Determinants of health-care system assignment
In the last century, what historical, social, political, and economic trends and issues have influenced today’s health-care system? 2. What is the purpose and process of evaluating the three aspects of health care: structure, process, and outcome? 3. How does technology improve patient outcomes and the health-care system? 4. How can you intervene to improve quality of care and safety within the health-care system and at the bedside? 2. Select one nonprofit organization or one government agencies that influences and advocates for quality improvement in the health-care system. Explore the Web site for your selected organization/agency and answer the following questions: • What does the organization/agency do that supports the hallmarks of quality? • What have been the results of their efforts for patients, facilities, the health-care delivery system, or the nursing profession? • How has the organization/agency affected facilities where you are practicing and your own professional practice?
Ultimately, the only cure for the ailing health care system is to help people to be healthier. This requires fundamentally rethinking what we fund and prioritize. Key to this is changing the passive determinants of health—dietary, environmental, and social. By this, we mean making changes that do not depend on behavioral change. We are not suggesting abandoning health education or promotion of healthier individual choices. Rather, that we must change the environment to promote health rather than disease. Key examples are the research showing that food grown conventionally has suffered a 25% to 80% decrease in trace minerals. Without adequate consumption of these key nutrients, the enzyme machines that provide us life are not able to work properly. Worse, we have now contaminated the environment with chemical and metals toxins that actually poison these enzymes and cause disease.
A true health care—rather than a disease care—system addresses these foundational determinants of health. Following are some ideas on how to accomplish this.
Go to:
Public Health That Promotes a Health-promoting Environment
We need to more fully embrace the promise of public health. Many years ago in an IMCJ editorial in volume 2, issue 2 (2003),
“Integrative Medicine and Public Health,”3 a vision for 21st-century public health was presented. As you may know, historically, 75% of the increase in longevity is due to public health measures. Although most people think of public health as contagion control and providing health care for underserved populations, it can be so much more. We have 3 suggestions:
Teach and reward farmers to grow food with higher nutrient density.
Teach and reward farmers to decrease pesticide and herbicide contamination of food and the environment.
Develop, fund, and implement real health education as a major program in schools.
Nutritional deficiencies are rampant in the United States. According to hundreds of published research studies, almost the whole population is deficient in at least 1 nutrient with half the population deficient in many. Our physiology does not work if required nutrients are not available. There are several key reasons why this has become huge problem:
Most of the foods most commonly eaten in the United States are processed in such a way as to improve appearance and short-term taste, at the expense of nutrient content. Approximately 20% of the average person’s calories come from nutrient-empty sugar.
Synthetic fertilizers promote the growth of bigger food, but with seriously lower levels of nutrients. The more fertilizer used, the lower the nutrient content. So even if a person is trying to eat responsibly (ie, real foods rather than high processed … stuff), the critical nutrients are much lower than the body needs.
Worse, high-phosphate fertilizers often contain high levels of the heavy metal cadmium. Not only does this then impair the absorption of critical trace mineral zinc by the foods, but this toxin poisons many systems of the body, and it is a key factor in the kidney disease epidemic, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease (especially in women), thyroid dysfunction—the list is long.
Rather than subsidizing farming practices that produce large amounts of nutrient-deficient foods, we should either totally eliminate such subsidies or redirect them to reward nutrient density rather than food size and weight.
Many examples show how public health measures such as we suggested previously work. For example, adding iodine to salt dramatically decreased severe hypothyroidism and protected many children from intellectual impairment. Another is the 1970s measure prohibiting lead in gasoline and paint resulting in more than a 90% decrease in blood lead levels in children and adults. These are good examples of passive changes that promote health without requiring behavioral change.
Important information for writing discussion questions and participation
Welcome to class
Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to
I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.
Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.
If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.
Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.
Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.
I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!
Hi Class,
Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.
Contact me if you have any questions.
Important information on Writing a Discussion Question
- Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
- There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
- Include in-text citations in your response
- Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
- Follow APA-7th edition
- Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor
- A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
- Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
- Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
- Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
- Follow APA 7th edition
- Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
- Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
- Here are some helpful links
- The is a great resource
