component places a focus and an onus on health systems to balance their clinical care efforts with public health and community-based efforts that focus on preventative medicine. 

This component is driven by ensuring all individuals have comprehensive and continuous access to health services, integrating health care, public health, and social services, and providing continuous care that focuses on the health of the consumer.

 

All of these components place a heavy emphasis on the importance of an individual’s community and its effect on improving health from person to person. So what are the gaps that we face in improving today’s culture of health?

Gaps in Today’s Culture of Health

One of the biggest gaps in today’s culture of healthcare is the discrepancy in access to healthcare individuals in certain populations around the US. One example of this is the rate of diabetes amongst different populations in the US. Native American populations are twice as likely to get diabetes than caucasian populations. 

Furthermore, food insecurity affects 1 in 4 Native Americans. This disparity is one reason why it’s so important to focus on multiple components when it comes to improving a culture of health. Diet has a huge effect on the rate of diabetes, and the fact that 1 in 4 Native Americans experience food insecurity could be contributing to the higher rate of diabetes amongst their populations. This is why the efforts towards building equitable communities are crucial in battling the disparities that certain populations face in their communities around the US.

Another example can be seen in the population of individuals who have cognitive limitations. They are five times more likely to have diabetes than the general population. Additionally, African American veterans experience a lower quality of diabetes care relative to white veterans. These discrepancies are everywhere and are complicated to fix, but it is crucial to improve the culture of health in order to close these gaps in healthcare.

The Role of Preventative Measures in a Culture of Health

Preventative measures, such as screenings and educational efforts, are crucial components of improving a culture of health. Preventative screenings can help insurance payors be less burdened by excessive and unwarranted healthcare spending.

In-home health evaluation organizations can also benefit from increased and improved preventive screening measures because catching disease at its early stages, means time, money, and lives saved for both the health evaluation organization and the patient. Solutions like IRIS are helping in-home health evaluation organizations do all of these things through innovative technology solutions.

Improving the Diabetic Culture of Health

Diabetic patient care and the culture of healthcare surrounding diabetes can be improved through increased preventative screenings, educational efforts, access to care, and community support. IRIS offers a preventative screening solution that is helping in-home health evaluation organizations, healthcare systems, and insurance payors boost their compliance rates.

IRIS Improves Cultures of Health

IRIS is a leader in the preventative screening space for diabetic retinopathy, an eye disease that affects the diabetic population and causes blindness. We are on a mission to end preventable blindness and help healthcare providers give better quality care to diabetic patient populations by offering a screening solution that makes capturing fundus images easier and faster.

Interested in trying the IRIS solution and improving the culture of health? Reach out to us today for more information and to schedule a free demo.

 


 

SM131, Rev A

 

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