Vulnerable Populations in The Healthcare System Discussion – Description
reply to Eliahkim M:
In healthcare system, there are various populations that can be considered in a vulnerable level or aspect, according to Joszt, L. (2018) of American Journal of Managed Care, there are five vulnerable populations that were identified in the United States, which are the chronically ill and disabled, low-income or homeless individuals, certain communities living in rural areas, members of LGBTQIA+, and those very young and very old individuals. These identified vulnerable populations can aggravate the social determinants because of their health and healthcare needs or issues.
Working as a charge nurse in a medical-surgical telemetry unit of a non-profit organization hospital, where all kinds of patients are accepted from these various kinds of vulnerable population. I could say, majority of our patients are from those chronically ill populations and low-income and homeless individuals. Chronically ill patients are individuals with possibility of poor healthcare outcomes and the cost of their healthcare is a fortune that consumes hundredths and thousandths of dollars, and they are the those patients needs multiple access into different healthcare linkages (Joszt, 2018), and those individuals who are living below poverty line and/or homeless, they are likely have less coverage of their insurances which resulted to have less interaction to the healthcare system which is likely the same with those patients who are chronically ill and disabled.
As a nurse my role for these individuals from the identified vulnerable populations is to be an agent of change and an agent of advocacy for their right and have an access and receive proper healthcare treatment. I could probably use my influence as a charge nurse for now, to communicate and voice out the need of my patient to the proper person like social worker or case managers to give proper referral to the national and local authorities, and as future nurse practitioner, I could use my skill to provide proper treatment for those people who are underserve and use the proper referral system to refer my patient to proper authority to have an access to get their proper healthcare needs. It sounds impossible, but as future nurse practitioner we have the authority to be an advocate and agent for those patients who are in vulnerable populations.
Reference
Jozst, L. (20 July 2018). 5 Vulnerable Populations in Healthcare. Retrieved from https://www.ajmc.com/view/5-vulnerable-populations-in-healthcare
The post Vulnerable Populations in The Healthcare System Discussion first appeared on .
