Health Care Delivery System Analysis

The health care delivery system has changed its focus from ordinary health care to community level health care due to rapidly evolving society as well as health care. Due to significant changes in health care systems along with nation’s health agendas and health policies, the emphases is leaning towards the prevention of disease in the community. It is very important for all physical therapists to understand and incorporate community health education activities into their professional practice to integrate preventive actions and awareness into community aiming to maintain and improve health. Physical therapists have an important role in the community health education with emphasis on health promotion and disease prevention. Due to significant …show more content…
The best example in PT practice is to provide free exercise program, prevention and general information regarding common conditions like lower back pain, osteoarthritis knee. Some of the places also provide free Wellness Program which includes exercise classes, Yoga and Tai Chi to community members. Last week I went to local street fair in my town and very well-known private physical therapy clinic in the town had tent in that fair providing basic guidelines for obesity, its causes, prevention and exercises to community for free. Same clinic also performed wellness program at one of the biggest IT- Software companies. The goal for the program was to promote awareness of maintaining good posture while sitting in front of the computer for hours and to maintain good ergonomics at work to prevent neck pain for employees. Thus, physical therapists have important role for health promotion and disease prevention. According to Fukumoto et al, community health education through exercise, nutrition-based health education and group dynamics was effective to improve lifestyle in the community. There are various areas where physical therapists can provide community education including senior citizen …show more content…
For the success of the community health education, effectiveness of the social marketing by increasing the acceptability of the ideas through evaluation of the target audience and using most effective communication strategy is more important. The main focus should be providing benefits to community via behavior change rather than receiving profit from community. Usage of media for community education is important for the effectiveness of the program which should be based on target audience and educational and understanding level. The common means of media are posters, flyers, brochures, multimedia projection advertisements. For the younger groups, short film or an advertisement will be effective way to promote education rather than simply distributing flyers. For example, while providing community health education for people who are young, the effective media would be YouTube videos about maintaining proper posture at work